NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

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NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

NXP Semiconductors has teamed up with startup firm, U-Approach, and created an NFC android app that promotes cultural participation for the STRP Festival. The STRP Festival is one of Europe’s largest art and technology festivals, and this year visitors will have the ability to interact with exhibits using their NFC Android smartphone and the new app. After tapping their NFC smartphone against an exhibit, visitors can get detailed information about the exhibited artwork.

Frens Frijns, Director of the STRP Festival, commented, “As a cultural festival, we feature artistic and creative experiments with technology. We believe that the ‘Internet of Things’ is evolving into a ‘clickable world’. We are the first festival in the world to provide that experience in a way that helps people better understand the art while giving them the ability to share their own interpretation, introducing a new social dimension to art interpretation in the festival experience.”

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Peet’s Coffee accepts MasterCard PayPass Google Wallet NFC payments

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Peet’s Coffee accepts MasterCard PayPass Google Wallet NFC payments Add another location where you can use Google Wallet. Peet’s Coffee & Tea announces that all of its stores will accept the MasterCard PayPass payments by the end of October. It has been a little slower than many folks had hoped for but Google Wallet is [...]

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Avery Dennison and Signbox show off backlit Enlighten NFC smartposter

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Avery Dennison and Signbox show off backlit Enlighten NFC smartposter

Avery Dennison and Signbox have teamed up to launch what they call a “sophisticated backlit poster system” called Enlighten that utilizes NFC for promotional offers and other NFC smartposter use cases and marketing features. We have already seen tags being built into NFC smartposter campaigns, we have already seen NFC being combined with giant LCD billboards for NFC marketing campaigns, and now we see the next iteration in the evolution of NFC signage as Signbox using Avery Dennison RFID N-Zone Near Field Communications (NFC) inlays, who has created a backlit NFC smartposter.

Signbox and Avery Dennison launched their Enlighten NFC smartposters product at London’s Saatchi Gallery on October 4, 2011 to guests that included representatives from top London advertising agencies, major brand custodians and senior marketing professionals. Avery Dennison are one of the largest producers of NFC tags along with the likes of UPM RFID and the Identive Group. Yet, until now, we have not seen them promoting their RFID and NFC products to the masses. That has now changed with the launch of Signbox’s Enlighten product.

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Want Google Wallet on the non 4G Nexus S? XDA Developers cracked it

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Want Google Wallet on the non 4G Nexus S? XDA Developers cracked it

I think we can all agree that today venumx over at XDA Developers gets the top person in NFC award after enabling Google Wallet in all Nexus S variants. Officially the only NFC phone that is capable of running Google Wallet is the Samsung Nexus S 4G on Sprint. All of the Google Nexus S variants have the necessary NFC chip and Secure Element, but because of Isis, Google hasn’t been able to provide the service on any other mobile network operator’s network. This has shrunk the potential user base of Google Wallet significantly and the three Isis joint venture mobile network operators have even been switching off NFC in other Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II. They haven’t been switching off the feature because it doesn’t work, they have removed the NFC capability because they are not ready to monetize it with their own Isis NFC mobile wallet at this time, and they have feared exactly what has happened today.

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HID Global partners with BlackBerry, NFC smartphones now open doors

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HID Global partners with BlackBerry, NFC smartphones now open doors

We have covered a lot of BlackBerry NFC phone news here at NFC Rumors, but very little of it has had a practical use in the real world until today – HID Global and Research in Motion announced they have partnered to enable HID’s iCLASS digital key system on BlackBerry NFC smartphones.

“This industry first is an important milestone in the deployment of mobile access and identity solutions using NFC technology on smartphones,” said Dr. Tam Hulusi, Senior Vice President with HID Global. “We will continue to innovate in the delivery of secure identity, as NFC-enabled smartphones represent a complementary new platform that we believe will expand the access control market and our online card services business while improving user security and convenience.”

“NFC technology will enable many new and exciting capabilities for BlackBerry smartphones and we are very pleased to be working with HID Global to be the first to bring a host of secure identity and mobile access control capabilities to NFC-enabled smartphones,” said Andrew Bocking, Vice President of Handheld Software Product Management at RIM.

It was only yesterday we reported about the HID Global pilot program that has been running at Arizona State University. In that pilot, the company had enabled NFC smartphones to act as NFC keys for user access in certain University areas on campus. With the BlackBerry announcement, HID Global will be able to activate any access control system that uses the company’s iCLASS SIO.

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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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Could we see Google Wallet capable QNX BlackBerry’s?

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BlackBerry QNX phones are going to support Android apps, so could we see Google Wallet capable BlackBerry’s this next year?

BlackBerry phones haven’t had an easy year as market share has diminished month after month succumbing to the might of Android and more modern mobile OS’s. We have known for sometime that RIM is building a new mobile OS, dubbed QNX, as we speak. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that QNX is going to be able to run Android apps. Although Bloomberg broke this story yesterday, we have to say we have seen BGR tackle this topic in the past also, specifically referred to the BlackBerry Playbook gaining the same ability. In a “can’t beat them so join them” tactical approach, RIM may have found a way to keep the Blackberry relevant. The question we are left with is will QNX NFC-enabled BlackBerry devices be able to utilize Google Wallet for NFC payments?

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85% of POS terminals will be NFC capable by 2016 thanks to Google Wallet buzz

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ABI Research projects that 85% of POS terminals will be NFC capable by 2016 thanks to Google Wallet buzz

ABI Research has released a report detailing how Google Wallet and NFC phone buzz has caught the imagination of retailers and projected how they will adopt NFC POS terminals. It is projected that by 2016, 85% of POS terminals will be NFC-enabled and consumers will be able to pay with either an NFC phone or an EMV (chip and PIN) card. This in many ways contradicts many other reports that have projected that NFC adoption will be slower. Verfione’s CEO, Doug Bergeron, said at the FortuneTech conference just a month ago that NFC projections were blown out of proportion. Eric Schmidt of Google, however, has projected a more aggressive adoption rate than ABI and foresees one third of merchants taking on NFC POS terminals by mid next year.

ABI Research projections on NFC POS terminals

ABI believes that one third of POS terminals will be NFC capable within 12 months which is robust adoption to say the least, and isn’t so far off what seemed an astronomically high 50% quoted by Eric Schmidt.

Senior Analyst Craig Foster said,“Contactless has the potential to change the way we pay for goods completely, significantly reducing time spent queuing at the point of sale. It also represents an almost perfect fit for the vending industry, because:

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Biometric fingerprint-enabled NFC Payment Transaction completed

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NXP, AuthenTec and DeviceFidelity Complete First Fingerprint-enabled biometric NFC Payment Transaction in the U.S

NXP, AuthenTec and DeviceFidelity have been working together to bring biometric NFC payments into reality, and that’s a good thing. The three companies joined forces to provide reference designs which are expected to help mobile phone OEMs and wireless carriers address the growing demand for NFC-enabled smartphones. The concept of using biometric sensors in phones is not a new idea and, in fact, has been trialled by AuthenTec with actual test groups as far back as 2007 using a Kyocera phone that featured a fingerprint scanner. However, this is the first time that three industry giants have come together to create a test case to show all manufacturers how to integrate at least one form of biometric security into an NFC payments phone.

The companies are fully committed to developing highly secure and easy to use mobile commerce subsystems to help ease design integration for mobile phone OEMs. Field upgradeable solutions and integrated reference designs will provide a variety of options to mobile phone OEMs for fielding mobile commerce transaction-ready platforms that incorporate biometric security.

“The payment experience demonstrated by NXP, DeviceFidelity and AuthenTec provides the convenience, speed, and security consumers require for broad adoption of mobile wallets. As the global leader in NFC solutions, we look forward to building on our leadership through collaboration with AuthenTec, the world’s No. 1 provider of fingerprint sensors, and leading pluggable payment solutions provider, DeviceFidelity,” said Henri Ardevol,Vice President and General Manager, Secure Transactions, NXP Semiconductors. “The fingerprint transaction shows how future mobile transactions may become increasingly convenient through the use of NFC and biometrics. In the meantime, however, we continue to focus on bringing easy-to-integrate yet highly secure solutions to mobile phone OEMs and carriers eager to offer secure mobile wallet designs.”

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Poken helping Nokia with its NFC vision

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Poken helping Nokia with its NFC vision

Nokia and  Switzerland-based startup Poken have teamed up to bring everything NFC, aside from payments, to Nokia’s product offerings. Nokia has been playing around with NFC for years now but in the last few months has become serious about bringing the technology to the masses. We have seen phones released, announced or rumored such as the Nokia C7 / Astound, the Nokia N9, N5, Zeta and Cindy. Yes, Nokia is chasing the NFC opportunity with great gusto and to help it become a formidable force with NFC it has partnered with a couple of firms. We already know that the Norfolk based firm Proxama, who has worked with Nokia to bring NFC sweetness to its NFC smartphones. But now we learn about a bigger part of its strategy that involves Poken.

Nokia has stayed away from NFC mobile wallets and so has Poken

Over the next 18 months, Nokia is projected to ship more than 100 million NFC-enabled smartphones globally. So far all Nokia phones have shipped without secure elements or support for the Single Wire Protocol (SWP), which would provide support for an NFC SIM issued by a mobile network operator, mobile payments are off the table.

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NFC POS terminals for one third of merchants within the next year says Eric Schmidt

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NFC POS terminals for one third of merchants within the next year, VeriFone’s register rings

It’s a good time to be in the NFC POS terminals business, if Eric Schmidt of Google is correct. Google’s Executive Chairman spoke at the annual Cannes Lions Advertising Festival on Wednesday where he suggested that one third of U.S. POS terminals would accept NFC payments within a year. He did qualify this further by saying that this was his “educated guess”, but this does show how boisterous the mighty search giant feels about the emerging digital wallet industry. However, market penetration would have to be very compelling to move enough retailers and merchants to take up the NFC POS terminal technology at that pace.

The U.S has approximately 7 million credit card accepting locations and that would require a massive take up in sales of NFC POS terminals

Here in the U.S. the roll out of contactless NFC POS terminals started 7 years ago and thus far 2% have been upgraded, or 140,000 if you prefer, actual units rather than percentages. So if our math is correct that would mean nearly 2.2 million NFC POS terminals, when we minus off the current 140,000 already installed, would need to be purchased, installed and be ready to rock and roll within the next twelve months. Even if we break that figure into twelve equal parts it would mean that 182,758 NFC POS Terminals would need to come online a month, and that ladies and gentlemen, is a steep order – not impossible, but steep. What we take from this prediction is that whether these figures are correct or not it’s a great time to be VeriFone.

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A look inside of NXP Semiconductors

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NXP CEO says Google will make NFC a success

Before this year unless you were in the know, you may have never heard of the Philip’s spin-off company NXP Semiconductors. However, since Google launched its Nexus S and revealed its Google Wallet software, the brand has been thrust into the limelight and become synonymous with NFC. In an interview at NXP’s headquarters in Eindhoven, CEO Richard Clements has given an interview about the future of NFC and the company’s other focuses. Surprisingly NFC chips and software are not what the company sells most of and nor does it feel that NFC will account for a large margin of its sales in the years to come.

NXP feels Google will double the sales of its NXP Semiconductor near field communication chips in the next couple of years

For NXP the NFC scene looks particularly rosy with NFC expected to double in demand in 2012 and then again in 2013. Clemmer said “Google will make NFC a success this time.” That can already be seen as the media fever pitch about NFC is building by the day and as billions and billions are invested into it. If NFC gets much bigger, before any actual services have hit the market, it may soon be declared to big to fail and the U.S. government may have to bail it out. Hang on, banks, inflated values, lots of private company’s investing in an idea – haven’t we seen this movie before? Hold on to your tax dollars, this may be a rough ride!

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When will we see NFC supported on the internet?

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When will we see NFC supported on the internet?

Bringing the online world offline is what NFC is great for, but when will the technology be used so that NFC supported on the internet becomes a reality? Recently, most NFC news revolves around the digital wallet and paying for purchases in stores using your NFC-enabled smartphone, or using NFC smart posters to buy tickets and get coupons. With Broadcom’s announcement of its new BCM5882 and BCM5883 NFC chips for PC’s, laptops and tablets, a whole new world of potentials just opened up for web programmers and developers. Now we may see NFC supported on the internet also. But what does that mean?

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Google Offers launches in Portland Oregon

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Google Offers launches its beta in Portland Oregon

NFC has another big day as Google Offers launches its digital coupon beta service to the first city on its hit list. Google’s daily deal service was open for business for local businesses in and around the city of Portland, Oregon today. The service which will directly compete with Groupon and Living Social is being called a MoLo service, a Google nickname which roughly translates as mobile local commerce. It has been just over a week since Google unveiled its plan to un-burden us from our wallets, with its NFC based Google Wallet and the accompanying Google Offers platforms. Yesterday evening at an AllThingsD interview, Eric Schmidt of Google revealed that the Google Offers beta would start in today in Portland. Google Offers is a slightly more ambitious project than its competitors offerings, making offers available to NFC-enabled smartphones within a city locality and allowing coupons to be redeemed at the point of sale via near field communications. The service can only be used on the Google Nexus S at this time because that is the only NFC-enabled ANdroid device on the market at this time, although we are told more are on their way. Like Groupon and co, Google Offers provide one deal a day, in a rent a crowd fashion but unlike its consumers do not have to hope for a certain amount of other consumers to activate the deal. Other web competitors like Yahoo & Aol simply aggregate offers from other sources like Groupon, but Google Offers has the backbone to source its own offers. Todays offer for Portland residents was a $3 for $10 value coupon for Floyd’s Coffee.

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Oh my! Is this i9101 the NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S II?

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Is this i9101 the NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S II?

What’s thinner than an iPhone, rocks a 1.2 GHZ dual core processor and will soon join the elite stable of NFC-enabled smartphones? Well in the case of the blurry photo above we hope that GT-i9101 means it’s the NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S II. Since its launch, the Galaxy S II has received rave reviews. Sammy has sold a million units of these power house smartphones bearing the Galaxy S moniker in South Korea alone and the U.K. wasn’t too displeased with this phone either. However, it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi to fully be the bleeding edge monster we all hoped it would be, while its stable mate the Nexus S took all the glory bathing in its NFC-enabled glory. (show off)

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