“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 has announced a second mobile phone equipped with near field communication functionality at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona... More
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
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
Mobile network operator NTT Docomo, the driving force behind Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet service, has confirmed that it will make the move to NFC standard technology from “around the end of 2012”, in partnership with Korea’s KT. More
Reports in two Korean publications suggest that LG is planning to launch a US$200 mass market phone with built-in NFC capabilities at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month... More
The cities of Paris, Bordeaux, Caen, Lille, Marseille, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse are to join Nice in the next stage of French plans to deploy a national NFC infrastructure... More
The successor to Samsung’s hugely successful Galaxy S smartphone is set to launch at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month, according to a report in Korean publication Etnews — and near field communication functionality looks set to come as standard... More
Telefónica, la Caixa and Visa’s NFC payments trial in the Spanish resort of Sitges has seen significant increases in both transaction frequencies and purchase values but, the partners say, a mass deployment of NFC services is still three to five years away. More
Samsung is to include support for near field communication in version 2.0 of its Bada operating system, the handset manufacturer has told delegates attending a developer day in Seoul... More
Tech repair website iFixit has dismantled and photographed Samsung’s Nexus S smartphone, the first Android device to run the new Gingerbread operating system and the first to include support for near field communication... More
Orange will begin introducing NFC services “in the majority of countries in which it has a presence” in 2011, the mobile network operator has told mobile phone manufacturers at a meeting in Paris on 15 December... More
The aim is to ensure that users of the French Cityzi NFC service can use their mobile phone to make payments anywhere in the world that MasterCard PayPass is accepted, ahead of a planned national expansion of the Cityzi service. More
The payments network’s new compliance testing system means that Visa can now certify other devices and phones with built-in NFC functionality “in a heartbeat”, the company’s head of mobile product development has told NFC World. More
The Nexus S, the first Android phone to use the new Gingerbread version of the operating system and its built-in NFC functionality, will hit the shops in the US on 16 December and the UK on 20 December. For now, however, it looks as though the phones will only support tag reading applications — mobile payments capabilities will only be available later. More
Korean electronics giant Samsung has entered the NFC controller market with a chip the company says offers a comparative 20% power saving. More
NFC-on-microSD specialist Tyfone has been granted another patent that covers its use of memory cards as an NFC-enabler in mobile phones... More
The world’s first pilot test using NFC phones to replace hotel room keys begins this week at the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, using a new mobile key solution developed by Assa Abloy. More
KT, Korea’s second largest mobile network operator, is to launch a commercial NFC service at the end of October using a new NFC phone made by Samsung. The SHW-A170K feature phone is to be followed with a range of Android NFC phones and KT predicts that, by 2015, NFC phones will account for 47% of sales. More
News in brief from the NFC world and beyond: First Osaifu-Keitai smartphone • Antenna designer broadcasts Samsung success • St Petersburg metro test • NFC is key to BMW’s Connected Drive • NFC Forum’s new member • Gauthier moves to PayPal • Toro and Collis partner up • and more… More