SITA Lab and Orange get together to trial NFC at airport models

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SITA Lab and Orange get together to trial NFC at airport models

SITA Lab and Orange have recently got together to look further into the use cases for NFC for passengers, airlines and the security at airports. The thought of giving an NFC ticket at the airport is not a new concept. However, apart from a couple of airlines trialling NFC with stickers and apps, we are yet to see anything truly ubiquitous and usable for users across the globe. The SITA and Orange research project developed NFC apps for smartphones that allow NFC boarding passes, security check-ins, lounge check-ins and checked them out with real technology to show how NFC holds the possibility to streamline airport processes, improve security and generally make travel less frustrating for flyers. This is in part because IATA and the GSMA have developed industry use cases for NFC that cover check-in, security access, boarding and lounge access. NFC boarding pass information can be loaded securely to the travel wallet from online, over the air or at a kiosk.

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Sequent launches CCS and brings NFC capabilities to apps

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Sequent launches CCS and brings NFC capabilities to apps

The Sequent Software management team have formerly held positions within large corporate entities such as AT&T, Visa and VivoTech and been responsible for deployment of various NFC trials and technology. However, the firm has now released an NFC SDK, for lack of a better word, so that all app developers can add NFC to any apps. That CCS (Core Card Services) product includes the capabilities to add NFC payments, NFC ticketing, coupons and access control.

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NFC to speed up currency exchange according to Currencies Direct

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NFC to speed up currency exchange due to added security according to Currencies Direct

Currency Exchange can be expensive and take a lot of time, but the question being asked is whether NFC mobile wallets will speed up that process. Currencies Direct, a UK based non-bank currency exchange firm, think it will and they don’t mind saying why. We here at NFC Rumors have focused on a somewhat related part of the NFC payments ecosystem called remittance payments. This is where migrant workers or even just friends can send money from one another via their NFC smartphones by using a mobile wallet. These remote payments are expected to grow to a staggering $22.5 billion dollars by 2014, and no doubt Currencies Direct aims to be part of that lucrative new ecosystem. The process is near instantaneous and has been being used with SMS technology for years in Africa with the M-Pesa service.

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TazTag shows off the TazPad and NFC smart monitors at CES

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TazTag shows off the TazPad and NFC smart monitors at CES

It was last year at CES that a startup French firm called TazTag first showed of its TazPad NFC tablet concept. It wasn’t the firm’s first foray into NFC and, in fact, they were known in Europe for kiosks that supported NFC interactions and transactions. Since then, the TazPad production NFC tablet, with a helpful sprinkling of ZigBee, has been deployed to integrators and the orders just keep coming in according to executives at the firm. Of course, the fact that NFC can be read on both side of the device, its AuthenTec fingerprint scanner and its low price didn’t hurt its chances any. The fact that the TazPad was the first NFC tablet to hit the market globally also gave it a certain fame and a lot of coverage, including here on NFC Rumors.

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BlackBerry NFC tag issues appear to be a thing of the past

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BlackBerry NFC tag issues appear to be a thing of the past

NFC tag issues have plagued the beleaguered BlackBerry NFC smartphones for some months now. You have probably heard the news that the Co-CEO’s over at RIM have stepped down from the firm today. Something that is ironical with that announcement is that BlackBerry issues with NFC appear to be a thing of the past and people are doing some great things with NFC tags these days, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Over at CES a couple of weeks ago we got to speak with one of BlackBerry’s NFC product managers who told us that he didn’t know of any problems reading NFC tags these days since the BlackBerry OS 7.1 update. He invited us to send over all manner of NFC tags and said that the firm would test them out in their labs. We may well hit up some of our friends at some NFC tag manufacturers and put that to the test as there are so many NFC tag types these days and it would be great if RIM tested them all in their labs.

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Mobile World Congress NFC rumors leaking left, right and center

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Mobile World Congress NFC rumors leaking left, right and center

Mobile World Congress is coming up this next month, and rumors are rife over here at NFC Rumors about all kinds of announcements that are likely to be made. We have been so busy with our CES coverage that we have just been stacking them up, but we know you love some good rumors from industry insiders, so we thought we would let some fly. As usual our NFC rumors come from individuals on the inside of the industry. Yep, those in the know. They tell us what they can, but often have to leave out some details so they don’t identify themselves with specific knowledge that only a few know. So, think what will you of the rumors, and let’s just see which ones come to pass.

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Yale demos NFC door locks solutions at CES for Android, iOS and BB

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Yale demos NFC door locks solutions at CES for Android, iOS and BB

We have reported on Yale and their NFC door locks before. However, we have now seen the locks in action and have far more details about how Yale (an ASSA ABLOY company) plans to bring their solutions to market. The Yale NFC door locks are an exciting prospect because they represent quality products for access control that are built for consumers. Yes, later this year we will be able to cost effectively buy NFC door locks for our homes, offices, and anywhere else we would like to secure and use access control facilities.

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NFC Bootcamp free pre-event to feature Cellotape how NFC works tour

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NFC Bootcamp free pre-event to feature Cellotape how NFC works tour

NFC Bootcamp have arguably done more to educate folks on how to use NFC than any other group. That’s not to say there aren’t many other great teams educating people about how to add NFC features to products or start new businesses. However, NFC Bootcamp tours the US putting on organized training sessions that take developers and marketers from step one to the implementation and marketing of their NFC app, device or service. They are also platform agnostic, which allows for a 360 degree understanding of the industry, challenges and opportunities that are available. In short, NFC Bootcamp is a valuable resource for folks looking to build something meaningful in the nascent NFC market.

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Narian shows off NFC retail experience solutions at NRF show

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Narian shows off NFC retail experience solutions at NRF show

Yes, the NRF show has just finished up and Narian Technologies was on the floor showing off its full suite of non-payment NFC services that help retailers maximize profits cost effectively. If you are an NFC enthusiast and haven’t heard of Narian Technologies we only have one thing to say to you – Have you been living under a rock for the last year or so? Narian is far older than a year old though, and led by industry expert, Einar Rosenberg. When Narian isn’t helping the top names in NFC develop new products, services or simply giving consulting services, the firm is hard at work developing and deploying its own full suite of retail services that use NFC to prevent lost sales and maximize profit in retail situations.

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Sony getting set to launch NFC speaker for Xperia NFC smartphones

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Sony getting set to launch NFC speaker for Xperia NFC smartphones

Sony over at CES featured more NFC solutions and gadgets than anyone else including an NFC speaker that team members let us know that they would be releasing soon in the US. Creating use cases for NFC was very evident at various Sony CES booths, and we still have more to share with you in upcoming posts. We first saw a low-end NFC speaker from Sony at 4G World where we got a personal demonstration from NFC Forum Chairman, Koichi Tagawa. However, the NFC speaker on show at CES was a few steps up from that initial NFC speaker we saw.

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Google Nexus NFC tablet to cost just $199 and come with a 7″ display?

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Google Nexus NFC tablet to cost just $199 suggests rumors

We reported a couple of weeks ago about Eric Schmidt’s comment to an Italian newspaper that suggested that Google was prepping a Google Nexus NFC tablet that would sport Ice Cream Sandwich. Schmidt told the newspaper in an interview that ”[In the] next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.” At that time we reached out to Google for clarification of what Eric meant when he made the comment and we hit the steely wall of silence from Google. Generally when we speak with Google we get responses pretty promptly with some pretty helpful information, so to not even get a no comment statement was a little odd.

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UPM RFID collaborates with Freedom Shopping for RFID and NFC tags

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UPM RFID collaborates with Freedom Shopping for RFID and NFC tags

Okay, so here’s another UPM RFID announcement about another partnership which again sees the Finnish firm extend its dominance in the NFC tags arena. UPM RFID are no strangers to partnerships, and in fact have built their successful model based on enabling others and their innovations with a litany of NFC tags mounted on many different inlays. Today, UPM RFID announces that it has partnered with Freedom Shopping to deliver RFID and NFC tags via Freedom Shopping’s online store.

UPM is known for its open approach to opportunities where the firm actively engages in partners’ projects to help get them off the ground. We cover UPM pretty closely, because like NXP and other core NFC firms, you can feel the beat of the NFC industry through firms who enable projects from the ground up. So, for better or worse firms like UPM, NXP, VeriFone, Google, Isis, Microsoft, Nokia and a few others get our attention when they make announcements. Whether that’s good attention or not depends on the firms in question and what they are doing within the NFC space.

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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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Commonwealth Bank makes Kaching NFC mobile wallet official

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Commonwealth Bank makes Kaching NFC mobile wallet official

We already knew that Commonwealth Bank in Australia was trialling the Kaching NFC mobile wallet app for the iPhone, but the financial institution has now gone live with its app for all customers. You have to hand it to Australia, they struggled to find the value chain and ownership model for NFC just like the rest of the world, aside from perhaps Japan. There were endless, fruitless NFC mobile wallet trials too.

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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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GSMA colludes with Mobile Network Operators over NFC mobile wallets

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GSMA colludes with Mobile Network Operators over NFC mobile wallets, they will lose the battle for control

The GSMA has released a document called the “NFC Handset APIs & Requirements”, which outlines their mandate to member mobile network operators globally on how NFC USIMs or UICC-based NFC services and secure elements should be treated. We were told by a GSMA executive at WIMA that the GSMA are always being accused of being an inside club for the mobile network operator community with little interest in consumer related issues, and this new document does little to dissuade anyone that this isn’t true. We feel aspects of the GSMA are in the interests of consumers and in favor of education, but there are certainly facets and elements that are not.

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CARTES North America to debate future of EMV and NFC payments

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CARTES North America to debate future of EMV and NFC payments

The European CARTES was arguably one of the biggest shows for NFC this year along with WIMA and a couple of other events. However, CARTES North America is now gearing up to bring its expo and conference state side in March and one big thing that will be debated is the future of EMV and NFC payments. If you are already in payments you will know the US chose not to embrace chip and PIN and EMV early on and now the focus is on “if not then, when?”

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Nokia CES Press event hints at NFC and maybe tablets

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Nokia CES Press event hints at NFC and maybe tablets Okay, the Nokia Press invitation just hit our inbox for CES hinting that the firm may well be unveiling some new devices that speak to the future of smart devices. Perhaps it is just fanciful thinking on our part, but we suspect that we may see some Windows Phone [...]

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NFC tags market to be worth $300 million in next five years says ABI Research

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NFC tags market to be worth $300 million in next five years says ABI Research

ABI Research has released a report that forecasts that NFC Smart Posters and mobile marketing could push the non-payment NFC tags market to a $300 million per year business by 2016. If you hang around the NFC industry for more than a nanosecond, you will soon become aware what a big deal NFC tags are. NFC tags are used in every non-payment, non-device iteration that NFC has to offer; including NFC stickers, NFC smart posters and even NFC stationary.

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Google Wallet already hacked to work on Verizon Galaxy Nexus

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Google Wallet already hacked to work on Verizon Galaxy Nexus

It has been a couple of days since the Galaxy Nexus has been launched on Verizon sans Google Wallet. Verizon is charging $299 for the latest Ice Cream Sandwich, NFC touting smartphone, and Amazon has already half priced it down to $149.99. The Free Press has written a letter to the FCC requesting that Verizon is investigated for not allowing Google Wallet on its network and for what the organization calls “blocking the app”. Well, the developers over at XDA-Developers have already hacked Google Wallet to work on the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon’s network. It’s been a busy week for the Galaxy Nexus. The news that the Galaxy Nexus can run Google Wallet, however, has been tempered by a report that some insecurities have been found in Google Wallet when running on a rooted NFC smartphone.

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A note to NFC firms attending CES with NFC products or services

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A note to NFC firms attending CES with NFC products or services It’s nearly that time of year again when the whole of the tech industry gets together in Las Vegas for the ultimate show and tell session they like to call CES. NFC is expected to be on show everywhere delegates look this year. [...]

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UPM RFID & Waldemar Winckel offer NFC tags in Touch2go store

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UPM RFID & Waldemar Winckel offer NFC tags in Touch2go store

Today Europeans have another place to buy NFC tags from after UPM RFID and Waldemar Winckel, one of Europe’s leading RFID label manufacturers and system integrators, have got together to provide NFC tags through the Touch2go e-commerce store. Part of NFC tags becoming ubiquitous is having them available from many retailers in the market. UPM RFID have arguably formed more relationships and set up more partnerships than any other NFC tag manufacturer.

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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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ViaForensics finds Google Wallet security vulnerability with a rooted Android phone

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ViaForensics finds Google Wallet security vulnerability with a rooted Android NFC phone, Google plugs it tight within hours

It was bound to happen that someone would find a vulnerability in an NFC mobile wallet, however, as exploits go the Google Wallet faired pretty well. ViaForensics took a rooted Android phone that we can only assume was a Nexus S and was able to gain access to database tables which revealed some arguably sensitive data. They found that databases weren’t properly flushed after cards were deleted from the Google Wallet.

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Microsoft scooping up Nokia rumors resurface either way looks good for NFC

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Microsoft scooping up Nokia rumors resurface today as a bank advises its investors it will happen in the first half of 2012, either way looks good for NFC

Interesting speculation started up again today suggesting that Microsoft and Nokia may be in talks to see whether they can carve out a deal which could possibly see Nokia selling its smartphone business. This isn’t the first time this rumor has circulated and last time was strongly refuted by Nokia. This time the rumor has emanated from Danske Bank, which is Denmark’s largest bank and claimed that Nokia will sell its smartphone division to Microsoft during the first half of 2012. There is never fire without smoke, but the Danish bank didn’t give any background on the issue to back up its claim.

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