Narian compares NFC to Barcodes with infographic

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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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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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OpenWays launches NFC hotel key system without SWP carrier costs

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OpenWays launches NFC hotel key without SWP carrier costs with a little help from Nokia and NXP which can be added to existing hotel locks

OpenWays isn’t the first time we have seen an NFC hotel key system. If you remember VingCard, an ASSA ABLOY company launched a pilot in Stockholm last year. However, the emerging mobile network operator joint ventures and associated costs to firms that want to provision secure data over networks to secure elements has become costly at best. In essence, launching an NFC based company that needs to access a secure element has had costs added that prove too expensive for many firms to turn a profit.

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Sony getting set to launch NFC speaker for Xperia NFC smartphones

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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.

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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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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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Cirque adds its GlidePoint NFC trackpads to laptops at NXP’s CES booth

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Cirque to show NFC laptop at CES NXP booth that uses an NFC antenna built into a trackpad

We have been following Cirque and their NFC products built into innovative form factors for sometime. The firm has built NFC antennas into screens and trackpads, but until now we haven’t seen an actual working prototype outside of a YouTube video – that looks set to change at this year’s CES. NFC has the ability to share information effortlessly, and building NFC antennas into screens and trackpads really starts to show how useful Near Field Communication is likely to be this next year when it is build into laptops, PCs and tablets.

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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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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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NFC tags market to be worth $300 million in next five years says ABI Research

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NFC tags market to be worth $300 million in next five years says ABI Research

ABI Research has released a report that forecasts that NFC Smart Posters and mobile marketing could push the non-payment NFC tags market to a $300 million per year business by 2016. If you hang around the NFC industry for more than a nanosecond, you will soon become aware what a big deal NFC tags are. NFC tags are used in every non-payment, non-device iteration that NFC has to offer; including NFC stickers, NFC smart posters and even NFC stationary.

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Ice Cream Sandwich bug NFC tag NDEF formatting bug found

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Ice Cream Sandwich bug NFC tag NDEF formatting bug found

A bug has been found in Android Ice Cream Sandwich that means a non-pre-formatted NFC tag isn’t being recognizable as a NDEF Formattable tag for Mifare Classic 1k, Ultralight or Ultralight C tag. The problem isn’t affecting MifareClassic and MifareUltralight NFC tags. What this means is that NFC tags are not being recognized as being writable using the standard NDEF formatting, which could be an issue for folks trying to encode NFC tags using any Ice Cream Sandwich device.

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AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II rocking NFC after custom ROM

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AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II rocking NFC after custom ROM

As you may well know the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II has dormant NFC capabilities. They are only dormant because AT&T has had NFC locked off at the software level and that has frustrated many NFC fans in the States. All because of Isis, yada yada yada… We knew custom ROMs were available, but we had never thought to write a post about it until some of the UPM RFID team let us know they had managed to enable NFC in their Samsung Galaxy S II on AT&T. We still think it’s crazy that an NFC tag firm like UPM RFID had to go through installing a custom ROM in the first place to use an NFC smartphone, but that’s another discussion for another day. So, if you are one of the unfortunate souls who have an AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II know that you can enable NFC on your phone by following some instructions and downloading a couple of pieces of software.

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NFC stocks? welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

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NFC stocks? Welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

NFC has faced a few paradoxes since its inception and NFC Stocks and NFC funding is just the latest iteration of some of the challenges Near Field Communication has faced in its rise to ubiquity. We have said it before and we will say it again, NFC has the ability and potential to change the way we do most things by bringing frictionless physical interactions and the web together for powerful information discovering and sensor integration in most products and services we use.

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Taggle social NFC retail shopping is here for consumers and retailers

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Taggles social retail apps use NFC and barcodes to create a social shopping experience all based on Amazon’s web services

Word of mouth marketing has always been the most powerful form of marketing that has ever existed. If you add to the a viral expansion loop model some NFC, a massive database of UPC product codes, some social sharing abilities and shopping you end up with Taggle. Taggle is a new shopping service that allows consumers to scan bar codes, QR codes or read NFC tags associated with retail purchases and either review them or give them a star rating. Users of the mobile apps don’t even need to sign up for an account. Once a product has been scanned, the social bit happens and users can share their buys on Facebook and Twitter.

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Galaxy Nexus NFC phone set to hit Verizon for $199 on 8th December?

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Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone set to hit Verizon for $199 on 8th December?

When the Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone is going to be released and for how much has been a mystery. However, recent leaks may have finally found the answers to those questions. The much anticipated NFC smartphone was caught on a flash ad that was released early by mistake, and it showed the Galaxy Nexus priced at $199.99 on a two year contract. That ad was seen on Android Police, Phandroid and Droid Forums. It was also reported by Engadget, which suggests it’s a little more definite than a simple anomaly. That same ad linked to a page that was unavailable and the URL and the title to that page contained a date of the 29th of November, which we think may be when the Ice Cream Sandwich NFC smartphone may be given its official release date.

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Galaxy Nexus coming to Canada December 8th on Bell and Virgin Mobile

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Galaxy Nexus coming to Canada December 8th on Bell and Virgin Mobile

Yep, that’s right – the Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone is hitting Canada on Bell and Virgin Mobile December 8th. You can pre-order the Galaxy Nexus today. Pre-ordering the highly anticipated Galaxy Nexus NFC smartphone early ensures you are among the first to get your grubby mits on the NFC totting Ice Cream Sandwich device “as soon as it’s available” but that doesn’t mean you will have the device in your hands on launch day.

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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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UK NFC joint venture cannot be allowed to continue

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UK NFC joint venture cannot be allowed to continue

If you dress a pig up as a lamb, it’s still a pig and that appears to be becoming increasingly clearer in the debacle that has become known as the UK NFC joint venture. It doesn’t matter if the UK NFC joint venture says its existence is based on fueling mass adoption of NFC mobile wallet usage when it is clearly showing that its intentions are anti-competitive and not in consumers’ interests. NFC Rumors hasn’t been a fan of the UK NFC joint venture since it was announced back in early June.

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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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Aditux launches NFC Tag Manager, create NFC tags on your PC

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Aditux launches NFC Tag Manager, create NFC tags on your PC

Aditux has launched a new windows application to help create NFC tags on your PC it calls NFC Tag Manager. You may remember the Finnish based company Aditux from their Xchange app on the Ovi store that allows Nokia owners to share contact details, including photos, with other Nokia Symbian users. Aditux hasn’t stopped there and after being nominated for a 4G Award at 4G World, they have launched a new application for Windows PCs that we have to say is really useful. You can use your NFC phone to create NFC tags with a plethora of Android apps. But to be honest, if you need to encode multiple tags, it can become cumbersome. What the Aditux NFC Tag Manager has to offer is a method to write to multiple tags easily and store those tag configurations by being able to save them down and reopen them at will.

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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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Is the Motorola Droid RAZR the first Isis NFC phone?

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Is the Motorola Droid RAZR the first Isis NFC phone?

It was largely expected that the Motorola Droid RAZR would be an NFC phone but on launch there was nary a word about near field communication capabilities. The Motorola Droid RAZR was announced a couple of weeks ago with impressive specifications and a super thin set of dimensions that challenges anything on the market. But without NFC capabilities, we relegated it to the pile of smartphones you would regret purchasing come the middle of next year when NFC services really start to swing. However, it may not be completely without NFC capabilities.

Motorola Droid RAZR strip down reveals NXP NFC drivers

Engadget had Francois Simond (Supercurio) take a look under the covers of the Motorola Droid RAZR, and guess what he found? Yep, an NFC controller based on NXP’s PN544 chipset. In Engadget’s words, “the Linux driver is present, but hardware appears to be missing or misconfigured.” This gives us a massive clue as to what is happening with the Motorola Droid RAZR and it, of course, revolves around Isis. We would assume that if there was an NFC IC (NFC chip & antenna) present, it would have been found. The NXP chipsets are somewhat easy to spot within NFC phones when you take them apart.

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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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NJ Transit now accepts Google Wallet for NFC tickets

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NJ Transit now accepts Google Wallet and commuters can now buy NFC tickets with their NFC phones

Tickets are so passé and we are not the only ones who think so, as NJ Transit announces that you can now pay for a ride with Google Wallet, and all you need to add is an NFC phone to the mix. Well, not any old NFC phone. At the moment it has to be the Nexus S 4G on Sprint. But with the advent of Ice Cream Sandwich and the coming of the Galaxy Nexus there are sure to be other options real soon.

NJ Transit commuters can now use their NFC phones to pay for transportation tickets as they tap and pay at what the company calls “select locations.”

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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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