Les Terrasses du Port, a new 480-hectare shopping centre in the French city of Marseille, has installed Europe’s largest network of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, enabling retailers such as Zara and H&M to deliver promotional offers and information straight to shoppers’ smartphones... More
Beacons
UK city to run NFC, QR and BLE shopper marketing pilot
Proximity commerce specialist Proxama has partnered with the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM) and Norwich Business Improvement District (BID) to run a shopper marketing pilot in the UK city of Norwich... More
60m BLE beacons to ship by 2019
Sixty million Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons worth US$500m will be shipped in 2019, ABI Research forecasts... More
Robin raises funds for BLE in the office
Boston startup Robin has closed a US$1.4m seed funding round to expand and develop a solution that uses iBeacons and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to let workers interact with the office space around them... More
Easyjet pilots Bluetooth beacons at three European airports
Low-cost airline easyJet is trialling iBeacon technology at London Luton, London Gatwick and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports... More
Carrefour and Nisa track shoppers via Bluetooth beacons in trolleys and baskets
Supermarket giant Carrefour and convenience store group Nisa are piloting a new technology that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons attached to trolleys and baskets to track a shopper’s journey around the store... More
Mahana uses BLE to help hotels improve customer service
Hospitality technology startup Mahana has introduced a customer service platform that gives hotel and casino staff a way to improve customer service by accessing guest information on the go... More
Radius turns Macs into beacons
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) platform provider Radius Networks has introduced QuickBeacon for OS X, a virtual iBeacon solution that can turn any Macintosh computer equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 and running OS X 10.9 or higher into a fully configurable BLE beacon... More
American Airlines pilots BLE beacons in Dallas
American Airlines is to run a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon pilot at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), allowing travellers to access a range of wayfinding and location-based services from their mobile device... More
InMarket reports positive consumer response to Bluetooth beacons
Shoppers who receive marketing messages via inMarket’s Mobile to Mortar (M2M) iBeacon platform interact more with advertised products, increase their in-store app usage and are more likely to keep an app on their phone, a survey of 25,000 US consumers has found... More
LevelUp to build BLE into payments terminals
US mobile payments service LevelUp is to provide its merchants with the ability to push offers to shoppers via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons built into the next version of its POS device... More
Rewards for HP beacon scavengers
Attendees at this week’s HP Discover 2014 Conference in Las Vegas have been able to earn rewards for visiting all areas of the show by taking part in a mobile scavenger hunt... More
iBeacons go to Cannes
Advertising industry executives attending the annual Cannes Lions festival in France next week will be able to use an iBeacon-powered “Around Me” feature within the event’s official iPhone app to detect nearby attendees and connect with them... More
Digicash raises €2.2m to expand NFC, QR and BLE payments platform
Luxembourg-based Digicash Payments has raised €2.2m to expand its mobile payments platform on a “national and on an international level.” The service supports transactions via NFC, QR and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and has been adopted by four local banks... More
Hawaii gets iBeacon happy hours
Happy Hour Pal, a Honolulu-based startup that lets businesses promote special offers to users of its mobile app, is using Bluetooth LE beacons and Apple’s iBeacon service to push happy hour offers to consumers, Pacific Business News reports... More
Top London shopping street installs beacons in 100 stores
One hundred retailers with stores on London’s upmarket Regent Street, one of the city’s busiest shopping locations, have installed Bluetooth Low Energy beacons that trigger personalized offers and communications for shoppers who have downloaded a mobile app developed by landowner The Crown Estate... More
IEEE tests beacons
The IEEE is using Bluetooth beacons to guide visitors around the International Microwave Symposium being held this week in Tampa, Florida... More
Meadowhall shopping centre provides special offers via Bluetooth LE
Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield, UK is to use iBeacon technology to gamify a shopping event, with brands providing offers, discounts, pampering freebies and prize giveaways. Participating retailers include Krispy Kreme, Hotel Chocolat, Cath Kidston and House of Fraser. More
Aurnhammer takes BLE on a New York pub crawl
Digital design agency Aurnhammer is using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons placed in bars and restaurants to guide participants to their next pub crawl destination — and provide them with sponsored rewards for taking part... More
Groupon lets merchants redeem vouchers via BLE
Prepaid voucher provider Groupon has launched an iPad-based point-of-sale terminal that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to let merchants “instantly recognize their Groupon customers as they enter their business, seamlessly redeem Groupons and save time and money.”... More