Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

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Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

Inside Secure has announced that it now supports the Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags in its Open NFC protocol stack. Okay, that may be a bit of a clunky headline, so allow us to explain why this is big news and what it means for the adoption of NFC on the whole. The overall goal of NFC tags has been to allow them to become very cost effective, especially for retail usage. The concept that has been flying around over the last few years has been printed NFC tags that use printed silicon to achieve mass market penetration at a fraction of the cost of conventional NFC tags.

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Intel announces NFC support in Ivy Bridge chips

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Intel announces NFC support in Ivy Bridge

We are here at CES and Intel has announced that all Ivy Bridge chips will support NFC. Ultrabooks have a massive presence at CES this year and Intel has thrown its weight fully behind NFC, and more specifically for payments in its Ivy Bridge chipset. NFC just got a boost beyond the reach of carriers and MNOs, which will no doubt spur a new line of innovation that extends beyond hardware and is very likely to change e-commerce forever. Intel announced that its Ivy Bridge chips will featured within 50 – 75 Ultrabooks hitting the market in 2012, and we can only expect this figure to grow as the year goes on.

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VeriFone completes Point acquisition, NFC payments all around

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VeriFone completes Point acquisition solidifying the firm’s position in Northern Europe and also refinances some debt ready for NFC adoption by retailers

VeriFone appears to be growing larger and larger as today’s news announces that the firm has just completed its merger of Northern European payment gateway company Point. VeriFone has taken some stick lately when the expected NFC bonanza didn’t come in the 3rd quarter of last year. That fact is that NFC adoption by retailers is largely out of VeriFone’s hands as the wallet wars obstruct earlier deployment and therefore the need for NFC POS terminals. However, that isn’t preventing VeriFone from readying itself for the expected new NFC payments landscape as the firm continues to buy up competitors in strategic markets.

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Privacy Goes Public: Sharing Privacy for a Discount

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Privacy Goes Public: Sharing Privacy for a Discount

First things first – let’s get a little public with this privacy issue, shall we? For most people privacy starts where personal freedom ends. Yet there are many more complexities to the word, from personal snooping to sharing data online. Our focus today – sharing data and privacy. Consumers are concerned with privacy. True. But does that mean they are not willing to share it? False. Face it – as we continue to increase our social status as a global society, the more information we will inevitably share. Disturbing, right? It’s nothing new though. Who doesn’t own a loyalty card for a local grocery or retail store? Your data is held here and collected under your profile so they can ensure they offer products that fit your needs according to your shopping habits. Can we say “Facebook”? If you own a debit card, your bank knows your spending and buying patterns. Heck, they may know your habits better than you do. So, what is all the privacy fuss about?

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Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

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Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

Our team over here at NFC Rumors want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who swings past the site and wish them a great holiday season. It has been our first year and we have grown massively during that time because of your support for what we do. Over this year we have met some really great people, had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in great innovation and have been supported by our visitors and the companies who have come to embody Near Field Communication. We love bringing you the latest NFC news, adding our own opinion and starting conversations about the opportunities and challenges that NFC brings with it.

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ISIS tries to run internationally before masters crawling domestically

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ISIS tries to run internationally before masters crawling domestically

ISIS has said in an interview with Bloomberg that it has held discussions to explore international opportunities for their particular NFC mobile wallet and trusted service manager services. ISIS, as you probably know by this point, is a joint venture between AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile with one aim to control NFC mobile wallets and NFC payments for member mobile network operators subscribers. ISIS hasn’t launched anything at this point, and from the rumors we are hearing from industry insiders, they haven’t been able to put together a secure NFC mobile wallet despite putting pen to paper with C-Sam (a very capable NFC mobile wallet all by itself), Gemalto, and various other payment providers who include Visa, MasterCard, AMEX and Discover.

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Eric Schmidt hints at Google Nexus NFC tablet mid 2012

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Eric Schmidt hints at Google Nexus NFC tablet mid 2012

It’s great when Eric Schmidt does an interview, he knows just how to let things slip, and in a recent interview with Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, he mentioned a previously unheard of Google Nexus tablet. He added that this tablet would be of the highest quality. We bet it is an NFC tablet due to Google’s massive investment in the technology, but that is pure speculation. On the other hand, because this has been taken from a foreign translation it could merely mean that Google are going to push tablets made by manufacturing partners. Eric Schmidt said via Google translation that “in the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.”

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Seven barriers to the growth of NFC mobile payments?

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Seven barriers to the growth of NFC mobile payments?

BillingViews today published a report / presentation called “The Seven Barriers to Mobile Payment Adoption” that primarily focuses on NFC payments and adds a dash of QR codes for good measure. BillingViews describes itself as “the global home for billing expertise and intelligence in the communications and media industries.” We can’t say we are feeling the report and disagree with it on a few levels. We do agree that there are barriers, we are just a little at odds with some of BilliingViews’ seven reasons.

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INSIDE Secure supplies Intel with NFC tech and secure elements

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INSIDE Secure supplies Intel with NFC tech and secure elements

Intel has selected INSIDE Secure to supply it with its NFC technology as it moves further into the Near Field Communication industry. In the last few months, Intel has come from being absent in NFC to looking like a main proponent of the nascent technology. It was just last week that they upped their membership status in the NFC Forum to the top level of Sponsor and pulled up a chair at the big table of directors. It was around two months ago that we saw a tablet sporting an NFC logo at an Intel industry event also. One thing for sure is that Intel plans to add ubiquity to NFC, and in doing so will educate consumers about the technology on a mass scale.

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NFC, wine, logistics and consumers sounds like a great evening

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NFC, wine, logistics and consumers sounds like a great evening with a twist thanks to eProvenance and Near Field Solutions

eProvenance and Near Field Solutions have got together and combined NFC, humidity sensors and wine together in a MacGyver style project to create a new value added service for consumers, and a tracking and environmental tool for the winery. NFC has more applications than any one person can imagine. We continue to be amazed and impressed with use cases and innovative projects that are finding new ways to use Near Field Communication with other sensors. It is projected that the internet of things concept that adds NFC to many other sensor types will become commonplace within the next few years. eProvenance and Near Field Solutions are making the internet of things happen today, and this could be the first step in how luxury perishable products are sold globally within the next few years.

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NFC stocks? welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

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NFC stocks? Welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

NFC has faced a few paradoxes since its inception and NFC Stocks and NFC funding is just the latest iteration of some of the challenges Near Field Communication has faced in its rise to ubiquity. We have said it before and we will say it again, NFC has the ability and potential to change the way we do most things by bringing frictionless physical interactions and the web together for powerful information discovering and sensor integration in most products and services we use.

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Intel gets serious about NFC and upgrades NFC Forum membership

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Intel gets serious about NFC and upgrades NFC Forum membership

Today NFC scores another step forward in becoming ubiquitous as Intel upgrades its membership to the NFC Forum from a Principal member all the way to the top position of Sponsor level. First things first, this shows Intel’s intentions towards NFC .We have already caught sight of an Intel NFC tablet and the firm has also announced their intentions to support NFC and secure payments in their line of UltraBooks.

What makes the announcement of Intel upgrading its membership important is that the firm represents ubiquity across PC and Mac platforms. Its support of NFC represents mass deployment of NFC enabled devices that include PCs, tablets and laptops / netbooks. That alone will undoubtedly bring NFC capabilities to most users’ machines within the next few years. We have already seen Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, RIM and other large firms throw their support behind NFC, but very few have the clout of Intel. Because Intel is part of so many manufacturers’ product lines, the Intel announcement is as big as the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement in bringing NFC mainstream.

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PC and Ultrabook NFC payments are coming thanks to Intel and Mastercard

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PC and Ultrabook NFC payments are coming thanks to Intel and Mastercard

Intel and MasterCard are teaming to bring contactless and NFC payments to its line of Ultrabooks and future generations of Intel based PCs. Back at the beginning of last month we glimpsed a Medfield NFC tablet from Intel, which gave us some clues that the monolithic processor manufacturer has Near Field Communication on its mind. Today, Intel and MasterCard have announced that they are partnering to bring PayPass secure payments initially to its Ultrabooks, which is a huge step forward for NFC. We already know that Windows 8 is coming loaded with support for NFC and now Intel appears to be bringing some hardware and security support to make payments using your NFC phone or contactless card a reality.

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It’s a good time to be in the NFC IC market says ABI research

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It’s a good time to be in the NFC IC market says ABI research

ABI Research has another report out that focuses on wireless connectivity and suggests that NFC IC manufacturers are in for a boom when they tot up their year-on-year sales at the end of 2011. Most of us have a Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi direct capable smartphone these days. ABI says that in some markets adoption has hit 100%. However, NFC is the new kid on the block and provides a huge growth area for IC manufacturers.

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Checking into hospital will never be the same with PatientID+ and NFC

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Checking into hospital will never be the same with PatientID+ and NFC

PatientID+ could change your visits to doctors’ offices and hospitals forever. Merchant360, Health Portal Solutions and CliniCard have come together to develop an NFC solution for checking into and paying for services at a hospital or on a doctor visit called PatientID+. The system stores identification, health insurance details, eligibility screening and payments details all in an NFC app on a patient’s NFC phone, or alternatively within an NFC sticker. So no more filling out forms, no more waiting to be seen until you have your paperwork in order and no more worrying about paying for services at critical times when health is more important that sorting out who you are and how you are going to pay. The healthcare sector is seeing some of the most innovative deployments of NFC technology and systems that can bring real practical use cases that lead to better care and PatientID+ is no exception.

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Continental shows off NFC car keys

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Continental shows off NFC car keys at Frankfurt Motor Show

NFC access control is an area that is seeing a lot of interest at the moment, and Continental has unveiled NFC car keys at the Frankfurt Motor Show called “Simply Your Drive.” Using our NFC phones to access and start our cars offers more than simple convenience, it also offers security and another level of convergence. Continental’s innovative approach to enabling NFC car keys is based around NXP’s NFC car, KEyLink Lite platform, which was announced in late June. With Continental’s announcement, we are starting to see the implementation of NFC car keys into solutions.

“The secret of success for new innovations in the automotive industry continues to be derived from ease of use, intuitive operation and a way of functioning that seems almost like magic.

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TI partner ViewAt develops low-cost, turnkey EPOS NFC solution

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TI partner ViewAt develops low-cost, turnkey EPOS (electronic point-of-sale) NFC solutions

A Texas Instruments partner, ViewAt, has announced that it has released a turnkey EPOS NFC solution. Designers in the retail electronic transaction space can now quickly and easily develop cutting edge, portable point-of-sale applications that incorporate secure payment card processing including contactless near field communications (NFC) capabilities. When it comes to NFC these days and incorporating the technology into any system, the buzz word that leads to the best ROI, frees up the R&D budget, and speeds up time to market is modularity. Companies like ViewAT through semiconductor companies like Texas Instruments are devising new modular platforms that could arguably take on the “plug and play” moniker for system integrators wishing to add NFC to products.

“This new, low-cost, turnkey electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) solution from ViewAt, a Texas Instruments Incorporated partner, protects intellectual property and financial transactions while reducing development time for these latest retail transaction products by as much as a year.  Following a modular design approach, the EPOS solution provides flexibility to customers seeking to differentiate products.”

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NFC news roundup

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NFC news roundup

Its been a busy couple of weeks in NFC and odds are you have probably missed some of the good bits if you don’t hang out on NFC Rumors all day everyday. So we thought we’d catalogue some of the more interesting stories that have crept up in the last two weeks and organize a little.

Marketing

NFC marketing used to be a small category of news, but it is building. We expect that in the future it will rival NFC phones in the amount of stories that are generated by NFC marketing because it is such a diverse subject.

• First NFC digital billboard to launch in Times Square
• Kimtag research finds social networking and marketing NFC tags scans get a 22% per month bump
• Poken and Standard Register Healthcare announce NFC products and services platform pokenHEALTH
• Tapit closes exclusivity deal with JCDecaux in Australia for NFC marketing on its “outside street furniture” or what we like to call NFC billboards
• Tapit forms Australian NFC agency out of home advertising network with JCDecaux
• NFC social check-ins come of age with RewardAble marketing platform

Top 11 reasons why you shouldn’t buy a phone without NFC

Posted by Seth Planck

September 25th, 2011 at 7:33 PM Filed Under Latest News

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Top 11 reasons why you shouldn’t buy a phone without NFC

NFC has reached a point where its inclusion in everyday life is a certainty within the next couple of years, and for consumers to benefit from NFC features they will need an NFC phone. Whether your penchant is for NFC payments or you like the Bluetooth pairing to speakers, near field communication is coming. Within the next year or so, we expect NFC keys to cards starting to become popular. Also expect NFC features built straight into our cars. Smartphone manufacturers are already starting to produce NFC phones and they are becoming more prevalent by the day, but there are still going to be non NFC-phones marketed to consumers. This post is about why you shouldn’t tie yourself into a contract on a phone that doesn’t come with the aforementioned capabilities.

Companies like Microsoft, Google, Intel, Nokia, Research in Motion, Huawei, Acer and Mozilla have said they intend to support NFC in products from now on. Service companies like Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Rogers Communications and many more are building their businesses around the model of harnessing near field communications for their customers. However, the big “will they, won’t they?” question lays with the Apple iPhone 5. Many doubt that Apple will include a near field communication chip within its latest and greatest smartphone. We still think it is a 50 /50 split on the probability that the company will support NFC. However, if Apple doesn’t support near field communication, Apple fans will have been done a disservice by the company and there are plenty of Android handsets that are just as, if not more capable, than the iPhone.

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Sonim launches XP1301 CORE NFC rugged NFC phone at NFC World Congress

Posted by Seth Planck

September 22nd, 2011 at 10:01 AM Filed Under Latest News, Videos

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Sonim launches XP1301 CORE NFC rugged NFC phone at NFC World Congress

Sonim has launched its XP1301 CORE NFC rugged NFC phone at NFC World Congress and the company is announcing it as the world’s first ultra-rugged Near Field Communications (NFC) mobile phone. Now we are sure this phone will not beat out that new NFC Galaxy S II you have had your eye on, but your pocket is not really the market Sonim is aiming for with this industrially strong Sonim XP1301 CORE NFC phone.

The company has designed this hardware for markets that include cleaning, security, facilities management, equipment maintenance and home visit healthcare. In other words, the Sonim XP1301 CORE NFC rugged NFC phone is a piece of work equipment that will take a beating and still work great even after being dropped.

“The XP1301 CORE NFC will withstand hard use every day for three years or more, has battery life under heavy use longer than the longest work shift and comes with enterprise level service and support,” said Sanjay Jhawar, VP/GM of Marketing and Applications at Sonim.

“This kind of extreme reliability delivers a total cost of ownership that allows every front-line worker to be included,” said Philippe Martineau, EVP NFC Business Line at Inside Secure. “INSIDE is proud to announce the integration of MicroRead and Open NFC  with the ultra rugged Sonim XP1301 CORE NFC for vertical industry applications,” he added.

Source: Sonim

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Will the iPhone 5 have NFC? We will know October 4th

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 21st, 2011 at 1:06 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

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Will the iPhone 5 have NFC? We will know October 4th

Apple will hold a press conference / media event on October 4th to announce its iPhone 5, but will the magical device bear NFC capabilities? We may not know the answer to that question yet, but at least we now know when we will have an answer. Well, according to AllThingsD that is, and we have no reason to think they are wrong. This media event / frenzy will be the first one presented by Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, and the eyes of the world will not only be on the iPhone 5, but Cook himself will no doubt be scrutinized to see whether he can actually fill the gaping whole left by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is a hard act to follow and we wish Tim Cook luck. He’s going to need it with the iPhone 5 launch event.

Source: AllThingsD

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Intel Medfield Android NFC Tablet?

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 20th, 2011 at 9:27 PM Filed Under Galleries, Latest News, Rumor, Videos

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Intel Medfield Android Tablet shows NFC by mistake? Or was it a “Microsoft aren’t the only ones with an NFC tablet moment”?

Last week Microsoft held their developer conference and Intel held theirs. It turns out both were showing off NFC tablets.

An NFC tablet is rarer than NFC phones at the moment. In fact, they are as rare as Sarah Palin at a Planned Parenthood clinic opening. Last week, we think it’s fair to say that there was a fair amount of hurrah surrounding the Microsoft announcement that let the world know that Windows 8 would feature NFC. They even gave away NFC tablets to conference attendees to prove it. Strangely enough, at that very same time Intel was holding its developer conference also. We all heard the news that Google would optimize Android so that it would support Intel processors.

Source: Intel CarryPad Thisismynext

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NFC development problems NXP/ Microsoft/RIM [Exclusive]

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 17th, 2011 at 3:39 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

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NFC development problems NXP/ Microsoft/RIM [Exclusive]

Whispers have been getting louder all week about NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft and RIM. NFC is getting more pervasive and so are the rumors that echo around the halls of NFC Rumors HQ. There are whispers in corridors, the water cooler attracts a crowd and everything goes quiet if you enter a room. NXP, Microsoft and RIM have some issues on their hands and we have heard about them from some pretty direct sources. We have been sitting on these revelations for a few days because alone we didn’t feel they were strong enough for a post, but together they start to paint a picture of just how nascent NFC is and how uncooperative it is acting with major software and hardware giants.

We called the problems BlackBerry was having with NFC over a month ago, we speculated that a major OS company would make an announcement that it was supporting NFC, but we didn’t hear about NXP until this last week. Want to know more? Of course you do, that’s why you clicked on this post.

Thanks to: To all of our sources for this post

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First Windows NFC app hits from Wireless Sensor Technologies, partners with UPM RFID to boot

Posted by Seth Planck

September 14th, 2011 at 4:18 PM Filed Under Latest News, Videos

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First Windows NFC development app hits from Wireless Sensor Technologies, partners with UPM RFID to boot

The announcement came yesterday that Windows 8 would support NFC in tablets, PCs, laptops and other devices. GoTotags, which is a subsidiary and software division of Wireless Sensor Technologies, have already launched a Microsoft Windows NFC application and NET-based software development kit (SDK) which gives Windows computers access to NFC functionality. Wireless Sensor Technologies are becoming a larger and larger player in the NFC space and have also partnered with the mighty UPM RFID to supply custom NFC tags through their BuyNFCTags.com online store.

What makes the Los Angeles and Seattle outfit, Wireless Sensor Technologies, different to most NFC tag stores? Its commitment to offer developers strong APIs and tools to develop applications. Now that the company has partnered with UPM RFID the quantity, supply and costs of its NFC tags is assured. UPM RFID and Wireless Sensor Technologies have joined forces to deliver near field communication (NFC) products and services to seamlessly connect the physical and online worlds (read internet of things) via wireless sensors and devices.

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HID Global launches NFC key program at ASU for access control

Posted by Seth Planck

September 14th, 2011 at 12:27 AM Filed Under Latest News

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HID Global launches NFC key program at Arizona State University for access control allowing students to carry digital keys on NFC smartphones

HID Global further commits to NFC as an enabler in access control and secureID by fitting out portions of Arizona State University with its state of the art iCLASS NFC-enabled access control systems. At the back end of last month we reported that HID had launched its iCLASS Secure Identity Object, which provides iCLASS SE credentials that can be stored on NFC smartphones and allows access to secured areas. Yep in short, your phone starts to become your keys that allow you to entered restricted areas. Whether those areas are specific offices at your work or the ground floor entrance to a hotel or condo, HID Global have built solutions that allow NFC to be used securely as digital keys. We reported that they had also launched a developer kit so that partners and developers could build off the robust system also.

However, seeing is believing and HID Global tackled Arizona’s State University to show what its SIO (Secure Identity Object) could do. The pilot was run with a variety of NFC smartphones and had to work with a variety of major mobile networks. Fitting out a complete university for a pilot program is not feasible, especially considering that ASU manages on-campus housing for 13,000 students that live in 34 residence halls.

Source: HID Global

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