US consumers purchasing premium cigars manufactured by the Ferio Tego Cigar Co will be able to authenticate their purchase, access videos and information about the product and make additional orders by tapping an NFC tag embedded in the cigar box with their NFC-enabled smartphone... More
Apple may incorporate iris scanning functionality in a forthcoming head-mounted display (HMD) mixed-reality headset that will enable users to authenticate their identity when using Apple Pay to make payments via the “mostly virtual reality device”, according to MacRumors... More
Scientists at Northwestern University in the USA have unveiled a prototype ‘epidermal VR’ patch that is powered by NFC and holds the promise of enabling sensory feedback to be added to a wide range of gaming, entertainment, communication and medical applications... More
Mastercard and Swarovski launch virtual reality shopping experience — Mastercard — “Once the consumers decide and select the piece from the collection that they want to purchase, they can add it to the cart and check out by focusing their gaze on the Masterpass button that appears at the bottom of the product description. When the consumer exits the application or the session detects that the headset has been removed, the consumer will be automatically logged out of their Masterpass account to protect against unintended purchases.”
Samsung challenges Apple Watch with its new Gear Sport smartwatch — Yahoo Finance — “Like the Gear S3, the Gear Sport also includes NFC wireless capabilities to allow for Samsung Pay transactions. You can use the watch as a remote control for Samsung’s GearVR virtual-reality headset.”
International standard completed for high rate close proximity wireless communications exceeding 10 Gbps data rate — TransferJet Consortium — “This new standard maintains the intuitive ease-of-use and can instantly transfer any type of data including large 4K definition and VR (virtual reality) video files… The required connection setup time has been reduced to 2 msec or less, allowing new usage scenarios such as the delivery of content while walking through ticketing gates.”
Digital wallets were the new way to pay most discussed by consumers on social media in 2016, the 2017 edition of the Mastercard Digital Payments Study has found, with consumers around the world also increasingly interested in the payments possibilities of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, smart home assistants, wearables, and the Internet of Things... More
More than one in 10 (11%) of UK consumers have made an in-store mobile payment and do so occasionally, with 2% doing so “wherever possible”, research from price comparison service uSwitch reveals... More
Asus has announced the first smartphone to support both Google’s Tango 3D augmented reality and Daydream virtual reality technologies... More
Chip giant Intel is developing a virtual reality headset based on ‘merged reality’, with users able to see the real world even while wearing a full headset, The Verge reports... More
More than one third of UK consumers (37%) describe mobile payments as “life changing” while 57% say the same thing for contactless transactions, research by UK bank Barclays reveals... More
British consumers are spending an average of £36.76 (US$44.95) of their monthly disposable income through mobile payments, equating to £1.46bn (US$1.78bn) spent using mobile devices in the UK every month, research released by VoucherCodes reveals... More
Alibaba affiliate and Alipay parent company Ant Financial is readying a virtual reality (VR) payment experience that will allow shoppers to pay with a nod of the head... More
Google has launched a virtual reality headset that works in conjunction with smartphones supporting its Daydream mobile VR platform and uses NFC to connect the devices... More
Visitors to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) are being given the opportunity to embark on a virtual shopping experience that enables them to enter a wardrobe studio to try on iconic costumes from famous movies, add items to a basket and pay using Visa Checkout... More
Chinese internet giant Alibaba is developing virtual reality-enabled mobile payment technology, according to China Daily... More
Professional golfer Graeme McDowell has been equipped with a payment-enabled jacket by MasterCard for The 145th Open at Royal Troon this week that will let him pay while he plays by tapping his sleeve on a contactless reader. More
Diners at McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden can now turn their Happy Meal boxes into a set of virtual reality goggles and play a skiing game endorsed by the Swedish National Ski Team using their smartphone. More
Creative technology agency Knit has developed a range of NFC-enabled Cardboard Objects that are designed to fit inside a modified version of Google’s Cardboard virtual reality (VR) headset to let users view “relevant app-based content” using real world objects... More
Developers attending Google’s I/O conference have been given a DIY virtual reality headset that includes an NFC tag for connecting the device to their mobile phone. More
