A transparent ink ‘fingerprint’ which can be sprayed onto products and read by a smartphone to combat counterfeiting has been developed by researchers at the University of Copenhagen. The system, from the University of Copenhagen’s Nano-Science Center, is based on physical unclonable function (PUF) technology. More
PARTNER NEWS: Tappy Technologies has launched a platform which enables traditional brands to turn their watches easily into secure, contactless payment devices. Tappy’s Wearable Token Services Platform lets consumers link the details of their debit or credit card to their watch and use it to make payments wherever their card would be accepted worldwide. More
NFC World partners Antelop Solutions, Dejamobile, NXP, Rambus, STMicroelectronics and Tappy Technologies will be in Barcelona for MWC19 from Monday 25 to Thursday 28 February. Here’s what you can expect to see and where you can find them during the show… More
PARTNER NEWS: Hong Kong-based Tappy Technologies offers a range of wearable payments products including watch straps, wristbands and key fobs that come with an embedded contactless payment chip. Customers include Barclays bPay, Icici Bank, Axis Bank, Etisalat, Timex, Mondaine and Guess. More
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has begun shipping the ST25R3916, an NFC universal device that contains “innovative features to simplify the design of payment terminals and ease compliance with new EMVCo 3.0 contactless interoperability tests for cards, mobiles, and wearables.” More
PARTNER NEWS: NXP is adding support for FeliCa, the Japanese variant of NFC, to its NFC chipsets, beginning with a new PN81 series. The move will enable Japanese consumers to access global NFC applications “while worldwide travellers can securely perform FeliCa payment and ticketing services with their devices”. More
Technical specification: Cyber Security for Consumer Internet of Things — ETSI — “Provision 4.4-1: Credentials and security-sensitive data shall be stored securely within services and on devices… Secure, trusted storage mechanisms can be used to secure security-sensitive data, such as those provided by a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and associated trusted, secure storage, or the secure storage and processing capabilities of software running on a Universal Integrated Circuit Card UICC/embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC).”
STMicroelectronics breaks major milestone for ST33 secure chips with over one billion sold to secure the connected world — STMicroelectronics — “STMicroelectronics… has recorded cumulative sales of over one billion units for its ST33 embedded-security ICs… Based on a common certified secure platform featuring state-of-the-art cyber protection, the ST33 family’s flexible architecture has enabled ST to lead the development of new classes of security chips including embedded SIMs (eSIMs), embedded secure elements (eSEs), and trusted platform modules (TPMs).”
PARTNER NEWS: Sony’s Wena watch strap, launched in the UK this week and designed to bring smartwatch features to traditional mechanical timepieces, uses NFC hardware and the mWallet 2GO full service mobile wallet platform from NXP to power its contactless payments feature. More
PARTNER NEWS: A new NFC tag inlay, jointly developed by NXP and Identiv, is now available to order at an “unrivalled” price of US$0.05 per unit, “enabling a new generation of smart products across a wide range of end markets where NFC may have been previously considered price prohibitive.” More
A stylish wooden puck incorporating an NFC tag that allows iPhones as well as Android devices to log onto a WiFi network with a single tap has been launched by New Jersey-based Ten One Design. More
Wearable patch measures sweat in extreme environments — Physics World — “The wearable device, which does not need a battery or wireless technology, can collect real-time data on sweat loss, sweat rate, chloride concentration and skin temperature. This data can then be read by tapping it with a smartphone equipped with near field communications technology.”
Smart fabrics made possible by new metal deposition technique — Imperial College London — “Imperial researchers have devised a way to deposit metals onto fabrics and used it to insert sensors and batteries into these materials… The technique could be used to incorporate batteries, wireless technologies and sensors into fabrics like paper and cotton textiles… For example, they created silver coil antennas on paper, which can be used for data and power transmission in wireless devices such as Oyster cards and contactless payment systems.”
Students and staff at Temple University in the US can now use their iPhone or Apple Watch as their campus identification card. The programme, which was announced by Apple last year, allows holders of the University’s physical OWLcard to use their Apple device instead for a number of services around the campus. These include gaining entry to buildings, accessing facilities including computers and printers and to buy meals. More
Apple could be set to expand the iPhone’s NFC chip reading capabilities to allow it to be used to read data stored in security chips like those used in passports, comments made by the UK government suggest. More
Louis Vuitton’s new Wear OS luxury smartwatch fully revealed — PhoneArena — “Besides the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 processor, the newest platform for smartwatches, Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon sports a 1.2-inch circular Amoled display (390 x 390 pixels resolution), 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory… The smartwatch comes with NFC (near field communication) technology that will allow users to make payments on the fly using Google Pay.”
Luxochain combats counterfeiting with launch of authentication and tracking service of luxury goods on the blockchain — Luxochain — “At the stage of manufacture, all authentic luxury products will be fitted with an invisible and encrypted serial number (a Block ID). The ID is associated with a token that is uniquely identifiable, to which luxury brands will register on the blockchain. Once inputted, the information can never be altered from the outside. Certifying authenticity at the point of sale using blockchain technology, customers can scan the code and ascertain the authenticity of the product.”
NFC reader IC and 8-bit microcontroller from STMicroelectronics adopted by Rohm for Qi automotive wireless charging design — STMicroelectronics — PARTNER NEWS — “One benefit of ST’s technology contribution is to enable the sophisticated control that makes possible the detection of contactless smart cards in proximity to the charging system in order to halt the charging immediately. This important and appreciated function prevents the failure of those cards due to the strong magnetic field generated by the Qi transmitter.”
The NFC Forum has released a new candidate technical specification that is designed to enable a single antenna in an IoT device to be used to manage both NFC communications and wireless charging. More
PARTNER NEWS: NXP is showing off its vision of the future of retail at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with an unmanned store exhibit that demonstrates new interactive and personalised shopping experiences. More
