BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone hits Verizon for $250

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone hits Verizon for $250 avec 2 year contract

We knew that the BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone was heading to Verizon Wireless after a video was mistakenly posted to Big Red’s site a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s available to order.  The BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone will set you back $250 on a two year contract or a cool $510 if you like to freewheel it. Rumor has it that although the BlackBerry Bold 9930 is up for grabs online, there is no official word when it will hit Verizon and partner retail stores. However, a rumor circulating suggests it could come as soon as August 25th, so around ten days to wait. We don’t know whether Verizon plans to block the NFC capabilities of the BlackBerry Bold 9930 as yet, but if it’s an NFC phone you are after, you may wish to check this before signing up and laying down two and a half Benjamins. What we can tell you though is that there is no word about the BlackBerry Bold 9930 being an NFC phone on Verizon’s site, so make of that what you will.

BlackBerry Bold 9930 specs

Having the 9900 as its stablemate, a lot of the BlackBerry Bold 9930 specifications are the same. We jotted down the notable ones after the break.

read more

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 NFC phones confirmed will ship this month

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 NFC phones confirmed will ship this month

It seems as if we have been waiting for what seems an eternity for RIM to finally and officially announce the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 NFC phones. It happened this morning in London at a BlackBerry press event where Research in Motion announced 7, count them – 7, new smartphones that included the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 NFC phones. The CDMA BlackBerry Torch 9860 will make its official debut in the US of A, destined for US Cellular and Sprint. RIM also announced the BlackBerry Torch 9850 GSM phone which is destined for AT&T, Rogers, Telus and Bell, SIMs and all. We also did get a tip off yesterday that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 would launch on T-Mobile USA on August 31st, but that is still unconfirmed.

BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phones specifications

We know pretty much everything about the raw specifications that the BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 and 9930 NFC phones will tote, but if you have been living under a rock for the past few months, here are the specs again.

read more

Own a Restaurant? Get an NFC app and NFC tags with CustomerIn

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

Own a restaurant? Get an NFC app and NFC tags with CustomerIn

If you have been interested in NFC tags and NFC apps and you own a restaurant or a chain of eateries, this will be of interest to you. There has been a lot of chatter about uses for NFC tags and NFC apps in the food business, but until now there has been no formalized offerings available for restaurant owners and managers to incorporate NFC efficiencies into the dining experience. However, that has now changed as a company called CustomerIn launches its “connected restaurant app” into the wild.

The connected restaurant app allows a few functions of a dining experience to be managed through NFC tags and a smartphone NFC app that allows customers to receive coupons, browse the restaurant’s menu, call a server to their table and request a bill. Where this use of NFC becomes really powerful is in CustomerIn’s back office software that shows analytics and requested actions in real time that allows the management staff to keep on top of order, requests for bills and problems that may occur. Each NFC tag at each table is unique and identifies which table is requesting service at any time. This prevents customers waiting unnecessarily during busy times and affords management the ability to prioritize their work flows to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. Having the social network check-in feature is also a great way for restaurants to get free advertising on customers’ walls and profiles. Although below we are going to look at ways in which the “connected restaurant app” could be improved, we have to say we really like what CustomerIn has done so far and it shows just how NFC is evolving with the simple use of NFC tags.

read more

PayPal isn’t launching NFC mobile wallet with merchants anytime soon says eBay CEO

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

PayPal isn’t launching NFC mobile wallet with merchants anytime soon says eBay CEO

PayPal isn’t going to launch an NFC mobile wallet anytime soon, said eBay’s CEO, John Donahoe, to VentureBeat this last week. With companies clambering over each other to announce NFC mobile wallet solutions, it is easy to miss that a major player in the mobile payments space hasn’t yet brought any offerings to the table. PayPal is said to be attempting to move its business model from a web only affair into bricks and mortar stores globally. We first saw a glimpse of what they may have in mind when they worked with Pizza Express in the UK on a mobile wallet solution that used the restaurant’s own WiFi service and a remote corporate server to allow customers to pay for their meals with an Apple iPhone app. PayPal was largely rumored to be developing an NFC mobile wallet that speculators expected to hit the market this year, but that now looks in doubt after Donahoe’s statement. Scott Thompson, who is the President of Paypal, took a different view in a post on PayPal’s blog in early July when he said, “We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet.” From the outsider’s perspective, it could appear that the parent and subsidiary companies have differing views of the emerging NFC mobile wallet industry. What is evident, however, is that PayPal and eBay are proceeding cautiously towards an NFC mobile wallet and are employing a conservative outlook on the take-up of the technology in mainstream retailers.

“I don’t think that you’re going to see NFC with large merchants,” he said. “You don’t want anything that has friction at point of sale,” said John Donahoe. He added that eBay doesn’t believe NFC will catch on with stores all that quickly.

read more

BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone shown off early thanks to Verizon mistake

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone shown off early thanks to Verizon mistake

If you have been waiting for the BlackBerry Bold 9930 NFC phone to hit Verizon Wireless, your wait could nearly be over. Thanks to an oversight on Verizon’s part, the company posted a features video of the 9930 in a place that should have contained the features video for the BlackBerry 9650. Unfortunately for Verizon, when you are dealing with a massive website error with media are bound to happen, and the best you can hope for is that not too many people notice. This time Verizon weren’t lucky and a sharp eyed viewer over at CrackBerry’s forum was on it like white on rice. The fact that Verizon Wireless is readying videos for the BlackBerry Bold 9930 show us that a launch is imminent and also sheds a little more light on some of RIM’s flagship phone’s capabilities. Just last week, we saw the BlackBerry 9930 come through the FCC and launch dates have been announced for the UK and Canada, but as yet nothing is official in the US. Perhaps that is set to change in the next week or so for the anticipated NFC phone.

read more

What is a trusted service manager / TSM?

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

What is a trusted service manager / TSM?

You may have heard the term TSM, or trusted service manager, being used in association with mobile payments recently. If you are in the financial industry, this post may not be for you as you probably are already aware of the nature of a TSM. However, the public are unaware of the security procedures that are put into place for mobile payments, and understanding the nature of a trusted service manager can alleviate some of these concerns.We can all be guilty of using vernacular and industry specific acronyms. They generally come along with technical concepts that we try to shorten for everyday use, but if you haven’t been in the loop they can seem impossible to understand. This is true of TSM, which you may or may not know stands for “Trusted Service Manager”. If you are not in the industry you may still not know what a trusted service manager is and so be none the wiser. TSM is a phrase you are going to hear a lot about over the next couple of years, with announcements from banks, NFC mobile wallets and other applications that require security. So, today we thought we would define what a trusted service manager / TSM is from a user’s perspective, as it pertains to the security of services you may well use in the next 12 months or so.

read more

Gartner: Mass NFC mobile payments adoption won’t happen until 2014, US consumers not ready

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Gartner: Mass NFC mobile payments adoption won’t happen until 2014, US consumers not ready

The facts, statistics and projections are still flying around attempting to pin point when NFC mobile payments will be the subject of mass adoption. Projections vary wildly between research houses as to the how much, when and how NFC mobile payments will take off. Gartner has now released some more interesting figures for us to mull over that suggest NFC adoption may not happen as quickly as many industry insiders have expected or hoped for. So, let’s dig straight into the figures.

Gartner projections for global mobile payments

Mobile payments users are due to surpass 141.1 million in 2011, and whereas that is not a massive amount, it does represent an increase of 38.2% over 2010. This figure will be achieved thanks to growth from the 102.1 million mobile payment users who adopted the technology in 2010. In actual cash that represents $48.9 billion in 2010 which is set to grow to $86.1 billion in 2011. Overall that represents a growth factor of 75.9% and shows spend levels on a per user basis rising as mobile payments become more commonplace.

read more

U.S. Bank launches NFC wristband from VITAband

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

U.S. Bank launches NFC wristband from VITAband

U.S. Bank has got together with VITAband, Oberthur Technologies and FIS to offer customers a MasterCard PayPass NFC wristband. If you are one of those people who hate carrying cash around and tend to go out to events, you will love what U.S. Bank has for you. Now you can represent international style, class and panache on the go while sporting this rather fetching hydrocarbon encrusted NFC wrist bracelet that will allow you to make purchases under $50 like the billionaires do. You too can gleam with Hollywood gold (plastic) when volleying in tennis or abseiling into a store for a pack of gum. So, if you like to live on the edge, sign up today and you can attain our NFC wristband in hi-vis blue that screams “Mug me!” and can be seen from 50 meters away, and comes with an easy slip off feature to hand over your cash. Act now and we will offer you “buy one get mugged free!”

NFC wristband from U.S. Bank and VITAband has multiple uses

All joking aside, this move brings NFC payments stateside and the VITAband has more functionality than just payments. The VITAband also acts as a medical information repository in the event that you are found unconscious and need medical attention. Your emergency contact details and medical history is housed on the band itself. That would truly be the reason for its hi-vis coloration. Customers can load and reload funds onto the chip as needed via an online user account. Each band also carries a VITAnumber, a unique, eight digit numeric identifier that links the wearer to a customizable Emergency Response Profile, which houses the individual’s identity and critical medical information. As we mentioned before, the NFC wristband is also an NFC-enabled MasterCard PayPass contactless device which can be used to make payments up to $50 in value which makes it perfect for days out sailing or taking the kids to a theme park.

read more

Nokia C7 Astound to get NFC turned on in August update. Nokia goes NFC crazy!

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Nokia C7 Astound to get NFC turned on in August update. Nokia goes NFC crazy and launches NFC hub!

The wait is nearly over for Nokia C7 Astound owners to have NFC turned on thanks to an update that Nokia is prepping to send out in July or August. Angry Bird Magic players celebrate.

The Nokia C7 Astound has been on sale since late last year and was quietly reputed as being an NFC phone. Since then, many Nokia C7 Astound owners have searched on methods to enable the NFC portion of their phones to no avail because the Nokia C7 Astound NFC card had not been activated by software. That appears to be set to change either this or next month as part of an update to the Symbian Anna OS.

Nokia begins its NFC campaign with the Nokia C7 Astound and the Nokia N9 this year

We have known that Nokia has been supportive of NFC for some time and this was confirmed when the Nokia C7 Astound was released. Since then, the Nokia N9 has been announced with accompanying Nokia’s Play 360 Bluetooth NFC Speakers and the Nokia Wireless Music Receiver MD-310 that both feature NFC connections that hand off to Bluetooth. Since then, we have also seen the unannounced Nokia Zeta NFC phone that takes on a smaller form factor and runs on the newest Symbian OS Belle.

read more

NFC sticker patent awarded to Blaze Mobile turns your non NFC phone into an NFC phone

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NFC sticker patent awarded to Blaze Mobile, turns your non-NFC phone into an NFC phone

Blaze Mobile has been awarded a patent for an NFC sticker that attaches to iPhones and feature phones and allows them to make NFC contactless payments. Blaze Mobile was one of the first companies to enter the mobile wallet business back when there were no mobile wallets. The grandaddy of mobile wallets announced on Friday that it had been awarded patent for an NFC sticker that communicates with applications within the phone and allows them to conduct contactless payments. The system is currently certified for MasterCard PayPass accounts, but on the company’s website the NFC stickers are listed as coming soon. If you are a regular reader of NFC Rumors, you will know that tap-to-pay transactions are set to explode over the next few years, and this NFC sticker may have just tipped the balance of power when it comes to enabling non-NFC phones to make NFC contactless transactions. At this time, there are very few NFC-enabled phones in the marketplace and the NFC sticker may well sell like hot cakes. Blaze is working on a text-message-based mobile wallet that would work with basic phones. Blaze Mobile said it expects to introduce the feature by the fourth quarter.

read more

Mobile malware security threats set to explode in 2012

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Mobile malware security threats set to explode in 2012

Mobile malware security threats are set to explode in 2012 according to new studies. Let’s face – most people’s phones are not secure and juxtaposed to that little fact that there is a culture shift that has seen mobile banking slowly becoming a way of life. Many of us check balances, transfer funds and use other services our financial institutions allow on our mobile phones. Mobile payments are around the corner and in a unprecedented shift towards convergence we are set to store all of our financial data in one place: our phones. In the past, in a pre-convergence era, your PIN was only in your head, your checkbook was separate to your bank or credit card and there was no e-commerce at all. Over recent years this has changed for the sake of convenience, but amazingly users have not installed security apps to help manage hacking threats or mobile malware on smartphones.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp hacked phones – privacy be dammed, mobile malware needs to be kept under control

After the Rupert Murdoch British tabloid News of the World scandal that has rocked the world over the last few weeks, it has become apparent that our mobile phones are not as safe as they should be. The News Corp paper was able to hack phones to read emails and listen to voicemail messages so it could publish sensationalist news articles. If you think the Rupert Murdoch / News Corp / Fox case is a one off, you are mistaken. Phone hacking is becoming more pervasive and mobile malware being used to exploit personal data appears to be the name of the game for hackers these days. In this article we are referring to hackers as people that are trying to expose and exploit your financial details.

read more

NFC marketplace launches

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NFC marketplace launches

The Identive Group has launched an NFC marketplace that provides educational resources and NFC related products. Here at NFC Rumors we love any project that enables people to interact with and use NFC to its full potential and the Identive Group appears to share that same passion for the NFC technology. The NFC marketplace is highly geared towards developers and marketers, enabling them to develop and create campaigns and applications that are NFC based. Here are the main areas of products the NFC marketplace currently caters to.

NFC tags – The Identive NFC marketplace offers a selection of NFC Forum-compliant tags, including Google NFC tags type 1, 2 and 4, which are the core components of all NFC-based applications, from mobile payment to electronic ticketing.
NFC readers – NFC readers work with NFC tags to initiate transactions, services or other applications. Identive’s NFC readers are based on contactless technology standards and are available in both mobile and desktop form factors.
NFC software development kit – NFC SDKs enable application developers and system integrators to accelerate time to market of NFC readers and terminals that support device-to-tag and peer-to-peer applications such as event ticketing, retail loyalty, physical and logical access as well as vending, public transport and mobile payment.
Educational resources – Identive NFC will offer webinars, webcasts and educational materials about NFC technology and applications.
Have you wondered where to get the Google NFC tags? Look no further than the NFC marketplace

read more

Google hearts NFC, Google+ to get Google Wallet and Offers integration

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Google’s mobile payment strategy is just getting started. It is still trialling its Google Wallet and Google Offers systems. However, Google Offers launched Tuesday in New York and San Francisco after a trial period in Portland, Oregon, so it is advancing. Tilenius is responsible for Google Wallet, the company’s payment system, and Google Offers, a “daily deal”and loyalty program that beams coupons to customers based on their location and preferences. Speaking about the impact that Google Offers can have on an advertiser, Tilenius said that one Portland bistro saw its lunch traffic double after using Google Offers to promote itself.

read more

Europe’s Margento is all about contactless mobile payments

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Europe’s Margento is all about contactless mobile payments

Here at NFC Rumors we have a passion for all contactless technology – after all, that is what the C in our NFC name stands for. If it enables convergence and streamlines life, especially if it is secure and enhances user experience. Whether that be payments, speakers, routers, door locks, social networking check-ins… the list goes on. We thought we knew the players in the contactless mobile payments industry, and just this weekend we were blindsided by a company who has existed since 1991 and has been conducting contactless mobile payments since 2008! Meet Margento – yup, you read it correctly “Margento” and not Magento, which is the open source e-commerce company eBay just swallowed up. The M in Margento is for mobile and the argento part is a long story but is related to the latin word “Argentum” which means silver in Latin and is associated with banking and transactions from way back when, but we digress.

Okay, back on track. Someone contacted us from Margento a few days ago to say, “Hey, we exist and we do payments – why aren’t you writing about us?” Well, that’s not an exact quote but you get the point. In fact, it appears very few have written about Margento, and they are a somewhat unknown white label provider familiar only to their partners. By the time you have finished reading this article, you are going to wonder how no one has brought this technology to the U.S. So, we did a little research and were amazed at what we found. We were so impressed we got together with somebody from the company to learn a little more, and now we have the skinny for you. [Largest introduction to a post eveeeeer.]
Skip past the break for lots more information and videos

read more

eBay mobile payments spending spree continues as it acquires Zong

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

eBay mobile payments spending spree continues as it acquires Zong for $240 million

The balance of power shifted again today in the world of mobile payments as eBay continued its spending spree and acquired Zong. Zong is a mobile payments system that uses an account holder’s mobile number to pay for online digital product purchases. Consumers can either pay for purchases through their mobile carrier billing or associate their mobile phone number with their credit or debit card through a system called Zong+. At this time, Zong is used mostly in online games and on social networking websites. The standard use for Zong at this time appears to be for micro purchases in games, but PayPal and eBay see a larger use case for the company.

The mobile payments company is also working to extend its reach beyond smartphones. In March, Zong announced that it planned to extend its platform to TVs, tablets and game consoles.

“We look forward to extending our services to PayPal’s more than 9 million merchants around the world. And we’re committed to working with carriers and merchants to help them drive more sales across devices,” said Zong’s CEO, David Marcus.

Zong has strong relationships with mobile carriers

This acquisition comes hot off the heels of the Magento deal and shows eBay and PayPal are getting their ducks in a row for an all out assault to gain dominance in the mobile payments industry. Zong boasts 250 mobile carrier relationships in 45 countries which was obviously attractive to PayPal. So the eBay / PayPal combo has so far this year purchased GSI Commerce, Magento and now Zong. So, tactically that represents the roads into major retail merchants who host their website and use GSI Commerce, the largest open source e-commerce system on the planet and now a mobile payments company that specializes in digital purchases. The eBay war chest is gearing up to be a dominant player in web-based and offline mobile payments. Let’s not forget that PayPal has 100 million account holders of its own and 8 million merchant accounts it can offer services to. Add to that the over 30 million happy customers that the Zong website states that it has and you can see the eBay position is strengthening.

read more

Google+ supports NFC and now plans to take on Facebook, Fight!

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Google+ supports NFC and now plans to take on Facebook, Fight!

You have probably heard of Google+ by now, but we bet you didn’t know it supported NFC. Google+ is a complete rethink on social networking and it is unashamedly taking aim at Facebook. Facebook for sometime now has been very static and has not allowed people to tailor their experience to suit their needs. Or to put it another way, the Facebook experience focuses on the wall and your home page whereas the new Google+ user-centric approach puts you at the center of things and everything else as an extension of you. Like NFC the new social network is attempting to mix the online and offline worlds, because these days you exist in both. So, your social interactions should also be more reflective of the different packs you run in and be able to differentiate between your professional and social life. Facebook does have that ability with its groups, but it is unintuitive because the network was initially built for social interactions and it still hasn’t been able to ascend by those roots. Whether you want to form a group or circle, as Google calls it, from your list of friends, business contacts or only speak with family, it is your choice. In a simple twist of fate, Mark Zuckerberg is the most popular person in Google+. We just hope Google lawyers have protected the aspects of Google+ that differ from what is available in Facebook or a few days from now Google+’s differential could be lessened.

read more

Zoosh wants to be more than just payments, Zoosh wants to be a verb

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Zoosh wants to be more than just payments, Zoosh wants to be a verb

We thought we had Zoosh pegged in our last post about Naratte. Turns out, although accurate, our last post didn’t even hit the tip of the iceberg of the capabilities Zoosh has. We interviewed both Bret Paulson and Byron Alsberg and came away with our heads spinning with potential ideas and a few more facts that weren’t in the public domain before. Ready to learn more about Naratte and Zoosh? Good let’s get on with it…

Everything you need to know about Zoosh transactions

If you read the press release from Naratte this last week you may have been impressed or you may have been confused, but one thing we know for sure is there were questions unanswered. That’s mainly because press releases are not really the realm of a lot of technical data and they certainly don’t try to break down data enough for us everyday folk to consume and comprehend. Let’s start with the big issue that any technology that deals with financial transactions has to get past – security. Strange as it seems, technically being safe is not enough for a new technology to be accepted; it has to be viewed as safe in the hearts and minds of the consumer to work and gain acceptance. This is a challenge Zoosh, like NFC, faces.

We had a niggling concern when we wrote our last post about how secure Naratte’s Zoosh is, but not anymore

The first point we need to convey is that your data is not stored on the phone. We repeat your data is not stored on the phone when you use any Zoosh app, on any platform. Byron Alsberg, the company’s CTO, educated us on Naratte’s approach and it makes a lot of sense. The security is token based, which means you are given a cryptographic token (a code) by your credit card company that represents your account on your phone linked with your pin number. If anything changes within that configuration, a flag as big as a stars and stripes on a used car lot goes up immediately. This token is useless to anyone who isn’t you, as to change the configuration requires personal knowledge you setup with your card provider. If you want to learn more about token based security, check out Wikipedia’s page on the subject.

read more

NFC Murder Mystery using NFC smartposters, Proxama dunnit!

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

NFC Murder Mystery using NFC smartposters

No need to ask who dunnit, we’ll just straight out tell you. It was Proxama in the UK who, with the Nokia C7, Proxama developed an NFC Murder Mystery event based game to showcase the sheer amount of potential uses NFC could be tailored to. Of course, you and I saw Google IO and the NFC capabilities in games, but that still didn’t show how games could be constructed for offline scenarios like Proxama’s NFC Murder Mystery, which it demoed at the Norfolk Network birthday party. For those who live outside of the UK, Norfolk is a County in East Anglia which is east of London and north of neighboring County Suffolk, full of country farm houses and mansions and perfect for NFC Murder Mystery.

Proxama are a solutions company who have become synonymous with NFC, rewards and payments after working on some high profile gigs for BT and MasterCard. However, the British company is certainly not limited to financial experiences and have worked on projects as diverse and wide in scope as payments and ticketing, retail experiences utilizing NFC, and information and service discovery apps where you can interact with companies you deal with by securely logging into your account. The company says on its website that it has been working with NFC since 2005, and although the technology is quite a few years older than that, it pretty much sets them apart in the end user solution developer arena. But we are not here to talk about that; we are here to find out about the NFC Murder Mystery game that sounds a lot like Clue…

read more

Hicel launches NFC business cards

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Hicel launches NFC business cards

NFC business cards have been shown a few times over the last six months by multiple organizations, but as yet have not become widely available. A Korean company called Hicel has launched their NFC business cards and we must say they have approached the application of embedding the tag and antenna in an innovative way.

About NFC business cards

While fitting into the NFC-Forum’s category of smart posters, NFC business cards require a little more finesse in their development than other applications of NFC tags while embedding within another media. The challenges are based on the small size of a business card and the diversity of designs and materials that need to be accommodated.

read more

CSI Virtual MasterCard app allows you to create Virtual MasterCard accounts in iOS, Android and BlackBerry

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

CSI Virtual MasterCard app allows you to create Virtual MasterCard accounts in iOS, Android and BlackBerry

Quite a bit of buzz hit today about the CSI Enterprises’ CSI Virtual MasterCard app that is due to be released in July for iOS, Android and BlackBerry. As excitement reverberated around the web, rumors started to circulate about the company knowing of NFC features that could be built into the upcoming iPhone 5 and of an NFC-enabled BlackBerry that would emerge before the 9900.

CSI Virtual MasterCard app creates virtual card numbers with attributes you can set.

We wanted to look a little further in to the story before we posted, and we found out it may not be a mobile wallet like we are coming to think of one, like say Google Wallet. In fact, after reading through the company’s website it soon became clear that the CSI Virtual MasterCard is a really clever way to make your own virtual credit card number to use with a specific company or for a particular PO and a way to give the CSI Virtual MasterCard unique attributes. For example, you pay your business electric bill with a CSI Virtual MasterCard number, you can give this specific bill a card number of its own and can set rules of how your utility provider can use the card details you provide. You could only allow payments up to $500 to be processed or even set up a CSI Virtual MasterCard number for a team member for expenses and set a budget for the card. Each CSI Virtual MasterCard is simply an extension of your main account, and extending the service to mobile devices means you can create new CSI MasterCard numbers on the fly.

read more

SPVA releases requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

SPVA releases requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices

It is always nice to hear of organizations that are actively trying to protect our financial security which is why SPVA’s (Secure POS Vendor Alliance) announcement of requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices warms our cold, cold hearts. Of course, we are not the only ones who benefit from these new requirements as it also protects the financial industry. More security is better and to know with all the marketing hype of NFC mobile wallets that Verifone & co are actively looking to protect our security, it can only be positive thing.

Current requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices just don’t cut it.
What’s considered in the requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices

The new requirements for the post manufacturing stage of payment devices play out more like a “best practices” guideline. Various groups will be required by members of the SPVA to ensure no contamination of payment devices happens between the factory gate and your hand. So, your brand new NFC smartphone wouldn’t have been tampered with. The same will go for NFC POS terminals and other equipment associated with securing payments.

read more

NFC doesn’t have to be a grave matter with the NFC grave tag

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

NFC doesn’t have to be a grave matter with the NFC grave tag

NFC grave tags? Whatever next. You know the problem with grave stones and dead people? They don’t move and aren’t interactive. So very web 1.0! Well, there is a company out there that is attempting to change that. Meet Rosetta Stone and their “Technology Enhanced Memorial Products.” Yes, we kid ye not. The company produces a granite enveloped NFC grave tag for your grave stone. It’s a fact of life, we are all going south eventually and within three generations no one will remember us and very few will care, but that doesn’t mean you can’t communicate from beyond the grave when you use the forever guaranteed NFC memorial products that are available right now, starting at only $125 for a granite disk guaranteed to ensure grave robbers and teenagers at Halloween read your story for up to 800 years. If you appreciate some bling on with your NFC grave tag you can even upgrade to the highly sought after granite tablet for the bargain price of $225 with no other fees, not now not ever, and better yet it is guaranteed to last for 3000 years! However, if like us, you like to show your sophistication by going retro the company has just the solution for you – an aluminum anodized printed disk with a QR tag. The only draw back with the QR tag is it only lasts ten years, but then again no one will probably have the ability to read a de-funked QR tag in ten years anyway.

read more

NFC Speakers, touch and hear it’s that easy

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NFC Speakers, touch and hear it’s that easy

NFC Speakers are available today and they are starting to show how far NFC can change our worlds. Near Field Communication applications and possibilities extend far beyond the mobile wallet and SmartPosters, and one of those areas is within our home electronics to enable immediate connections and actions with everyday items we interact with. NFC Speakers are an obvious use for a technology that acts as a gateway connection for WiFi and Bluetooth signals.

Nokia’s Play 360 Bluetooth NFC Speakers uses NFC for Bluetooth pairing

The other day we posted about the Nokia N9 with MeeGo, but didn’t mention the accompanying Nokia Play 360 NFC Speakers. These omnidirectional NFC Speakers stream music from your phone via Bluetooth but can connect using NFC with a simple tap of your NFC phone to the top of the device. That’s right, tap the top and you create an instant connection that hands off to bluetooth and you are ready to rock. The Nokia Play 360 NFC Speakers will happily play your tunes for up to 20 hours on a single charge and recharge via a micro USB port at the back of the speaker. The speaker pumps out omnidirectional mono, but if you are of the mind, and have been saving your pennies you can simply purchase a second Nokia Play 360 Speaker and it will immediately be recognized by the first speaker and convert the sound to stereo. Not expected to be available until the third quarter of this year the Nokia Play 360 NFC Speakers are expected to retail for $199 each or €149 in Europe. We will be sure to let you know when we have a firm release date for these snazzy little boxes of sound.

read more

Lockitron NFC door locks, obsessive compulsive people celebrate

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Would you like to lock and unlock your home with your phone, now you can with Lockitron NFC door locks

Lockitron NFC door locks, whatever will they think of next? If you are like us you probably don’t leave the house or office without carrying at least 1/2 pound of metal with you that you call keys. Keys for the car, keys for the house, keys for the office and keys you can’t remember what they unlocked but you are pretty sure they are important. We feel your pain. Well, it probably isn’t going to be that way for too much longer because NFC is here to unburden your pants and purses. Lockitron is a company that makes just such a solution and we have to say it looks very promising.

What are Lockitron NFC door locks

Essentially, the Lockitron system replaces your keys with your smartphone. The system basically has two ways in which it works; let’s explore the NFC way first. When you swipe your NFC-enabled smartphone over the sensor, the Lockitron box checks your access credentials to see if you are authenticated with its server and either unlocks the door or keeps you out. That is as easy as it gets, but there are a couple of caveats we will get to in a bit.

read more

NXP unveils its vision of a contactless NFC car, KEyLink Lite

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NXP unveils its vision of a contactless NFC car, KEyLink Lite

NXP, those Dutch folk behind Near Field Communications, have today unveiled their vision of a contactless NFC car, KEyLink Lite. If NXP gets its way we will soon be using NFC-enabled devices to access our vehicles, find where we parked our cars, personalize our settings and use NFC technology to diagnose vehicular problems – the time of the NFC car has arrived! The main problem with car keys is that they, well, just unlock and lock cars. Sure, they immobilize cars and can remember personal settings of particular drivers but in this world of convergence it is not like you can watch TV on your car key or order a pizza with it. It’s a good job for us that NXP Semiconductors have our backs covered when it comes to the NFC car then, isn’t it? NXP Semiconductors today unveiled KEyLink Lite, so let’s take a look:

NXP introduces KEyLink Lite paving the way to the NFC car
NXP are not new to the automotive world and the NFC car KEyLink Lite product is a natural progression for the emerging Near Field Communications technology

The NFC car vision embodied in KEyLink Lite is a very natural progression for NXP as it already builds software, sensors and chips for the automotive industry. Near Field Communications are hot at the moment and it makes sense that the clog loving company would combine two areas of expertise to create products that tie all areas together and result in the NCF2970, or KEyLink Lite, NFC car product . The company is calling its NFC car product KEyLink Lite, but as you may have guessed, the chip doing the grunt work is the NCF2970.

read more