Google Wallet is to gain support for a wide variety of new types of contactless credentials, including health insurance cards and employee ID badges, and is also expanding its support for mobile driver’s licenses, state IDs and transit passes, general manager Jenny Cheng has announced... More
Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball (MLB) team, has become the first sports venue to use a new version of Amazon’s palm biometric payments solution that removes the need for bar staff to manually check whether a customer purchasing alcohol is over 21... More
Researchers in Japan have unveiled a system that allows users to communicate physical sensations and haptic information between devices and could enable contactless augmented interactions across a range of use cases including healthcare, sport, education and ecommerce... More
Spanish football team Real Sociedad is to include NFC tags in its 2020/21 season supporter shirts “to open up new sponsorship opportunities by connecting fans with partner brands”... More
Super Bowl LIV winners the Kansas City Chiefs have installed NFC ticketing in the premium suites at their Arrowhead Stadium, enabling fans to receive tickets directly on their Android or Apple mobile phones and then tap to enter their suites using NFC... More
Paciolan announces support for contactless tickets in Apple Wallet for college sports — Paciolan — “The first schools to offer contactless tickets for the fall 2019 football season include Baylor University, Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, University of Mississippi, Georgia Tech, and Rutgers University.”
NHL takes ticketless path with Ticketmaster extension — SportsPro — “Going forward, NHL tickets will include near field communication (NFC) technology that allows fans to ‘tap’ into a venue entrance, and aims to protect against digital tickets being copied and resold… The deal comes after the NHL, which introduced mobile ticketing during its Stadium Series in 2018, experienced an 85% and 88% growth in the number of fans using mobile tickets during its 2018 and 2019 All-Star games, respectively.”
Ticketmaster customers will be able to add contactless tickets to Apple Wallet later this year, enabling their tickets to be automatically selected via NFC when they hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near a ticket reader... More
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
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.”
Fans of one of Europe’s top soccer clubs will be able to use the NFC functionality in their iPhone or Apple Watch to gain admittance to games at the team’s home stadium from 19 December... More
Watchmaker Fossil has added a Wear OS smartwatch to its range of NFC-enabled wearable payments devices... More
Los Angeles Football Club fans attending matches at the Major League Soccer club’s Banc of California stadium are now able to use Apple’s new Express Card NFC functionality to gain access to the venue by simply tapping their iPhone or Apple Watch at entry turnstiles equipped with contactless readers... More
Paris Saint-Germain becomes first football club in the world to announce long term cryptocurrency strategy — Paris Saint-Germain — “Socios.com will work alongside the club to develop the world’s first Fan Token Offering (FTO) for the Paris Saint-Germain fanbase. The Paris Saint-Germain fan token will be listed on the Socios.com platform and will allow fans to engage with the club through mobile voting and polling platforms. Token owners will also be granted access to exclusive fan rewards, content and experiences.”
UK Premier League club Chelsea has added NFC tags to its third kit shirts for the forthcoming football season... More
Leading UK football club Manchester City has released an NFC wristband that focuses on delivering team news and stats to fans... More
Clear partners with Seattle Seahawks, Sounders FC, & Mariners to launch biometrics payment & ID check initiative — Clear — “With approval from the State of Washington to replace a traditional ID check with biometric powered age validation, Clear members at CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field can buy food and drinks, and simultaneously prove that they are of legal age for alcohol purchases — all with just their fingerprints.”
Fitbit launches Charge 3 — the number one fitness tracker, now better than ever — Fitbit — “Leave your wallet at home and use Charge 3 Special Edition devices to make easy and secure payments with Fitbit Pay contactless payments; supported by more than 100 financial institutions in 18 countries.”
Adidas celebrates Atlanta and the 2018 Major League Soccer All-Star Game presented by Target with speciality Speedfactory AM4MLS lifestyle shoe — Adidas — “The AM4MLS shoe will be the first of its kind to bring the sound of the city to life through an embedded NFC chip enabling the owner to access a Spotify playlist curated by Rich The Kid. Deeply rooted in Atlanta’s culture, the 21 songs aim to pay tribute to the city’s rich music history and its influence in artists across the country.”
Philadelphia Phillies and Aramark launch Apple Business Chat at Citizens Bank Park — Aramark — “With the ease of a text message, Philadelphia Phillies fans can now order beverages using their iPhone without missing a minute of on-field baseball action… Fans in designated sections of Citizens Bank Park will be able to use Apple Business Chat to place orders using their iPhone’s Messages app to have the menu items delivered directly to their seats, as part of a ground-breaking pilot program.”
