MIT chemists have devised a way to detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants using an NFC-enabled sensor and a smartphone... More
MIT researchers unveil NFC sensors that detect hazardous chemicals
Archive: Newswire
MasterCard to offer interactive payment cards to its issuers around the world
Interactive payment card developer Dynamics has signed a deal with MasterCard that will see the payments network offering the startup’s technology to its issuers around the world. MasterCard has also participated in Dynamics’ US$70m Series C funding round along with Canada’s CIBC and existing investors. More
Fujitsu uses LED lights to send data to smartphones
Fujitsu Laboratories has shown off a way to use LED lighting to transmit data about a particular product in a store, an exhibit in a museum or a song being performed during a concert to a consumer’s smartphone... More
Mobile payments platform Sixdots goes live with multiple banks in Belgium
Customers of nine banks representing 80% of the Belgian market can now make use of Sixdots, a mobile wallet service that uses a combination of QR codes and a six-digit PIN to make payments in stores, online and between friends... More
Bluetooth 4.2 to increase speed and security of Smart devices
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has adopted version 4.2 of the Bluetooth core specification, introducing security improvements that mean Bluetooth beacons are now unable to engage with smartphones without permission from the user and making it harder for eavesdroppers to track a device via its Bluetooth connection. More
Barcelona equips 8,000 city locations with NFC and QR touchpoints
More than eight thousand locations across the Spanish city of Barcelona are to be equipped with NFC and QR touchpoints that deliver information on local services directly to visitors’ and citizens’ smartphones... More
One in ten US iPhone 6 owners have now used Apple Pay
Apple Pay is yet to gain widespread adoption among iPhone 6 owners due to poor awareness of which stores accept the NFC payments technology and a lack of understanding of how the service works, a survey conducted by InfoScout has found. Those who have used it, however, compare it highly favourably to using a traditional plastic card. More
Starbucks launches Mobile Order & Pay in Portland
Starbucks’ Mobile Order & Pay service is now live in Portland, Oregon ahead of a planned nationwide roll out across the US that will begin in 2015... More
Blarney Castle identifies trees with NFC horti-tags
Blarney Castle, a medieval stronghold and tourist attraction in Ireland, is attaching custom-developed NFC tags to its trees so that gardeners will be able to easily create and update a database of information about each individual tree while they work... More
Payments security survey finds NFC and HCE are now top priorities
Seven in ten (71%) US IT operations, security, and electronic deployment professionals consider NFC to be essential or very important to their organization’s security, a survey by Ponemon Institute for HP Atalla has found, with host card emulation (HCE) following closely behind at 68%... More
BitStraat equips Dutch merchants with Bitcoin POS terminals
Dutch startup BitStraat has launched a project aimed at turning Amsterdam into Bitcoin City, providing one hundred merchants with a free tablet-based POS terminal they can use to process mobile payments made using the virtual currency... More
Office Depot delivers marketing messages to shoppers via Shazam audio watermarks
Office Depot has become the first retail chain to roll out Shazam In-Store, a mobile marketing platform that makes use of the Shazam music discovery app, inaudible digital watermarks, a merchant’s overhead music system and a location-based platform developed by Mood Media to send promotional messages to shoppers’ mobile phones... More
BKM and Mekanist let Turkish diners pay by beacon
Diners at Turkish restaurant Olivia’s Pizzeria have become the first in the country to be able to use their BKM Express digital wallet to pay for their meals with their mobile phone... More
Quikkly offers QR code alternative
UK startup Quikkly has unveiled an alternative to QR codes that aims to provide an improved user experience and increased consumer uptake. “QR codes are great for machines, but they weren’t designed for people,” Quikkly says. “We’ve designed Quikkly Tags to be understandable by everyone. It’s clear what app to use and it’s clear what will happen when you scan the tag.” More
White paper explores the benefits of host card emulation
A new white paper that explores how host card emulation (HCE) can overcome the challenges faced by service providers when implementing secure NFC services is now available to download from the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre... More
Danish carriers abandon mobile payments ambitions
Paii, the mobile payments joint venture created by Danish mobile network operators TDC, Telenor, Telia and 3, has been sold to Swipp, a mobile payments service owned by a consortium of more than 60 banks, after Paii came to the conclusion that the telcos are not as well placed as banks to take the platform forward... More
Swirl reports positive consumer feedback on in-store beacon offers
Six in ten (60%) shoppers who receive a beacon-triggered message while shopping in a store open and engage with the content and 30% redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of sale, analysis by Bluetooth beacon offers platform Swirl has found... More
High value contactless payments arrive in the UK
A new service that lets NFC phone users enter their PIN on their mobile device to confirm a high value transaction is making it possible for UK consumers to make contactless payments valued at more than the current £20 (US$32) transaction limit for the first time... More
Latvian merchants and ski resorts adopt NFC loyalty platform
Latvian startup Walmoo has launched a mobile loyalty platform that uses standard NFC phones or tablets to provide customers with the ability to redeem coupons, discounts and offers... More
White paper explains NFC-enabled sensors and their uses
A new paper that explains how NFC-enabled sensors can be used to deliver service improvements in “hundreds of applications in many market sectors” is now available to download from the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre... More