NXP Semiconductors and Oberthur Technologies have announced a licensing agreement for NXP’s Mifare contactless card technology, enabling Oberthur to integrate Mifare transport ticketing and other applications into its NFC SIM cards. More
- Bank of China lets taxi drivers accept central bank digital currency payments on NFC mobile phones
- Juniper forecasts 25% increase in POS terminal transaction values by 2028
- STMicroelectronics launches NFC tag chip with elliptic curve cryptography
- NFC Forum survey finds majority of consumers now prefer making payments with their mobile phone
- Hello, NFCW readers!
Deutsche Telekom to launch NFC service in 2011
German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom, which has over 129 million mobile customers under the T-Mobile brand name in multiple European countries as well as the United States, has announced plans to introduce commercial NFC services this year. More
Airtel Africa to launch NFC services in fifteen African countries
Mobile network operator Airtel Africa is to launch NFC services in Kenya, Tanzania, Gabon and a further nine African countries in early 2011, its NFC technology partner Oberthur Technologies has announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today. More
Google expands NFC Hotpot marketing service to Austin, Texas
Google has picked the city of Austin, Texas as the second location for its rollout of NFC-based marketing services. The move follows the December launch of Google’s first NFC service in Portland, Oregon. More
Qualcomm adds NFC to Snapdragon chipsets
Mobile chipset giant Qualcomm has announced that the next generation of its Snapdragon mobile chipset family will include support for near field communication. More
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Orange to offer Samsung Wave 578 NFC across Europe — but not in the UK
“With the availability of new NFC-enabled devices from Samsung, and many more from our other handset partners to come in 2011, we are moving closer to a world in which we believe mobile contactless services will soon become the norm,” says Orange’s EVP of mobile services. More
Samsung unveils second NFC phone: The Samsung Wave 578
Samsung has announced a second mobile phone equipped with near field communication functionality at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Samsung Wave 578 runs on the handset maker’s own Bada smartphone platform, for which the company announced NFC support in January, and features a 3.2-inch screen and 3.2 megapixel camera. Like the Samsung Galaxy S II announced yesterday, however, more than one version of the phone will be produced and availability of NFC functionality will depend on “market situation”. More
Samsung Galaxy S II will come with NFC — but only in some markets
The decision on whether or not the devices shipped into a particular country will be equipped with NFC will depend on “market requirement”, says Samsung. More
O2 UK commits to commercial NFC launch in second half of 2011
“My ambition would be to engage a very substantial proportion of the O2 customer base,” James Le Brocq, head of O2 UK’s financial services division, told NFC World, as the mobile network operator confirmed plans to launch commercial NFC services in the UK later this year. More
Uncovered: The hidden NFC potential of the Google Nexus S and the Nokia C7
Mobile and NFC experts Dr Gerald Madlmayr and Christian Kantner have taken apart both a Nokia C7 and a Google Nexus S to find out what’s inside and what kind of services it will be possible to offer via the handsets in the future — and to build a Nexus S that can operate in full card emulation mode. Here Dr Madlmayr explains what he and Kantner discovered… More
Gentag announces low-cost NFC/RFID phone
The US$119 GT-601 NFC handset is designed for “people who are concerned only with basic voice communication, mobile payments, social networks, and diagnostics using a low-cost mobile wireless device,” says Gentag. More
Inside Secure bids for share of Android NFC chip market
NFC and contactless chip specialist Inside Secure has begun the task of trying to convince the industry that NXP is not the only game in town when it comes to adding NFC functionality to Android mobile phones with the launch of version 4.2 of its open source NFC protocol stack. More
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Japanese social network Mixi introduces NFC check-ins
Leading Japanese social network Mixi, which has more than 21 million members, has become the first social network to offer users the ability to check into locations using near field communication. The service is compatible with Android NFC phones such as the Google Nexus S and uses Taglet, a Japanese language NFC tag reader and information sharing app launched last month. More
Belgian banks and mobile operators to launch SMS and NFC mobile payments service in 2011
Belgium’s mobile network operators have joined forces with the country’s financial sector with the aim of introducing SMS and NFC based mobile payments by the end of 2011. More
Google adds more NFC features with Android 2.3.3
Google has released Android 2.3.3, an update to Android 2.3 Gingerbread specifically designed to add more NFC functionality to the operating system. More
French operators commit to deploying 1m NFC phones in 2011
France’s mobile network operators have formally committed to deploying one million NFC phones in 2011, under the Cityzi brand name. More
Visa Europe signs mobile payments partnership deal with Monitise
Visa Europe has signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Monitise to develop and supply mobile payments services for Visa Europe’s member banks and financial institutions across Europe. More
Toshiba begins NFC SIM mass production
Toshiba has announced it has now completed testing of an NFC UIM, a user identity module that can be used in both CDMA2000 NFC phones and as a SIM card for GSM NFC phones, and is now ready to begin mass production. More
“Hacker” shows how to crack Starbucks mobile payments app
A Mobile Commerce Daily reader has shown the publication how the Starbucks coffee chain’s barcode-based mobile payments service can be hacked in just 90 seconds. More
KDDI, Softbank, SK Telecom begin testing joint NFC services for Japanese and Korean consumers
The three mobile network operators, who signed an NFC cooperation agreement in July 2010, are to begin testing a number of cross-border NFC services this month with the aim of launching commercial services by the end of 2011. More