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

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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.

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Narian compares NFC to Barcodes with infographic

Posted by Seth Planck

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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.

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NFC Forum members show of NFC solutions in Frankfurt

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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.

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

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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.

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All Access: NFC Altering the Access Control Landscape

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All Access: NFC Altering the Access Control Landscape

Let’s all be honest for a few seconds. I think we all can admit in this social driven economy that we are far more likely to misplace our keys than our mobile devices these days. I know sad, right? Wouldn’t it be such a convenience if our mobile devices could act as keys, giving us access? Imagine a mobile electronic key for access control. Our mobile phones already offer more tools and resources than making calls, receiving calls and texting. Today we use them as cameras, calendar, portable mini computers and even video game consoles. So, when you put things in perspective, loading virtual keys onto your mobile device could be as easy as…well, ringing a doorbell. Of course, thanks to NFC this perspective is very much a reality and is altering the access control landscape as we speak!

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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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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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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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Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

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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.

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Kids going crazy for Activision Skylanders NFC game

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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.

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

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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.

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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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NFC Taxis hit multiple US cities with NBC & VeriFone

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NFC Taxis hit multiple US cities with NBC & VeriFone as they partner for NFC based out-of-home marketing using NBC and Universal content

NBCUniversal has announced that along with VeriFone, it intends to advertise and interact with consumers in captive out-of-home locations starting with NFC taxis in multiple US cities. Consumers can expect to gain access to NBC’s news, information and entertainment programming in more than 12,000 taxi cabs as well as at thousands of gas stations which started a couple of days ago. NBC also plans to use NFC marketing on other digital out-of-home platforms in the future.

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KPMG finds 23 percent of Americans very willing to use their mobile phones as an NFC wallet

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KPMG study finds that 23 percent of Americans very willing to use their smartphones as an NFC mobile wallet

KPMG has released its findings from a new survey it has conducted which found that 23% of Americans are “very willing” to use their NFC smartphones as mobile wallets. That is a quantum shift from where we were last May, but there are still concerns and obstacles to overcome before ubiquity happens. In fact, ubiquity isn’t really expected to happen until 2014, 2015 and onwards. Welcome to the year of NFC adoption.

Last year was the year of NFC discovery and early adopters, and 2012 is getting set up as the year of adoption and devices. Let’s not kid ourselves – 2012 is going to be a rocky path for NFC as it starts to gain traction and becomes a household name; but we will start to see more and more NFC devices hit the market, carriers start to embrace the technology and services to match. By this time next year, millions of consumers will have NFC smartphones and be using them as mobile wallets to varying degrees.

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Privacy Goes Public: Sharing Privacy for a Discount

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Privacy Goes Public: Sharing Privacy for a Discount

First things first – let’s get a little public with this privacy issue, shall we? For most people privacy starts where personal freedom ends. Yet there are many more complexities to the word, from personal snooping to sharing data online. Our focus today – sharing data and privacy. Consumers are concerned with privacy. True. But does that mean they are not willing to share it? False. Face it – as we continue to increase our social status as a global society, the more information we will inevitably share. Disturbing, right? It’s nothing new though. Who doesn’t own a loyalty card for a local grocery or retail store? Your data is held here and collected under your profile so they can ensure they offer products that fit your needs according to your shopping habits. Can we say “Facebook”? If you own a debit card, your bank knows your spending and buying patterns. Heck, they may know your habits better than you do. So, what is all the privacy fuss about?

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UPM RFID sells NFC tag and RFID tag to SMARTRAC closes in Q1 2012

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UPM RFID sells NFC tag and RFID tag to SMARTRAC closes in Q1 2012

The news UPM RFID is selling its NFC tag and RFID inlay business to SMARTRAC hit early this morning. Since then, we have been wondering about the industry impacts this sale could have. SMARTRAC manufactures RFID inlays for electronic passports (e-passports) and contactless credit cards (e-payment) as well as for RFID transponders for public transportation applications. This year has been an acquisition year for SMARTRAC, who has also purchased Neology Inc. and KSW Microtec AG.

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PayPal tests NFC mobile wallet at a couple of Swedish retailers

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PayPal tests NFC mobile wallet at a couple of Swedish retailers

We first reported in September about the PayPal NFC mobile wallet called PayPal Instore in Sweden, where the firm got together with startup Accumulate to test out some NFC retail therapy. PayPal have been vocally cautious about NFC payments, NFC mobile wallets and anything else with the “N” word involved. In fact, eBay CEO, John Donahoe, went as far as saying that NFC stands for “not for commerce” earlier this year. Some have gone as far to suggest that PayPal’s opposition is a corporate policy to play down the role NFC is due to pay in payments in the next year or so and more strangely stifle its own NFC mobile wallet efforts. However, that opposition hasn’t stopped PayPal launching an NFC app for peer-to-peer money transfers or from conducting NFC mobile wallet tests in Sweden.

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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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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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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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Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone launched on Verizon finally

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Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone launched on Verizon finally

Ah, what a relief to no longer have the need to speak about when Verizon will launch the Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone. It’s done, it has happened and it’s sans Google Wallet. For us, the Galaxy Nexus specifically on Verizon has lost its luster. But if you still have a penchant for your own slice of Ice Cream Sandwich, you can head over to the Verizon Wireless website or pop into your local store. Do remember it’s nearly the holidays though and try not to give the Verizon retail staff members a hard time. It’s not their fault Verizon has acted like a complete…[enter your description here].

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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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Isis to use Gemalto as its TSM for its NFC mobile wallet

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Isis to use Gemalto as its TSM for its NFC mobile wallet

Okay everyone, brace for impact, we have an Isis post for you because the NFC joint venture made up from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile has today announced it has picked Gemalto as their Trusted Service Manager. If you are new to these parts, a Trusted Service Manager, or TSM, is the service that manages and provisions secure data to the secure element in an NFC smartphone. That secure element can come in the form of an NFC SIM, an NFC microsSD card, or the preferred (and arguably more secure) embedded secure element. Mobile OS’ don’t have access to the secure element to write and change data, so third party services are used for the secure management of data and apps.

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