Neotion and Alcineo brings NFC payments for VOD and pay TV

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Neotion and Alcineo brings NFC payments for VOD and pay TV

It was only last week that we wrote about how Neotion was expanding the horizons of pay TV with our second favorite near field communications protocol, Zoosh, and that they promised NFC payments capabilities soon. Well, for Neotion and Alcineo soon really does mean soon as they have already announced their NFC payments system for Pay TV. Pay-per-view has been around for years. In the UK pay-per-view was really limited to SKY live events like football matches (soccer) and boxing matches. Here in the States companies like Apple use it for movie rentals via iTunes and other models use a subscription basis, like Netflix or Hulu+.

Largely that has been because subscription and billing details have needed to be on file for payments and those payments have been added to your bill at the end of the month.  In the past year or so a new model has arisen as the web has reached out to homes’ TVs and up to 1080p resolution. That takes a lot of bandwidth and a lot of server capacity to provide for potentially thousands of viewers accessing the same server at the same time. It also requires a fast internet connection, and frankly DSL hasn’t cut it and so it has been most effective with cable internet and services like FIOS from Verizon and that is only if you are lucky enough to live in an area that is supported. Amazon has been a champion of this model, but the digital airwaves of TV still require less hardware and associated services and costs to broadcast content to homes.

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AT&T throws up coming soon page for NFC Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-i777

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AT&T throws up coming soon page for NFC Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-i777

The NFC version of the Samsung Galaxy S II has been a long time coming to the United States and Canada. We heard a couple of weeks that AT&T would indeed be bring us an NFC version of the Samsung Galaxy S II this fall. Today we have spotted a coming soon page over at AT&T with the obligatory email capture form to let you know when there is more news. In our experience those forms let you know a week after we report the news here at NFC Rumors, but if you want to get on the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II mailing list click here.

Three of the four big carriers are getting their own version of the Samsung Galaxy S II, but only T-Mobile and AT&T’s version are expected to have NFC-capable hardware, although it is not clear at this time whether the nascent technology will be turned on at the phone’s launch as it may encourage consumers to use Google Wallet instead of Isis’ solution that won’t be market ready until 2012. We also have no idea yet whether the NFC version of the Samsung Galaxy S II will have a secure element. If it doesn’t, it will need a SIM card to enable payments and to store NFC based transaction apps which again will mean that Isis is your only hope of utilizing the Samsung Galaxy S II for NFC payments.

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Yale demos NFC door locks using the ASSA ABLOY Mobile Keys platform

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Yale, an ASSA ABLOY company, will demonstrate residential NFC door locks at CEDIA Expo 2011, September 7-10 in Indianapolis, IN

Yale Locks & Hardware is moving into the 21st century as it adopts residential NFC door locks. As a company, Yale has certainly been about for our whole lives. In fact, it was founded in 1868 Lenoir City, Tennessee. It has had such an impact on our vocabulary that to this day we still call a  pin tumbler lock, a Yale lock. However, things over at Yale have changed a lot between now and when Linus Yale, Sr., who founded the company, was improving locks at his father’s lock shop. The company has passed hands a few times since its inception but has always remained (you see what we did there). As we have been writing this post we have wondered what Linus Yale would have thought to the NFC door locks.

These days Yale is part of the ASSA ABLOY empire that houses such power security brands as HID, ActivIdentity, FARGO, VingCard Elsafe and LaserCard to name but a few. You may remember that ASSA ABLOY completed the first ever trial of the NFC mobile keys platform at the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, in which 28 frequent hotel guests were invited to use the technology over an eight-month period. That platform has since been released for commercial application and deployment within hotels by subsidiary VingCard Elsafe. This uses the very same system that Yale intends to use for its NFC door locks.

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Visa Europe is bringing contactless cards and NFC to the French city of Strasbourg

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Visa Europe deploys contactless in Strasbourg as the French city gets ready for a sans contact revolution that will accommodate the approaching storm of NFC phones

le paiement Visa sans contact arrive à Strasbourg they cry in France as the credit card company works with French major banks to make contactless payments reality in the French city

Visa Europe has teamed up with Banque Edel, BNP Paribas, Banque Postale, Banque Populaire d’Alsace et Caisse d’Epargne d’Alsace (Groupe BPCE), Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel-CIC, HSBC and LCL et Société Générale for a contactless or NFC pilot in the French city of Strasbourg. The pilot’s focus is based around the distribution of contactless payment terminals and cards so that citizens can start using NFC or contactless EMV cards in their daily lives.

Visa Europe’s ambitions for Strasbourg are in line with the work being carried out by the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, which aims to make contactless payments by card and NFC mobile widely available all across France.

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UK firm devises imprinted electronic label that lights up for NFC and RFID readers

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UK firm devises imprinted electronic label that lights up for NFC and RFID readers

NFC and RFID have always held the promise to sort out genuine articles from reproductions. This has always been something that brands have wanted from near field communications and it now looks as if an English company may have cracked that nut with its imprinted electronic label. UK imprint lithography startup, PragmatIC, and the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker, De La Rue, have developed an NFC-like tag it calls an imprinted electronic label that holds an image that shows up when placed in proximity to an NFC reader. The £600,000 development is supported by a grant from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board and the project’s name is RAIL, which is an acronym for “remotely activated labels.” We think there will be a lot of interest in a of a visual feature (a light or logo) that is triggered by consumer interaction that is not only easy to use with an NFC phone but that is intuitively understood which tends to be the challenge with new technologies.

Imagine a tag on a piece of clothing in a store that when is placed within the radio field of an NFC or RFID reader shows an image that proves that article is genuine. This could save brands millions every year and could prevent consumers from buying inferior quality products mocked up to look like branded goods. The company says the imprinted electronic label enables unique products for brand protection and anti-counterfeiting possibilities.

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Three UK opposes UK NFC joint venture and stands up for consumers

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Three UK calls out the UK NFC joint venture anti-competitive plans and moves to block the partnership with the European Commission

The mobile network operator Three UK (Hutchison Whampoa) is seeking to block the UK NFC joint venture entered into by Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile. The UK NFC joint venture plans to create, run and control a common mobile payment and advertising platform for retailers. Three is arguing that the companies’ influence in the market would result in high fees for consumers. Three UK is attempting to submit a formal complaint that requests that the European Commission blocks the UK NFC joint venture. Three said they were already in talks with the European Commission before formally applying for approval later this year. Three UK will only be able to lodge a formal complaint when that approval is given by the European Commission.

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NFC Marketing trifecta, NFC World Alliance

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NFC Marketing trifecta formed as Proxama, Tapit and BlueBite come together for an NFC World Alliance

The newly formed NFC World Alliance will cover the Asia-Pacific region, America’s region and the EMEA region for NFC marketing

An Englishman, an Australian and an American… Oh you’ve heard that one. Rather than a joke you may be interested in some NFC marketing news then. Well, Proxama, the English power house that helped Nokia, BlueBite, the American mobile marketers who you will remember were part of the New York VH1 show NFC marketing campaign, and the new kid on the block, Australian firm Tapit, have got together to form an NFC marketing alliance. The three companies are calling this collaboration the NFC World Alliance, and arguably these three companies are the biggest NFC marketing players in their respective markets. By forging a collaboration, they have now made up the first premier NFC marketing trifecta on the face of the Earth.

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NFC payments hotting up in Canada as Rogers wants to start a Bank

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Rogers Communications wants to start a bank which could take NFC payments mainstream in Canada

The owner of Canada’s largest wireless telephone service provider has told the federal finance department that it will apply to become a financial institution called Rogers Bank, to be headquartered in Toronto.

“Would you like that deposited in your account or paid off your mobile bill?” could be a perfectly normal question for a Rogers customer to be asked if the communications company gets its way and is able to start  Rogers Bank. We reported a couple of weeks ago that Rogers is looking to deploy NFC payments on its network and could be collaborating with TD to do so. Since then we have seen that Rogers will get the NFC Samsung Galaxy S II on its network this fall, and now the company has come forward to confirm some of the banking rumors which have been rife.

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NFC Rumors, concerning Google Wallet, BlackBerry and a certain OS maker (Exclusive)

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Fall into NFC: Massive NFC Rumors getting ready to break this Autumn

We receive a lot of tips from people who have some knowledge but dare not share all what they know. This week there has been a lot of whispers coming our way and many are so cryptic they intrigue us, but we can’t do anything with them. Now, we wouldn’t normally post NFC Rumors as obscure as we have received but these ones come from trusted sources and are potentially huge. In this post we will give you the rumor and then let’s do a little speculation to what it could mean. From what we can tell it isn’t going to be long before this news starts to break. However, we are calling for more information from you guys within these companies and within the industry. Our sources have already put us on the trail and we now need a little more detail to round these NFC Rumors out. Please use the Tip Us form – any information you send will be treated in complete confidence and your identity will never be compromised if that is your wish. Okay, here are the NFC Rumors…

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HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network

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HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network, it’s fast!

The HTC Holiday NFC phone seems to get caught out in public more than a teenage pop star. Today it was seen out in the field in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas testing the new AT&T LTE network. The image we have was sent to BGR and we have to say it is not the normal blurrycam photos we are used to seeing. The word on the street is that the HTC Holiday, or HTC Waikiki, which is another potential name for the device, could be AT&T’s inaugural LTE device that launches its LTE network later this year.  From a network perspective, this image shows the HTC Holiday topping out at a crazy fast 29Mbps, which looks good for Ma’Bells network. Although, we have to remember it is an empty market at the moment that the testers have to themselves. Even based on that, it is faster than speeds we have seen on Verizon’s network. Let’s just hope that Light Squared and its even newer LTE network makes AT&T’s look slow with equipment that gets faster from deployment to deployment. The HTC Holiday / HTC Waikiki is an Android device that is rumored to be one of the first Ice Cream Sandwich devices along with the Verizon Droid Prime, which up until this point we have known as the Samsung Nexus Prime.

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view TV with Zoosh, will add NFC later

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view (CAM) TV capabilities with Naratte’s Zoosh, and plans to add NFC later

French company, Neotion, has enabled the world’s first mobile to conditional access module using Narrate’s NFC “like” Zoosh technology. Neotion’s innovation allows TVs to communicate with phones and tablets using Zoosh’s inaudible sound, and like other Naratte developments works, without any need for an NFC chip, tags or any other paraphernalia. TV has been a one-sided conversation for too long and that limitation to a large degree has seen the decline of TV audiences that are increasingly switching to the web to view and interact with content.

As a society, we now live in an on-demand world where we want the content we want, when we want, delivered perfectly to a device of our choosing and using Netflix as a perfect example we don’t even mind paying a little to get it. The nature of that on-demand content consumption has created opportunities for VOD (video-on-demand) and pay-per-view but until recently you had to call your provider or order this content through a clunky TV user interface that could not be described as frictionless.

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Open Mobile Summit tackles NFC this year

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Open Mobile Summit tackles NFC this year in San Francisco, the fun starts November 2nd

The big topics being covered this year at the Open Mobile summit will be NFC and 4G in North America, where Light Squared CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, will give the keynote speech.

The Open Mobile Summit conference is coming up fast and the organizers have just confirmed that Light Squared CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, will be giving the keynote speech tackling subjects like the company’s planned fully open LTE network and NFC. NFC is due to give mobile commerce a massive boost and newly created and expanding LTE 4G networks are providing data access that is turbo boosting mobile internet beyond what has been available before.  The convergence of fast data and mobile payments is changing the very structure of commerce and the way consumers interact with the world around them and in many ways goes hand in hand.

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STMicroelectronics launches Android app helps devs highlight its NFC dual-interface EEPROM capabilities

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STMicroelectronics launches Android app to highlight its dual-interface EEPROM capabilities

The semiconductor giant has released an Android app that allows developers to test their innovations with the wireless dual-interface EEPROM. We could soon see refrigerators and TVs with NFC capabilities.

This post about STMicroelectronics’ new Android app is going to get a little technical, but fear not. We are going to break it down into easy-to-digest terms so you can understand why this NFC breakthrough is so important. When it comes to the semiconductor industry all known logic and language can appear to break down, and terminology and apparent quantum physics can seem to take place and appear completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not a semiconductor electronics engineer. Semiconductor giants, like Ti or STMicroelectronics, operate in a world of their own and their press releases can read like the recipes for life, matter and the universe at large.

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Narian Technologies NFC4ALL NFC platform Video

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Narian Technologies shows off some of its NFC4ALL platform’s capabilities in video

It’s Labor Day here in the States (think of it as a late August bank holiday) and most NFC folk are sunning themselves at the beach soaking up the last of the summer’s rays while they can. However, some of us are still here ensuring you get your fix of NFC news. Narian Technologies are working today and we know it because they sent us a link to a video that takes viewers through their Android NFC4ALL application for retail environments.

We did quite an exhaustive report on NFC4ALL a few weeks ago, which you can find in two parts: part one here and part two here.

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What NFC marketing campaign do you have planned for the holidays?

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What NFC marketing campaign do you have planned for the holidays?

This fall there is expected to be an explosion of NFC phones in the marketplace, which for the first time makes NFC marketing a viable engagement strategy for retailers to create campaigns. However, the concept of NFC marketing is somewhat new and marketing departments are slow on the uptake in deploying bricks and mortar virtual campaigns. The beauty of NFC marketing is that it can be simple to put together, or it can be highly technical and embedded with other technologies.

On the simple side, an NFC marketing campaign can be as simple as a smart poster that signs people up for your company’s newsletter and then rewards them with a discount coupon. Your tracking metrics can be done at the register and you could even run a concurrent tell-a-friend campaign on the same smart poster. That could work out great for a mom & pop store who wants to dabble in NFC marketing before investing in an integrated platform approach when ROI is known. An investment of a few hundred dollars could be all that is needed to secure more sales if your campaign is creative and novel. On the technical end, if you have the ability to accept NFC payments or have an NFC marketing system, the sky is the limit.

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Could the Nokia 703 be the first NFC Windows Phone?

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Could the Nokia 703 be the first NFC Windows Phone?

Nokia has promised that it will support NFC in all handsets from this point on which includes Windows Phone 7 smartphones. A spy shot of the Nokia 703 Windows Phone 7 (Mango) has surfaced with some specifications coming along for the ride. So, a new Nokia Windows Phone 7 phone should in theory be an NFC capable device. We are starting to get the idea that NFC will be well supported in Windows Phone 7 devices after seeing rumors circulating around the Samsung Omnia W suggest that it too will be an NFC Windows Phone 7 device.

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Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

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Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

If you are an Android app dev, like the sound of NFC capabilities and want to get the low down from those in the know, you will make sure you are in Boston on September 13th – 15th for Isobar Create 48.

If you live somewhere round the Boston area or can get there between September 13th and the 15th, you can take part in a unique experience the guys and gals from FutureM are calling Isobar Create 48. The point of the get n’ code together event is to explore the possibilities of Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is going to be built into products, services and marketing from here on out and for those with some solid knowledge of managing NFC developments, the future will likely be bright. The Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon will be the first of its kind to explore the NFC chip inside the Google Nexus S and find greater uses for this NFC. The Isobar Create 48 organizers are inviting local developers, programmers and hackers to create what they see as their visions for uses of NFC technology.

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588 million using NFC payments and services by 2015

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Research and Markets and ARChart predicts 588 million will be using NFC payments and services by 2015

Research and Markets have released their latest NFC study that looks at digital money and the convergence of contactless card and mobile payments. NFC is picking up pace and people are undoubtedly becoming more aware of the technology and certain aspects of how their lives can be impacted. Our last post indicated how ubiquitous NFC is becoming in the minds of the general public and how the benefits are finally starting to outweigh the security concerns. NFC, however, is still a nascent technology in terms of real world deployment, and which business models will finally prevail and where the gaps in the market still need some meta views of the current industry.

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Brits leading the push for cashless society according to Visa’s Contactless Barometer

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Bring on the NFC – a new survey conducted by Visa Europe has found that UK residents’ attitudes towards contactless payments are changing and moving towards a cashless society, according to Visa’s quarterly Contactless Barometer.

Being a Brit sometimes has its advantages. You have Heinz Salad Cream, Quality Street over the holidays, you know that  substance is called Marmite instead of Vegemite (whatever that is), and to seal the deal, you have the BBC and a legendary self effacing humor that others can only marvel at.  You can also add to the list of things that make you more civilized than the average person that you now live in a nation that has some of the most progressive views on moving to a cashless society on the face of the globe according to Visa Europe. Visa has been conducting some small scale surveys every quarter that it likes to call its “Contactless Barometer”.

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Diebold NFC ATM seeks bio-forms for biometric authentication VMWare helps

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Diebold NFC ATM seeks bio-forms for biometric authentication VMWare helps

We may well be heading to a cashless society where popping down to the cash machine becomes a thing of the past, but that’s a few years off from happening, if it happens at all. In the meantime, while NFC finds its feet and biometrics are increasingly being partnered with contactless payment technology we should probably work on making our ATM’s capable of interacting with the new technology we are likely to find in our phones in the next couple of years. Imagine if you will, an NFC ATM with biometric authentication of board. The idea is that you would wave your phone across the ATM and then have your fingerprint scanned for further bio authentication. This not only adds more security in case someone gets hold of your phone, but further mitigates risk for financial institutions so everyone wins, don’t they? Maybe. We’ll discuss this issue in another post.

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U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T and T-Mobile Merger

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U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T and T-Mobile Merger

This morning Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. government has sued to block AT&T‘s attempted acquisition of T-Mobile USA stating that the merger would “substantially lessen competition” in the mobile network operator market. AT&T Inc. proposed a $39 billion acquisition earlier this year and has faced challenges from Sprint stating that the deal is anti-competitive, and it now appears that the U.S. government agrees. In fact, Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse, testified before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, voicing opposition to the proposed takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T.

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Verifone is expanding its NFC footprint in Europe

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VeriFone is expanding its NFC footprint in Europe with a direct sales and service strategy that builds upon the staff left over from the Hypercom acquisition

VeriFone have announced that they intend to expand into Continental Europe after the acquisition of Hypercom concludes with a focus on building their NFC POS terminal business. VeriFone will initially set up offices and support services in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Austria and Switzerland, the company reports. Companies in the aforementioned countries will now be able to obtain products, services, support and value-added solutions directly from VeriFone.

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Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

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Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

NFC payments will hit Canada for BlackBerry owners in the form of the Payfirma NFC Mobile Payment app that will allow Canadians to accept payments right on their phones using a Square type app. The company has just launched its non-NFC version and has committed to launching the near field communications payments version next.

It looks like the NFC capabilities of recent BlackBerry NFC smartphones is going to be put to good use in Canada thanks to Payfirma and its upcoming BlackBerry NFC Mobile Payment app. It was a month ago that Payfirma launched their iPhone app and now they are back with a Mobile Payments app for BlackBerry phones that have recently been released. BlackBerry phones that support NFC include the BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9930, all three new variations of the BlackBerry Curve, and the rumored Bellagio is also reputed to include some NFC goodness. The next iteration of Payfirma’s Mobile Payment app is promised to have NFC Payments built straight in.

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Canadian NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE heading to Rogers this fall

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NFC Samsung Galaxy S II rocking LTE heading to Rogers Canada this fall

Oh Canada, Oh Canada you get a Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II (we don’t think that rhymes but you get the point). Okay, well the Americans didn’t fare well with today’s Samsung announcements. Our hearts sank as we learned that Samsung was dealing out no NFC on any US network for the long awaited Samsung Galaxy S II variants. That said, until the machines have a tear down we won’t know that for sure since Samsung is rumored to be fitting NFC in an inactive state and then switching it on later when carriers ask them to. Will America get an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II? The chances are looking bleak today. Back to Canada and the Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II though.

Samsung has finally started releasing the by now legendary and possibly aging NFC Samsung Galaxy S II to North America. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint had their announcements earlier and Canada’s Rogers appears to have trumped them all by getting the NFC Samsung’s Galaxy S II version for their network which is in line with the news lately that suggests Rogers is deploying NFC payments. Canadians won’t get their hands on their version of the Samsung Galaxy S II until later in the fall, but we can at least know what’s on its way now.

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New EMV Academy launches in US offers NFC training

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New EMV Academy launches in US offers NFC training

You can always tell when an industry is maturing because experts start to build training facilities and courses to educate the rest of us on particular subjects. EMV and NFC are coming of age and experts are starting to emerge. One example of this can be found in the New EMV Training Academy that has opened up its doors to support professionals in the United States and Canada. The aim of the EMV Academy is to educate and enable banking personnel and payment industries to tackle migration and enable solutions that are more secure.

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