T-Mobile hocks NFC BlackBerry Curve 9360 for $79 September 28th

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T-Mobile will hock you a BlackBerry Curve 9360 for $79 September 28th

We have seen the BlackBerry Curve 9360 NFC phone before. Back then it was known as the BlackBerry Curve Apollo. Now the NFC phone has a carrier buddy in T-Mobile, which means you can get one for the affordable price of $79 after a $50 mail in rebate. Remember the BlackBerry Curve 9360 comes sans a touch screen so don’t get your heart broken if that’s what you wanted. However, the little BlackBerry Curve 9360 does have quite a lot going for it as you can see below in the specifications.

In the technical sense the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is an NFC phone, but don’t be surprised if when you get your new NFC pocket mate the NFC is switched off at the software level. We exclusively revealed that RIM has not fully built out and worked out the bugs in their NFC drivers as yet, but you will at least have a phone that will be NFC capable at some time in the future. If you look below in the press release, you will see no word on the NFC capabilities that the phone was originally marketed with. We have been assured by people close to the situation that the NFC chip is still there, just waiting to be woken up with a software update.

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Kovio raises a cool $15 million for NFC printing, NFC barcodes arrive

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Kovio raises a cool $15 million for NFC printing to produce NFC barcodes

You may or may not be aware, but printed electronics is a massive business and Kovio has announced it has raised enough capital to start printing NFC barcodes. This news first broke in June, but with today’s NFC tag announcements we thought we would revisit an up and coming technology. The humble barcode has been with us for many years. It first help digitize retailers’ stock and formed the basis of stock-based ordering (automatically ordering when stock gets low). NFC tags have long been thought to eventually take the place of barcodes, until today when Kovio announced that it had managed to produce NFC barcodes that will revolutionize retail for both merchants and consumers. Many groups have attempted printing NFC circuits with inks and many have had poor yields from the technology. In some quarters, refining inks so that they are reliable and can be used for NFC has been the holy grail, and from Kovio’s announcement it sounds like they have cracked it.

Funding for Kovio and its NFC printing that it uses to produce NFC barcodes

The majority of the Kovio funding has come from Tyco who have an obvious vested interest in retail packaging.  ”As the market opportunity for mobile interactive platforms evolve, the funding will enable Kovio and Tyco Retail Solutions to deliver solutions that take advantage of the emerging infrastructure of Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled devices and printed silicon capabilities. Current investors Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, Northgate Capital, Harris & Harris, Flagship Ventures and Pangaea Ventures also participated in the round,” the company said.

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Will you get the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime? Is leaking the details a crime?

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Wax lyrical information leaker publishes NFC Samsung Nexus Prime details to Twitter in a poem

Will you get the NFC Nexus Prime? Is leaking the details a crime? We want to be sure, this guy is no bore, but without proof his poem’s not worth a dime.

Poetry is not dead when it comes to rumors, and last night saw the beginning of yet another poem that leaks information about the upcoming NFC Samsung Nexus Prime. The Samsung Nexus Prime is said to be the next Google Nexus hero phone that will debut with Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Rumors have been rife about the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime all summer and we have even seen Samsung confirm the phone’s existence when it threatened someone who has potentially got a hold of an Android build for the new NFC wonder phone.

Late last night Twitter user @tfleming223 started to recite a poem of his or her own making that started to potentially reveal some details about the upcoming NFC Samsung Nexus Prime hero phone. However, @tfleming223 would only release information, or the next line when he got to a certain amount of followers. That’s a bit corny, but does ensure his message gets out to the masses. From what we can gather so far, the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime is due to be released on the 3rd of November and is likely to be a world phone at that. The accuracy of this poem is completely unknown but it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened and been absolutely correct. Hit the break for the poem so far.

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Gentag gets touchy feely with NFC skin tags patent

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Gentag announces that it has been awarded a patent for its NFC skin tags

User access and social uses are expected to be major growth areas for NFC tags in the next year, which is what makes Gentag and its new patent for NFC skin tags is so important. When we look at the bigger picture of NFC we come to a concept called “the internet of things”, which to speaks to a world where miniature sensors are hooked up to most things in our life from grocery products to medicines.

From alarm clocks to TVs and cards – the concept is that the cloud is where our lives will be managed and everything we own and do will be updating our cloud services or updating organizations we choose to share information with. If you are thinking that sounds a little 1984 for your liking, we hear you but who knows what legislation and protection could come along with technology that enhances/detracts from our quality of life in such a radical way.

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Monitise snags a UK virtual payment cards patent

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Monitise snags a UK virtual payment cards patent

Monitise today announced that it had been awarded a patent in the UK for virtual payment cards.

UK outfit Monitise today announced that it has been granted a patent for virtual payment cards like the ones we have seen with Citi and Google Wallet and exactly the same as CSI’s virtual cards program that we covered a few months back. The patent has been granted in the UK covers virtual payment cards that are separate to any bank account that consumers top up which reduces any risk of a would-be thief getting account or card details. The theory is sound, and protects consumers whether they are shopping online or whether they choose to use virtual payment cards with an NFC mobile wallet.

Whereas NFC mobile wallets are safe, there is always a risk just as there is by using a traditional bank card or credit card. Virtual payment cards negates that risk by only having the funds you want to risk within your virtual account. Monitise generates the “virtual payment cards details” on the mobile phone to enable a consumer to shop in a secure way without them having to divulge data from their credit or debit cards such as personal account numbers, card expiry dates and security codes. The consumer chooses which account to use as the funding account for the virtual payment cards.

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Samsung Wave 578 hitting Orange UK soon with NFC payments

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Samsung Wave 578 hitting Orange UK with NFC payments, “coming soon page” fills in the blanks

Well, it’s only been waiting to shine in the light since February this year, but finally we are seeing signs of the Samsung Wave 578 NFC phone actually coming to market soon with NFC payments tagging along for the ride. The UK has bared the Samsung Tocco Lite for long enough and now is ready for a slight upgrade on their budget NFC phone choices. Orange UK has now slung up a “coming soon” page that shows off some of the specifications of the Samsung Wave 578, which now joins the growing posse of Wave NFC phones that are all sporting Bada 2.0. However, unlike its brethren, the Samsung Wave 578 will be a fully capable NFC payments phone which may give us a clue that Orange is getting ready to get into the NFC mobile wallet business in earnest  by supporting another Barclaycard “Quick Tap” NFC phone.

“We are spearheading the third biggest revolution in the mobile arena, after mobile voice services and the explosion in mobile data. Mobile contactless services will change people’s daily lives. We’re very pleased that partners like Samsung are helping us to accelerate these plans.” Anne Bouverot, Executive Vice President of Orange’s Mobile Services, said at the device’s launch party.

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NFC Watch coming to market in 2012??

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NFC Watch coming to market in 2012? Bizarre press release leaves us in the dark, but with plenty of stories

Winwatch is an RFID and NFC watch maker headquartered in Switzerland with a presence in China also. Here at NFC Rumors we see a lot of  press releases hit our inbox, but today we saw one that just plain left us wondering what was going on. Until today we hadn’t heard of Winwatch or their NFC watch products and we are still a little confused as to what the company is actually selling, but it nonetheless sounds interesting. The press release doesn’t really give us a lot of information other than you can pre-order an NFC watch that connects to your NFC phone with a tap. There is apparently also a growing number of apps that the NFC watch supports and once NFC apps are loaded on your NFC phone the watch will somehow interact with the phone.

The company describes its NFC watch as being fashioned in a diving watch style, although it is unclear whether the NFC watch is actually waterproof. The company encourages people to pre-order the watch, but upon visiting the website that is not given in the press release we could find nowhere to actually see the watch, let alone pre-order it.  What puzzles us even more is that the NFC watch works with Android or Symbian devices, so we are not sure whether that means that there will be multiple versions of the watch or if one device does it all which strikes us as unlikely. Our favorite phrase in the NFC watch press release below is “you are the storyteller!” In fact, we like “you are the story teller!” so much we are thinking about making it the NFC Rumors site slogan. NFC Rumors says, you too can tell super lucky shiny happy fancy stories with your friends and their dogs and their submarines. We challenge you to come up with more obscure phrases to describe the NFC watch in the comments.

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NFC pairs the Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth headset to your NFC phone, perfect for the Gym

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NFC pairs the Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth headset to your NFC phone and joins Nokia’s growing collection of NFC-enabled headsets

Nokia has yet another NFC / Bluetooth headset to add to its growing collection. Earlier this week we brought you the news about the potential sighting of the Nokia 801 NFC phone in a video shown at the IFA trade show in Berlin. In that video we got a couple of glimpses of the Nokia BH-505 NFC pairing Bluetooth headset. The Nokia BH-505 was announced back in May, but we really haven’t seen anything more about it here in the States. It has been available in Europe for some time and is for sale in the United States. Nokia didn’t really market this NFC headset, so for many of you this could be the first time you have heard about them. A few weeks ago Nokia enabled the NFC in the Nokia C7 NFC phone with a Symbian Anna update and now the Nokia BH-505 is becoming useful in a whole new way.

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HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network

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HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network, it’s fast!

The HTC Holiday NFC phone seems to get caught out in public more than a teenage pop star. Today it was seen out in the field in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas testing the new AT&T LTE network. The image we have was sent to BGR and we have to say it is not the normal blurrycam photos we are used to seeing. The word on the street is that the HTC Holiday, or HTC Waikiki, which is another potential name for the device, could be AT&T’s inaugural LTE device that launches its LTE network later this year.  From a network perspective, this image shows the HTC Holiday topping out at a crazy fast 29Mbps, which looks good for Ma’Bells network. Although, we have to remember it is an empty market at the moment that the testers have to themselves. Even based on that, it is faster than speeds we have seen on Verizon’s network. Let’s just hope that Light Squared and its even newer LTE network makes AT&T’s look slow with equipment that gets faster from deployment to deployment. The HTC Holiday / HTC Waikiki is an Android device that is rumored to be one of the first Ice Cream Sandwich devices along with the Verizon Droid Prime, which up until this point we have known as the Samsung Nexus Prime.

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view TV with Zoosh, will add NFC later

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view (CAM) TV capabilities with Naratte’s Zoosh, and plans to add NFC later

French company, Neotion, has enabled the world’s first mobile to conditional access module using Narrate’s NFC “like” Zoosh technology. Neotion’s innovation allows TVs to communicate with phones and tablets using Zoosh’s inaudible sound, and like other Naratte developments works, without any need for an NFC chip, tags or any other paraphernalia. TV has been a one-sided conversation for too long and that limitation to a large degree has seen the decline of TV audiences that are increasingly switching to the web to view and interact with content.

As a society, we now live in an on-demand world where we want the content we want, when we want, delivered perfectly to a device of our choosing and using Netflix as a perfect example we don’t even mind paying a little to get it. The nature of that on-demand content consumption has created opportunities for VOD (video-on-demand) and pay-per-view but until recently you had to call your provider or order this content through a clunky TV user interface that could not be described as frictionless.

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Stollmann acquires HARMAN, Automotive NFC infotainment system to follow

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NFC may sound great soon as Stollmann adds near field communications to HARMAN in car infotainment systems

Stollmann acquires high-end audio company HARMAN, Automotive NFC infotainment system to follow

How would you like NFC capabilities in your car that could allow you to connect your phone to your infotainment system? If Stollmann has its way that is exactly what you are going to get. The German company, Stollmann, has made an exciting acquisition and has bought itself an audiophile’s dream. It has purchased the audio manufacturer HARMAN, which is known for its high-end audio brands like AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. HARMAN’s brand are known in all audio venues including home cinema and computer speakers, but what has caught Stollman’s eye is the fact that HARMAN has a lovely auto infotainment business that it would like to add some NFC goodness to. Where we come from, that’s just manner from heaven and the blending of two of our favorite technologies.

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Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

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Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

If you are an Android app dev, like the sound of NFC capabilities and want to get the low down from those in the know, you will make sure you are in Boston on September 13th – 15th for Isobar Create 48.

If you live somewhere round the Boston area or can get there between September 13th and the 15th, you can take part in a unique experience the guys and gals from FutureM are calling Isobar Create 48. The point of the get n’ code together event is to explore the possibilities of Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is going to be built into products, services and marketing from here on out and for those with some solid knowledge of managing NFC developments, the future will likely be bright. The Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon will be the first of its kind to explore the NFC chip inside the Google Nexus S and find greater uses for this NFC. The Isobar Create 48 organizers are inviting local developers, programmers and hackers to create what they see as their visions for uses of NFC technology.

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Canadian NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE heading to Rogers this fall

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NFC Samsung Galaxy S II rocking LTE heading to Rogers Canada this fall

Oh Canada, Oh Canada you get a Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II (we don’t think that rhymes but you get the point). Okay, well the Americans didn’t fare well with today’s Samsung announcements. Our hearts sank as we learned that Samsung was dealing out no NFC on any US network for the long awaited Samsung Galaxy S II variants. That said, until the machines have a tear down we won’t know that for sure since Samsung is rumored to be fitting NFC in an inactive state and then switching it on later when carriers ask them to. Will America get an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II? The chances are looking bleak today. Back to Canada and the Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II though.

Samsung has finally started releasing the by now legendary and possibly aging NFC Samsung Galaxy S II to North America. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint had their announcements earlier and Canada’s Rogers appears to have trumped them all by getting the NFC Samsung’s Galaxy S II version for their network which is in line with the news lately that suggests Rogers is deploying NFC payments. Canadians won’t get their hands on their version of the Samsung Galaxy S II until later in the fall, but we can at least know what’s on its way now.

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Fujitsu launches F-09c, F-11C and F-10C NFC phones on DoCoMo

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Fujitsu F-09c, F-10C, F-11C waterproof NFC phones with AuthenTec biometric fingerprint sensors hits NTT DoCoMo Japan with a 16.3-megapixel camera

Fujitsu, in partnership with AuthenTec, have released a trio of new NFC phones: the F-09c, F-10C and F-11C. The bevy of NFC phone goodness comes with AuthenTec biometric fingerprint sensors and have debuted on DoCoMo Japan. However, we have seen documentation that suggests that the NFC phones are also heading to Europe after they passed through the European version of the FCC. No word as yet as to whether we could see these NFC phones Stateside, but we do know that the phones include AuthenTec’s AES1750 smart sensor for multiple touch-powered features, including one-touch security and personalization.

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Nokia commits to NFC in all mobile phones from now on

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Nokia commits to NFC in all mobile phones from now on including upcoming WP7 phones

Nokia has installed NFC chips in all of the phones the Finnish handset maker has launched this year – the Nokia C7 / Astound and the Nokia N9. Nokia just this last week also announced the Nokia 600, Nokia 700 and the Nokia 701 which all feature NFC (near field communications). So far, in the new NFC phone market Nokia, and to a lesser extent BlackBerry, have been the biggest manufacturers to embrace near field communications technology in their phones. However, Nokia has been playing with NFC for years and have been involved in multiple use case projects. The company has recently also launched its NFC-Hub website that concentrates on the marketing uses for NFC. This supported the Museum of London in enabling visitors to learn more and hear the sounds of London using NFC phones and NFC tags to provide immersive experiences. Nokia at this point is famed for now including NFC payments secure elements as they want to concentrate on NFC’s other capabilities that include content sharing, content marketing and social NFC.

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NFC Payments USA to Bring Industries Together for NFC Progress

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NFC Payments USA to Bring Industries Under One Roof for NFC

The upcoming conference NFC Payments USA is North America’s first NFC Payments event and is completely dedicated to near field communications (NFC). If you read our last post introducing our readers to the event, you will know that NFC Payments USA is the much anticipated conference that is joining all NFC-related industries under one roof for two days to discuss and share the future of NFC and its potential pitfalls and successes. Sounds like our kind of event!

NFC Payments USA Conference to be a Venue for Industry Leaders to Propel NFC

As our readers already know, NFC has great potential to change the world – not just in business, banking and purchasing actions. NFC technology has the potential to facilitate real world change by providing open communications, opportunities, and breaking down boundaries that have persisted in dividing the world’s people by their economies.

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Samsung due to announce an upgraded Samsung Galaxy S II LTE Super phone at IFA?

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Samsung due to announce an upgraded Samsung Galaxy S II LTE Super phone at the IFA show?

There is plenty of Samsung Galaxy S II news and rumors circulating at the moment. A latest tidbit reported by SammyHub has caught our attention firmly and brought up more questions than answers. We knew and reported earlier  that Samsung will be making some announcements at the IFA trade show this next week and we knew there would likely be some news on the 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Samsung had also hinted at a new phone being unveiled in the videos we also posted. Obviously the Samsung Galaxy S II is hot news here in the US due to the fact that Samsung has a press event on Tuesday to officially out the US variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II, but the rumors just keep on coming. The latest claim is that Samsung intends to out an upgraded version of the Samsung Galaxy S II at the IFA, which is said to be a superphone. We don’t know if this new phone will be NFC-enabled and only have the vaguest of rumors to go on at this point and they suggest the answer is yes.

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HTC Holiday to be an Android NFC phone?

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HTC Holiday to be an Android NFC phone?

Will we see an HTC Holiday NFC phone for the holidays? Recent rumors suggesting HTC is readying a new superphone have been bouncing around for sometime. However, in an interesting twist International Business Times (IBT) posted an article yesterday claiming that it is aware of rumors that suggest that the HTC Holiday is an NFC phone. If the rumors are correct, this will mean we can add yet another Android NFC phone to the list of fall releases which starts to allow Google pull away from competitors with regards to NFC support. That said, both Nokia and BlackBerry certainly haven’t been devoid of spreading some NFC love, but their phones currently do not support NFC payments, where Android NFC phones are expected to. We had seen the photos of the HTC Holiday a while back and quite frankly, it didn’t catch our attention because of its lack of NFC capabilities, but this new rumored phone has our ears pricked and our gaze widened now.

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Steve Jobs resigns as Apple’s CEO and an era that won’t be repeated comes to an end

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Steve Jobs resigns as Apple’s CEO and an era that won’t be repeated comes to an end

There have been whispers about Apple’s Board of Directors looking for a replacement for Steve Jobs (if there could be such a thing) for months now. However, the sad day has dawned and Steve Jobs has stepped down as the CEO of Apple Inc. I think we all know that Steve Jobs has battled with health problems over the last few years and he leaves Apple, after founding it and then coming back in the best state it has ever been. That achievement will probably never be eclipsed at the company. Steve recommended that Tim Cook takes on the role of CEO at Apple from this point on.

Steve Jobs resignation letter

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

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Nokia Essence Stereo Headset that uses NFC to pair with Bluetooth announced

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Nokia Essence Stereo Headset that uses NFC to pair with Bluetooth announced

It’s been quite the day for Nokia and NFC as it announced three new NFC phones – its new Symbian Belle mobile OS, which is riddled with NFC features, and here we have the Nokia Essence Stereo Headset which uses NFC to pair with Bluetooth. We think think these new headphones were inspired by the Nokia 600 NFC phone that was announced earlier today, because it is being promoted as a music focused smartphone. Aside from being NFC-enabled and the first NFC headphones on the market, these little ear buds have some pretty neat features outside of NFC.

Nokia Essence Stereo Headset Features and NFC pairing

If you read our last post, you will already know that Symbian Belle has been given a lot of room to shine when it comes to NFC . One area of NFC that is yet to see a lot of development is speakers, earbuds, earphones and media receivers that use NFC to hand over to Bluetooth. Nokia has, in fact, been at the forefront of that move and outside of the electronics company, Parrot is the only outfit we know of who have released NFC audio pairing devices. After the N9 was announced, Nokia showed us the 360 play speakers which you can see in the video below and a couple of NFC media receivers.

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Nokia announces three new NFC phones the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 all toting Symbian Belle

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Nokia announces three new NFC phones the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 all toting Symbian Belle

Nokia today trotted out not one, not two, but three new NFC phones. The Nokia 700, the Nokia 701 and the Nokia 600 are official and are all touting Symbian Belle and are all NFC smartphones. We have covered all of these NFC phones in our rumors over the last couple of months, but it’s great to see them all come to market with a bang. Whereas the specifications hadn’t altered much from the leaked roadmap we reported on a month or so ago, there are certainly more details available starting with the release date. Nokia has said that the NFC phones will be released in the third quarter and we have heard that it could be as soon as the next few days when we get some carrier details. These may be the last days of Symbian and a non-Microsoft Nokia, but it appears they are going out with a bang. So, without further ado let’s get down to the nitty gritty details you love.

Nokia 700 / Nokia Zeta NFC phone

Up until today, we have known the Nokia 700 as the Zeta. Nokia is claiming that the Nokia 700 NFC phone is the world’s most compact monoblock smartphone. With dimensions of only 50 cubic centimeters, weighing 96gm and at 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm, it isn’t going to weigh you down or bulge your pockets.

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Pick up the BlackBerry Curve 9350 NFC phone on Sprint for just $79.99

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Pick up the BlackBerry Curve 9350 NFC phone on Sprint for just $79.99

RIM trotted out some new NFC phones today, one being the BlackBerry Curve 9350. We already knew most of the specifications on this phone but it’s always nice when it gets official. We’ll get to the specs in a few, but wanted to let you know that the BlackBerry Curve 9350 NFC phone already has a home on Sprint and will be available on Friday, September 9th for a rather affordable $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. As smartphones go, the BlackBerry Curve 9350 isn’t going to attract those who want bleeding edge specifications and probably sits in the middle of the market. We were struck by how similar the hardware specifications are between the BlackBerry Curve 9350 and the Huawei Sonic are, aside from one being GSM and one being CDMA that is. The BlackBerry Curve 9350 has siblings that work with other networks but we will get to them in another post.

BlackBerry Curve 9350 NFC phone specifications

Other BlackBerry NFC phones have shipped with NFC turned off. The BlackBerry Curve 9350 on Sprint, however, is a functioning NFC phone.

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The Vodafone Footprint on NFC Progress

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Don’t know Vodafone? Here’s your introduction.

Here in the US, the Vodafone name and brand is not nearly as pervasive as it is in many other parts of the world, but that doesn’t mean that Vodafone doesn’t have its hand in the American pie. Are you a Verizon subscriber? Then you’re a Vodafone subscriber. As a major shareholder (45%) of Verizon, who has the largest number of mobile subscribers in the US,Vodafone can still make certain that its influence on the market is significant with or without the brand recognition.

If you have read any number of posts by our very own Seth, you’ll know that Vodafone is mentioned in every NFC joint venture and mobile partnership and plays a hefty hand in the future stakes of NFC. So, for those of us who didn’t grow up in the rest of the world – who is Vodafone and why should we be paying attention?

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NFC tags and Nokia invade the Museum of London

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NFC tags and Nokia invade the Museum of London

Last week, we reported that the Museum of London had embraced NFC throughout its exhibits with a helping hand from the people over at Nokia and a few NFC tags. Thanks to the project, yet another use case has been brought to fruition for NFC phones and NFC tags that have nothing to do with payments. Exhibits in the London Museum have smart posters with NFC tags embedded, and visitors can wave their near field communications enabled phones over those tags and hear sounds of past eras in London’s long and eventful history. This was achieved with a new app that Nokia built for the museum called Sound Track to London. The development doesn’t end there though, visitors can also get more information about any particular exhibit they are looking at by again using the NFC tag located close by. Visitors can also then get access to discounts at the museum store, and can use NFC to redeem those discounts. All in all, the Museum of London is pretty excited about near field communications and is even looking to add some augmented reality goodness to the mix in future versions of the app.

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NFC tablet brought to market in the form of the Sharp RW-T107

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NFC tablet brought to market in the form of the Sharp RW-T107 Gingerbread-toting tablet

Sharp Japan has just announced its first NFC tablet, the Sharp RW-T107. It runs on Android Gingerbread  and has an NFC chip built in. Sharp, a company who has long been associated with TVs and home entertainment systems, has recently been gearing up its product lines with phones and tablets galore. The new Sharp RW-T107 is likely to be a Japan-only slate at this point, as the company intends to manufacture 5000 units per month. However, now both TazTag and Sharp have NFC tablets in the wild which adds some more fuel to the fire to encourage other OEMs to get on board with their own NFC tablet devices. The Sharp RW-T107 has a 7-inch capacitive touch panel with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, which makes it a great size for consumers to carry about and for merchants to use as POS interfaces and we expect to see a lot of retailers take on NFC tablet devices in the next 12 months. Samsung is also reputed to be launching the Galaxy Tab, which is a 7-incher that will be announced on September 1st in Berlin. We will have to wait to see whether it, too, is an NFC tablet.

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