BlackBerry 3G Playbook with NFC leaks out with 2012 roadmap

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BlackBerry 3G Playbook with NFC leaks out with 2012 roadmap

BlackBerry has had its 2012 roadmap leak this week and among an assortment of NFC smartphones there was a BlackBerry Playbook that rocked on HSPA+ 3G, and is likely to feature NFC if the leaked presentation slides are to be believed. We reported just the other day that BlackBerry had supported NFC in a big way which, since Nokia has said goodbye to NFC at the moment, means the Canadian firm is sitting in pole position for supporting the technology throughout their devices. That support appears to now extend to the firm’s Playbook tablet. The first Playbook came sans 3G data connectivity and was billed as the iPad killer. But without a few fundamentals, like unified mail, the Playbook struggled against the iPad and lately the Android-based devices.

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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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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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Open NFC stack supports Android Ice Cream Sandwich

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Open NFC stack supports Android Ice Cream Sandwich

INSIDE Secure has had a busy week in supporting NFC based systems which now includes Android 4.0, or as we like to call it Ice Cream Sandwich, in its Open NFC stack. Google elected sometime ago to develop NFC based solutions with NXP, and so NXP chips and secure elements are supported straight off the bat. However, other semiconductor firms that have NFC based products need to add support for Ice Cream Sandwich and INSIDE Secure has done just that for devs with any hardware platform.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Samsung to launch retina resolution super NFC tablet in February?

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Samsung to launch retina resolution super NFC tablet in February?

Word on the street is that Samsung is prepping a retina resolution super NFC tablet in February that’s due to be released at Mobile World Congress that features impressive specifications. This is a rumor reported over at BGR today. We all know the rivalry between Apple and Samsung has reached fever pitch and there is no love lost. With that in mind, hearing that Samsung is planning on launching a super high resolution NFC tablet before the iPad 3 gets out of the gate is probably not too much of a shock to many. The specifications of this rumored tablet could set it apart from the upcoming iPad 3. The rumor suggests that the new NFC tablet from Samsung will be launched at Mobile World Congress and not at CES. Although that said we received invitations for the Samsung press conference at CES and we wonder if Samsung might give us a sneak peek.

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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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Hands-on with the Taztag Tazpad NFC tablet at WIMA NFC USA

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Hands-on with the Taztag Tazpad NFC tablet at WIMA NFC USA

We have been following the development of the Taztag Tazpad, which took the title as the first NFC tablet to be announced, since earlier this year. From its inception, the Tazpad NFC tablet had its work cut out for it in standing up to colossal electronics giants who would undoubtedly release competitive products.

The Tazpad has prospered, moved beyond vaporware and is now in the market for integrators and larger organizations. As NFC tablets go, the Tazpad is the only one we know of that is available today and has features that make it an attractive prospect for business based implementations. In fact, it has features not available in a single slate anywhere else. We met up with Taztag Co-Founder and International General Manager, Michel Delaux, over at WIMA, where our first question was “Do you have one with you?” Luckily enough, he did!

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IPI to talk NFC print marketing, QR codes and AR at London Workshop

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IPI to talk NFC print marketing, QR codes and AR at London Workshop

IPI is starting the conversation about mobile marketing using print as a medium, and technologies like NFC (Near Field Communication), QR Codes and Augmented Reality at its next workshop to be held in London, UK. NFC print marketing that uses QR codes for legacy purposes is growing in popularity. By now we are all used to seeing QR codes on posters and print media for a variety of uses.

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N-pass Mobile Technology announces dual SIM NFC phones

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N-pass Mobile Technology announces dual SIM NFC phones

Chinese firm N-pass Mobile Technology, a subsidiary of Aisidi, has announced that it is getting into the NFC phone game with a dual SIM handset. N-pass let us know that it has seen massive potential in NFC for sometime, and it has assembled a team of NFC experts to create NFC phones that work on both WCDMA and GSM MNOs the world over.

What is interesting about the direction the firm is taking is that the particular flavors of NFC, in what appears to be feature phones, support card emulation(SWPSIM,SSD), reader / writer mode with standard ISO14443A/B,Mifare, Tags and a mode they call P2P. We assume that to be Peer-to-Peer.

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Samsung announces Secu-NFC Chip, combines NFC IC with Secure Element

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Samsung announces Secu-NFC Chip, combines NFC IC with Secure Element

It’s a busy week at CARTES and Samsung just outed its new Secu-NFC Chip, which will no doubt cause some stirring within the industry. The new Samsung Secu-NFC Chip combines an NFC controller and a secure element into one unit allowing various advantages over current ICs. The secure element is the storage area in an NFC phone where personal and sensitive data is securely stored. That storage area isn’t directly accessible through your NFC phone’s operating system and secure elements generally have tamper proof features that ensure the memory locks up if someone attempts to access personal information without proper authentication. What makes Samsung’s announcement notable is that their new SENHRN1, or Secu-NFC Chip, combines both the NFC chip and secure element into one efficient chip.

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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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NXP Working on 10 NFC tablets and 90 NFC phones

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NXP Working on 10 NFC tablets and 90 NFC phones

If ever there was any doubt that NFC tablets were heading our way NXP squashed that misconception at 4G World a couple of weeks ago as Jeff Miles Vice President Mobile Transactions Worldwide at NXP announced that NXP was currently working on over 100 NFC devices that was made up of 10 NFC tablets and around 90 NFC phones. We have some video of this announcement we will put up on the site within the next week or so. However, this shows that tablet manufacturers are starting to see NFC as a must-have feature to be competitive.

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NFC Rumors reporting everything NFC from 4G World

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NFC Rumors reporting everything NFC from 4G World

Tomorrow the NFC Rumors team hits Chicago and 4G World to cover the near field communication goodness going on. We will be at the NFC summit to see Koichi Tagawa, the Chairman of the NFC Forum, give a speech. Also, we will be reporting live from Osama Bedier’s Keynote speaking about Google Wallet. However, many more near field communication industry superstars like Constratus, Sequent Software, ViVOtech, Yankee Group and Inside Secure will all be appearing on stage throughout the summit.

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NFC Chip Shipments to Surpass 1.2 Billion by 2015

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NFC Chip Shipments to Surpass 1.2 Billion by 2015 according to In-Stat

In-Stat forecasts that NFC Chip shipments will surpass 1.2 billion by 2015. We all know near field communication is growing, but it is always nice to see research houses like In-Stat put some figures to it, and 1.2 billion represents a good portion of the population of the world. With just over 1 in every 5 people globally having access to NFC capabilities in just over 3 years, this just goes to show that the growth of near field communication is set to be rampant. That said, In-Stat are more conservative when it comes to NFC payments, projecting that only 375 million users will be using NFC payments by 2015. That’s just over the population of the United States, which seems a little on the low end to us.

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Best Buy and Disney join the list for NFC payments USA

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Best Buy and Walt Disney parks added to the list of speakers at NFC Payments USA

NFC Payments USA is shaping up to be a big affair for industry stakeholders with the addition of Best Buy and Walt Disney parks to the list of speakers. They join AT&T, Samsung, PayPal, Fifth Third Bank, Citigroup, American Express, ING DIRECT, Isis, Nokia, U.S. Bank, TD Bank, Rogers Communications and MasterCard. The conference will bring together 150 NFC experts in one location for the first time in US to discuss how the nascent industry is going to map out the best strategies for successful roll out of NFC payment services.

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Multiple Secure Elements to grow NFC Market above $1 Billion in 2016

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Multiple Secure Elements to grow NFC Market above $1 Billion in 2016 says ABI Research

The ability to fit NFC phones with multiple Secure Elements is projected to propel the NFC IC industry to a value of $1.3 billion in the NFC phone market by 2016 according to ABI Research. The recent announcements of Broadcom’s BCM2079x NFC chip which has enables multiple Secure Elements on a single NFC phone, is a game changer according to ABI. The facts and figures fun doesn’t stop there though. ABI Research also project that in 2016 227 million NFC phones or NFC devices will ship with multiple Secure Elements.

Research analyst Phil Sealy says, “The issues affecting the location of the secure element remain a hot topic and although progress has been made there remains uncertainty among ecosystem players.”

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Windows 8 NFC tablets launching 3rd Quarter 2012?

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Windows 8 NFC tablets launching 3rd Quarter 2012? UPDATED

We could be seeing Windows 8 NFC tablets by the third quarter of 2012 according to DigiTimes. Large PC vendors that include Hewlett-Packard and Dell reportedly intend to venture into Windows 8 NFC tablets. What is interesting is the reason why. In short, the reason that Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablets are looking so good to large manufacturers is because of Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire has begun a price war among Android tablet makers.

The larger tablet manufacturers therefore see Windows 8 NFC tablets the best bet to avoid competition. Although they will pick up licensing fees from Microsoft, which is presumably cheaper than the discounts they would have to give on Android devices.

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Panasonic BizPad NFC tablets announced in 7 and 10 inch flavors

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Yet more NFC tablets for Japan as Panasonic announces a 7 and 10 inch enterprise BizPad

Panasonic is launching their NFC tablets they like to call the BizPad in Japan, and they are coming in both 7″ and 10″ flavors. NFC tablets have been slow to make their way to the United States. Microsoft whet our appetites when the gave out NFC tablets at the Windows 8 Build Developer Conference and apart from that, nada, zip, nothing from any other manufacturer. Although we have heard whispers of an NFC tablet or two making their way to the States before the holidays. At this point, they are still vaporware.

We have already seen Sharp enterprise NFC tablets hit the market in Japan, and Panasonic seems to be following up with its own offerings. The two Panasonic NFC tablets are the 7″ LCD display toting BizPad JT-580VT, and the larger 10.1-inch LCD JT-581VT. Just like the Sharp NFC tablets that came before them, they are only available to the enterprise set. These non-identical twins are rocking Honeycomb instead of Froyo.

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CSI globalVCard app launches for iOS and BlackBerry, NFC to come later

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CSI globalVCard app launches with support for its business virtual credit card app on iOS and BlackBerry devices, NFC to come later

Last month CSI Enterprises launched their CSI globalVCard virtual business credit card app for Android. This month the company is adding support for iOS and BlackBerry devices while promising NFC payments capabilities in a future update. Virtual credit cards are set to become a security product that allows both businesses and consumers to protect their real banking details as they create and use virtual cards which act as smaller sub accounts that users transfer money into and then use that account exclusively in NFC mobile wallets such as Google Wallet. However, for businesses, an application like the CSI globalVCard allows them to put money on employees’ virtual cards that businesses create for trackable expenses. The CSI globalVCard app for iPhones and iPads is already available in the app store, and CSI is promising that the BlackBerry app will be available by the end of October. At this time the CSI globalVCard app is not NFC enabled and the company has stated that this will change in a future update that will add PayPass support for NFC payments.

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