INSIDE Secure allows you to turn your phone into an NFC phone

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INSIDE Secure allows you to turn your phone into an NFC phone

INSIDE Secure today announced its NFC card emulation solution that fits into a standard SIM card form factor. NFC SIM and NFC microSD cards are not new. So when the product comes to market, it will enable non-NFC phones. However, so far many NFC SIM and NFC microSD solutions haven’t gives a great NFC experience. Because these solutions are slotted inside of phones that weren’t designed with NFC in mind, other components have often affected read and write distances and generally held these products back. INSIDE Secure’s new solution is said to achieve industry standard 4cm or greater contactless read distances in a mobile device with an antenna footprint of less than 1cm2. If these performance claims are true, NFC SIM and NFC microSD solutions could be deployed en masse.

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NFC social check-ins come of age with RewardAble marketing platform

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NFC social check-ins come of age with RewardAble marketing platform

Has the NFC social check-in just come of age with RewardAble and its NFC loyalty marketing platform? Betapond has announced today that it has built an NFC social check-in platform it likes to call RewardAble. RewardAble is a social media check-in marketing platform that enables brands and retailers to grow participation through instant rewards for consumers for who check-in on Facebook or Foursquare on their NFC smartphone. Betapond is Ireland’s only Facebook Preferred Developer. RewardAble is a stand-alone subsidiary of Betapond, which was announced at a Innovation in Entertainment Showcase event in Sony Pictures Hollywood.  The company is using a viral expansion loop marketing model that rewards participants when they check-in and share their location with friends on social networks. By using NFC at check-in places, the process of taking part in the RewardAble platform is frictionless.

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Did Nokia just out its Nokia 801 Symbian Belle NFC phone by mistake?

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Unannounced, previously unseen Nokia 801 Symbian Belle NFC phone shown in demo video at the IFA trade show

Some are a calling it the Nokia 801 NFC phone, others thinks it’s the Nokia N8-01. Whatever you want to call it, a video being shown at the IFA trade show in Berlin was showing off a 3D render of an NFC phone we haven’t seen before. A particularly svelte looking piece of NFC loving hardware at that, and with Nokia’s own brand of industrial design cues that would make Apple weep into their big pot of money.

We want to preface this post by letting you know this falls into the dubious rumor category at this point, but could be a real NFC phone we are yet to see come to fruition. No one can say that IFA hasn’t had its share of drama this year with the 7″ Samsung slate being pulled from the floor and now the sighting of what appears to be a previously unseen Nokia Symbian Belle NFC phone. The show has been akin to a tiara tantrum at a beauty pageant this year which we find most amusing, we have to say.

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Nokia N9 launching in Australia on three mobile networks this October

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Nokia N9 NFC phone launching in Australia on three mobile networks this October

Australia is going to get the Nokia N9 NFC phone next month (October) on three – count them, three – mobile network operators. Optus, Telsta and Vodafone have all signed up to bring another NFC phone down under. The Nokia N9 was denied the option of heading to the States, the UK and Germany but Australia has got lucky and will receive its Nokia N9 slabs of MeeGo goodness next month and Nokia has even put up a page to let you sign up to find out the exact date it will be in your area. The old Nokia is in its death throws before it shuts up shop and reopens as a Windows Phone only house, but the gang from Espoo want to go out with a bang and the Nokia N9 definitely qualifies in that arena of quirky coolness.

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Nokia Symbian Belle announced with NFC features

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Nokia Symbian Belle announced with NFC features for new Nokia 700, 701 and 600 plus many more Nokia smartphones

The Nokia news is coming hard and fast today, and joining Nokia’s new NFC phone is the latest, greatest and probably last rendition of the once mighty Symbian mobile OS. Nokia announced Symbian Belle today exactly as it promised on its Facebook page earlier this week. This new upgrade news comes just over one week after the Nokia C7 Astound, Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01 and Nokia E7 got access to Symbian Anna and the C7 had its NFC turned on for the first time. Nokia’s Symbian Belle builds on those strengths and then some, so let’s look at what’s new.

Nokia Symbian Belle features

The first thing to know is that many of the new features revolve around NFC. Not all the phones that will be eligible for the Symbian Belle upgrade will have an NFC chip installed so obviously won’t be able to benefit from that specific set of functions. First out of the gate is Symbian’s new 6 home screen setup which works very much like an iPhone’s different screens for you to store apps and widgets. The second new feature is the dynamic widgets which ships with live widgets for chat, email and social updates that are housed straight on one of those six new fancy home screens.

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Symbian Anna available for download brings NFC to Nokia C7 Astound

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Symbian Anna available for download brings NFC to C7 Astound

We reported that the C7 Astound would have its Symbian Anna NFC chip turned on some time ago. It’s taken its sweet time but Nokia today released its Symbian Anna update for the Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01 and Nokia E7. We, however, are only interested in one of those phones and the new NFC capability that the update brings. The Nokia C7 / Astound has been the equivalent of a flightless bird since launch. It has the NXP NFC chip inside but that chip has been well and truly powered off until today. Owners of the Nokia C7 Astound can now start to enjoy some of the benefits that Symbian Anna and NFC have to offer inclusive of the NFC-enabled Angry Birds game. NFC tags have also become readable and writable as well as a whole host of other uses. What won’t be available is mobile payments. The Nokia C7 Astound doesn’t have a secure element built in, nor does it have support for any other form of secure element to be added. With other NFC phones, microSD and NFC SIM cards can be added but Nokia is championing NFC without payments at this time, and from what we have heard won’t change that stance until Windows Phone 8 is launched next year when Nokia is widely expected to launch NFC WP8 phones with NFC secure elements which will probably come from NXP.

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NFC Nokia Astound for T-Mobile free with contract

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NFC Nokia Astound for T-Mobile free with contract

If you are in the market for an NFC-enabled handset that doesn’t cost very much in upfront mullah, you may want to take a look at the NFC Nokia Astound. T-Mobile, via its website is currently giving the NFC Nokia Astound away at no charge as long as an accompanying 2-year agreement for service is signed up for. UPDATEWe even found it where you get $25 back, see below.

I have never heard of the NFC Nokia Astound, what’s it like?

If the NFC Nokia Astound passed you by when it launched in March and you know nothing about it let us fill you in on a few details. In essence it is a smartphone that runs on Nokia’s Symbian mobile OS and is cut from the same cloth as Nokia’s new C7 flagship model. Oddly, nowhere in the marketing for the NFC Nokia Astound does it mention it is NFC-enabled, not on the Nokia website and not on the T-Mobile site either, but it is. Even more strange than having an in-demand feature that is not marketed is the fact that when you get the NFC Nokia Astound home, you have to manually enable the NFC chip inside. The phone even ships with NFC tag writing software so we are unsure why this would not be highlighted on phone specifications, but hey ho, it’s got the good stuff and that’s all that matters.

Source: Cellhub.comMobileBurn

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