Nintendo Wii U controller to rock NFC to enhance gaming

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Nintendo Wii U controller to rock NFC to enhance gaming

NFC got another boost today as Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, announced that the Wii U controller would feature NFC “function”. The Wii U controller is set to be compatible with both FeliCa for its home audience and MIFARE for the rest of the world. The President of Nintendo even acknowledged that NFC “is expected to be widely used around the world in the near future.”

read more

KPMG finds 23 percent of Americans very willing to use their mobile phones as an NFC wallet

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

KPMG study finds that 23 percent of Americans very willing to use their smartphones as an NFC mobile wallet

KPMG has released its findings from a new survey it has conducted which found that 23% of Americans are “very willing” to use their NFC smartphones as mobile wallets. That is a quantum shift from where we were last May, but there are still concerns and obstacles to overcome before ubiquity happens. In fact, ubiquity isn’t really expected to happen until 2014, 2015 and onwards. Welcome to the year of NFC adoption.

Last year was the year of NFC discovery and early adopters, and 2012 is getting set up as the year of adoption and devices. Let’s not kid ourselves – 2012 is going to be a rocky path for NFC as it starts to gain traction and becomes a household name; but we will start to see more and more NFC devices hit the market, carriers start to embrace the technology and services to match. By this time next year, millions of consumers will have NFC smartphones and be using them as mobile wallets to varying degrees.

read more

Privacy Goes Public: Sharing Privacy for a Discount

Posted by Cole Jones

0comments

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?

read more

An NFC payments month in Japan and why NFC payments will be adopted quickly elsewhere

Posted by Seth Planck

2comments

An NFC payments month in Japan and why NFC payments will be adopted quickly elsewhere

The sun isn’t the only thing that rises in Japan as NFC payments explode month on month. More and more research firms in the western world predict that mobile NFC payments will be slow to take off and businesses are said to be skeptical about the rate at which NFC will flourish as a payments method. Just this last week, PayPal’s CEO said his firm wasn’t launching any NFC mobile wallet or merchant programs anytime soon, and he thought that NFC payments would take time to become mainstream. We don’t work for research houses, but are subjected to as many figures and something is not gelling with a lot of the research and said attitudes of business leaders out there, so we thought we would take a closer look.

NFC payments in Japan

Japan has had its NFC payments infrastructure in place for a while now and so represents a likely model for the rest of the planet. Most research findings are projections because this is a new industry, but looking back on actual figures are less speculative and Japan is the only market that has history that is chartable. Let’s cast our minds all the way back to February this year, which seems like an eternity ago in the world of NFC payments, and to ComScore’s report on NFC payments in Japan.

read more