Hello NFC Transponders: Identive Group “Identifies” another way to Save Energy and Low-Cost

Posted by Cole Jones

1comments

According to 4-Traders, near field communication (NFC) products have been introduced by Identive Group, the radio frequency identification (RFID) provider, using Sony’s FeliCa Lite chip technology.

read more

Time Added to the Hourglass: XPERIA Ion uses NFC to Save Consumers Time

Posted by Cole Jones

1comments

Time Added to the Hourglass: XPERIA Ion uses NFC to Save Consumers Time

Let’s chat it up about the Sony Xperia Ion, the LTE version of the Xperia S, available on the AT&T 4G network. Earlier this year in January, following CES we did a piece on Sony’s NFC speakers for Xperia NFC smartphones, which you can find here. With 4G compatibility, the phone can be used on GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ where LTE is not available on AT&T. The device is part of the new generation of NXT series (next generation) smartphones and displays a 4.6-inch 720p HD Bravia Engine screen. A 12MP camera that goes from having the device off to snapping a picture in 1.5 seconds by holding down on the dual-stage camera shutter button and 1.5 GHZ dual core processor with Android Gingerbread this quarter to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich during the second quarter. In holding the device, we notice the Sony Ericsson’s signature human curvature back (metal, not plastic like the XPERIA S) that allows users to grip the XPERIA Ion comfortably in their hands.

read more

Narian compares NFC to Barcodes with infographic

Posted by Seth Planck

4comments

Narian compares NFC to Barcodes with infographic

The NFC and Barcode battle still looms on, and Narian Technologies has been determined to settle the dispute once and for all with an insightful infographic. QR codes are finally being accepted everywhere with marketers barely putting out a piece of printed collateral without the aforementioned QR code winging its way along for the ride. However, NFC tags have many advantages that QR codes simply can’t attain. Narian builds a strong case for NFC in its infographic that points out the many advantages that NFC holds over barcodes of any description, but that doesn’t mean that barcodes are dead yet. Obviously we favor NFC tags, NFC devices and the ecosystem that is building around the technology. However, we would be remiss if we didn’t play devil’s advocate a little and point out some of the advantages that barcodes have over NFC. So, we will endeavor to give a balanced approach as we go through Narian Technologies’ infographic.

read more

NFC Forum members show of NFC solutions in Frankfurt

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

NFC Forum members show of NFC solutions in Frankfurt

The NFC Forum and some of its members are showing off some NFC solutions over in Frankfurt, Germany this next week. But why? At the end of the day, NFC is just another secure little protocol that has the added ability to work with tags just like its older brother, RFID. It is pretty cool in and of itself, but really nothing to get overly excited about. Strange that coming from us? Not really. We have never been enchanted by the actual technology as it is nothing new or remarkable outside of the fact that a radio frequency can power a small chip and antenna with nothing more than a radio field. NFC operates at 13.56 MHz. Data speeds range from 106 kbit/s to 848 kbit/s. NFC Tags only store small amounts of information, currently between 96 and 512 bytes of memory. Kind of a dry subject matter, eh? It isn’t that NFC isn’t an interesting technology, but it is hardly as bleeding edge as quantum computers and hadron colliders.

read more

Cortus and SST show off low power SOC with NFC secure element uses

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Cortus and SST show off low power SOC with NFC secure element uses

Cortus and SST are showing off a new low power system on chip (SOC) at Embedded World 2012 that could change the industrial design of NFC in smartphones. We don’t need to tell you that everyone wants smaller smartphones with less power consumption. In an era of convergent capabilities and a focus on keeping everything small, competitive OEMs are forced to constantly improve the power consumption and the size solutions take up on a board.

read more

Sound Pound uses NFC to replace traditional high five greetings?

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Sound Pound NFC to replace traditional high five greetings?

The creators of Sound Pound describe their NFC Android app as a replacement for the high five or fist pound. The concept is that you either record a sound or select a file from your NFC smartphone and then assign a contact. When the two devices are unlocked and brought within NFC proximity, both devices will simultaneously play the selected sound.

read more

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

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Fukumi opens bricks and mortar NFC tag store with UPM RFID in Tokyo

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Fukumi opens bricks and mortar NFC tag store with UPM RFID in Tokyo

The Fukumi Corporation has opened the world’s first physical bricks and mortar NFC store in Tokyo. It was bound to happen and it probably isn’t too surprising that it happened in Tokyo, and that UPM RFID were involved. We all know that the humble NFC tag has a huge future ahead of it, embedded in products and for home users to write to and create some fancy actions that simply make life a little easier. However, where to get your NFC tag has thus far involved a search online with a one way information source. So, if you want to know what NFC tag is best for your project you have had no one to ask. With that said, there are Android apps like TapThatTag that help you refine your choices and choose the best NFC tag.

read more

Nintendo Wii U controller to rock NFC to enhance gaming

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Nintendo Wii U controller to rock NFC to enhance gaming

NFC got another boost today as Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, announced that the Wii U controller would feature NFC “function”. The Wii U controller is set to be compatible with both FeliCa for its home audience and MIFARE for the rest of the world. The President of Nintendo even acknowledged that NFC “is expected to be widely used around the world in the near future.”

read more

BlackBerry 3G Playbook with NFC leaks out with 2012 roadmap

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Galaxy Note has NFC onboard AT&T locks it, Ma’Bell’s Galaxy Note Fails

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Galaxy Note has NFC onboard AT&T locks it, Ma’Bell’s Galaxy Note Fails

Just a couple of weeks ago at CES, Samsung told NFC Rumors that the Galaxy Note did not have NFC capabilities. We took a spin around the Android OS and at the software level at least, this appeared to be confirmed. However, Samsung has now done its own tear down on the LTE device and what do we see? Yep, NFC is there. The IC can be clearly seen and the back cover sports an NFC antenna. This means Samsung was either not telling the full truth at CES or their show staff had no idea what was going on. Samsung Tomorrow reports that the specs of the torn down device exactly match the version heading to AT&T. So what gives?

read more

Sequent launches CCS and brings NFC capabilities to apps

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Duly Note[d]: The Galaxy Note is missing at least one very important “note”

Posted by Cole Jones

0comments

Duly Note[d]: Something the Galaxy Note failed to “note”

The rumors were answered at CES about the new Samsung Galaxy Note LTE for AT&T. The smartphone-meets-tablet device, or “superphone”, definitely created something to talk about. The two-in-one is available in carbon blue and ceramic white with AT&T. The highly talked about 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display crushes its competitors (HTC Titan and Nexus S) in size and appearance. The touch of 4G LTE is an added bonus especially for the U.S. market.

read more

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

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

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.

read more

Mobile World Congress NFC rumors leaking left, right and center

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

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.

read more

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

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Sony getting set to launch NFC speaker for Xperia NFC smartphones

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

Inside Secure has announced that it now supports the Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags in its Open NFC protocol stack. Okay, that may be a bit of a clunky headline, so allow us to explain why this is big news and what it means for the adoption of NFC on the whole. The overall goal of NFC tags has been to allow them to become very cost effective, especially for retail usage. The concept that has been flying around over the last few years has been printed NFC tags that use printed silicon to achieve mass market penetration at a fraction of the cost of conventional NFC tags.

read more

Kids going crazy for Activision Skylanders NFC game

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Kids going crazy for Activision Skylanders NFC game, shown off at CES by NXP

NFC gaming is becoming big and Activision is currently benefiting from this new craze with its Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure game that uses an NFC reader / writer and game characters that hold NFC tags. The whole concept of the game is that an evil overlord named Kaos is invading the Skylanders’ world and turned the characters into toys and banished them to Earth. Luckily, kids who own the game and portal (read USB based NFC reader/ writer) can get the characters back to the Skylanders’ home and help them defeat Kaos. There are battles, puzzles and opportunities to add strength and attributes to each character. You can also collect attributes for characters you do not own for if and when you do purchase that NFC tag based character.

read more

Xperia smart tags allow for environmental NFC profiles with NFC tags

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Xperia smart tags allow for environmental NFC profiles with NFC tags

Sony released the Sony Xperia ION and the Sony Xperia S at CES, and Xperia smart tags came along for the ride. We attended the main Sony press conference at CES where there was no word on NFC in any way. Everything was about TVs, video cameras, and the Xperia smartphones got brief mention. NFC wasn’t on the topic of conversation, which is amazing because Sony unveiled more NFC products than any other large consumer electronics giant at the show. One such product was the Xperia smart tag, which comes along as a set with both the Sony Xperia ION and the Sony Xperia S.

read more

BlackBerry Tag deployed already in OS 7.1 update for NFC sharing

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

BlackBerry Tag deployed already in OS 7.1 update with NFC goodness all round

You have probably heard of BlackBerry Tag and its NFC capabilities. We popped over to the Blackberry booth at CES to see Blackberry Tag in action so we could see improvements made to the way the OS deals with NFC. Although we couldn’t see how the new 7.1 OS deals with NFC tags, which was a major issue when the NFC capable BlackBerry smartphones launched, we did see its beaming or sharing features in action. We must say that BlackBerry Tag worked flawlessly in the demo we received from Annu Dawar, who is a Product Manager for Research in Motion.

read more

ZIK Parrot by Starck high-end NFC headphone prototype shown off at CES

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

ZIK Parrot by Starck high-end NFC headphone prototype shown off at CES

Okay, the ZIK Parrot by Starck NFC headphones have been unveiled and we feel lucky enough to count ourselves among the first to see, and probably more relevantly hear them in action. Parrot contacted us before CES and told us that they had something to show us that we would be very interested to see. Turns out they weren’t just hyping. We have been in contact with Parrot for some time, and in that time the firm has hinted to us that they were indeed working on NFC speakers and NFC headphones. We knew whatever product the firm released would be high quality, but the innovation that Parrot showed off at CES surprised even us.

read more

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

Posted by Seth Planck

2comments

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.

read more

WIMA NFC Monaco 2012 calls for papers to be submitted

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

WIMA NFC Monaco 2012 calls for papers to be submitted for its 2012 6th Global NFC Applications Products & Services Congress

As we mentioned in our last post WIMA Monaco is getting closer and here is the opportunity to present in front of delegates at the conference or have your paper published in the conference programme. WIMA generally attracts attendees and speakers from every facet of the burgeoning NFC ecosystem. This year there is also opportunities for Near Field Communication solution providers to make a joint presentation with an end user partner.

read more

NFC Forum and WIMA Monaco call for entries for NFC competition

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NFC Forum and WIMA Monaco call for entries for the Tap Into Innovation: NFC Global Competition 2012

WIMA Monaco is coming up fast, and in our small but rapidly growing industry we like to call NFC, it’s kind of a big deal to win an award at WIMA. The NFC Forum and WIMA get together and put on the Tap Into Innovation: NFC Global Competition every year, and more than a few companies apply for the honor. So, if your firm thrives on being recognized as an innovator in the NFC space and you want your profile raised, it probably wouldn’t hurt you too much to enter the WIMA competition.

read more