HEADLINE NEWS

UK Taxis Get NFC Tags for Promo Campaign; NFC Dynamic Screens to Play at French Sporting Event

Samsung Electronics, along with Australia-based NFC marketing firm Tapit, UK-based out-of-home advertising company Chiel and terminal vendor VeriFone are rolling out NFC stickers to 80 taxis in the UK, as part of a promotional campaign for musician Robbie Williams’ upcoming Samsung-sponsored tour.

OTI to Supply Contactless and NFC Readers for Gasoline Stations in North America

Israel-based contactless and NFC vendor On Track Innovations announced Monday it had received an order for 30,000 readers for point-of-sale terminals at retail gasoline stations in North America.

Taxis in Major U.S. Cities to Get NFC-Enabled Video Ads

Riders in 5,000 taxicabs in the U.S. would be able to tap on NFC tags on video advertising screens to download apps, brand information, coupons, maps, music and videos, according to technology suppliers that have equipped the taxis for potential advertising campaigns.

Analyst: Banks Have More to Fear from Cloud-Based Technologies Than NFC

Banks have much more to fear from cloud-based mobile payment than from NFC, even if mobile operators control the secure elements that hold the banks’ payment applications.

GSMA Proposes Global Standard for NFC-Enabled Loyalty and Couponing–Using SIM Cards

May 10 2013 (All day)

The GSMA mobile operator trade group is proposing a global standard for how point-of-sale terminals talk to NFC-enabled mobile wallets to enable consumers to redeem coupons and rewards.

Taiwanese Bank Gets Approval for NFC-Enabled Credit Cards; Okay for Other Banks Expected

Taiwanese banking regulators, as expected, have approved the first bank to issue mobile credit cards that could be downloaded over the air to SIM cards.

UK Retailer Marks & Spencer Sees Growing Use of Contactless

Marks & Spencer, one of the UK’s largest retailers, announced today it had rolled out contactless payment to 644 of its UK stores and said 14% of its card transactions under £20 (US$30.97) are contactless.

Identive Reports Growing NFC Business; Blames Flat Sales, Losses, on U.S. Budget Cuts

U.S.-based Identive Group reported growing NFC and smart card reader business, but fell back into the red during for the first quarter, a loss it largely blamed on U.S. federal government budget cuts.

German Bank and Telco Hold Small NFC Trial; Larger Launches Planned in Country This Year

As Germany gears up for NFC, German bank Dortmunder Volksbank along with Telefónica (O2) Germany have launched a small pilot putting a credit application onto SIM cards in Western Germany.

Cashless Technology Company Announces Rollout of Isis SmartTap on Vending Machines

Vending technology company USA Technologies plans to integrate the SmartTap mobile-commerce software into all of the company’s nearly 100,000 NFC-enabled terminals on vending machines nationwide.

Infineon Introduces New Embedded Secure Element, Hoping to Tap Growing Market

Germany-based Infineon Technologies today introduced a new embedded secure element, targeting the growing market for chips that handset makers are including in their NFC-enabled devices.

Vendor Group: NFC Secure Element Market to Grow by Two-Thirds This Year

Smart card vendor association Eurosmart has substantially increased its estimate for NFC secure element shipments for 2012–by 50% to 150 million units–and forecasts that secure element shipments will grow by another 67% in 2013 to 250 million units.

Nokia Introduces Its Second NFC-enabled Smartphone

Nokia has introduced its second NFC-enabled smartphone, the N9, which enables users to share photos, videos and music by tapping devices together.

The high-end phone, introduced today in Singapore, is Nokia’s first NFC device supporting the MeeGo operating system. It continues the Finnish handset maker’s push for what it calls “open NFC”–applications that don’t require a secure element.

A Nokia spokesman confirmed to NFC Times that the phone does not support card emulation or a secure element. Nokia said in its press announcement that the device enables users to “easily share images and videos between devices by touching them together. 

“Pair it with Bluetooth accessories like the new NFC-enabled Nokia Play 360° wireless music speaker only once, and you get a great surround sound music experience with just a tap,” said Nokia in a statement.

Nokia’s first NFC-enabled smartphone, the C7, a Symbian device, also does not support card emulation and does not have a secure embedded chip or support for SIM-based applications. Nokia enabled the phone for tag reading and P2P applications in April.

Among other applications, the N9 is expected to support the NFC version of the Angry Birds video game, dubbed Angry Birds “Magic,” which allows users to advance to additional levels of the game by tapping their NFC phones to NFC phones of their friends. The C7 supports the game as part of a Nokia-funded tie-in with Angry Birds maker Rovio.

The N9 features Nokia’s new screen design, which dispenses with a home key button. Users swipe their finger across the edge of the 3.9-inch AMOLED screen to return to the home screen. MeeGo, an open-source operating system that, like Symbian, supports Nokia’s Ovi apps, is part of the phone maker’s joint project with chip maker Intel.

In April, Nokia’s vice president for industry collaborations, Mark Selby, speaking at the WIMA NFC conference in Monaco, contended that NFC applications not securely stored on SIM cards, embedded chips or other secure elements will account for two-thirds of the revenue that NFC technology will generate through 2013. He did not release actual figures for the internal market estimates.

These “open” NFC services use tag-reading or peer-to-peer communication features on NFC phones, such those involving consumers tapping their phones on smart posters to download coupons or on packages to receive product information. Or they would tap tags to check in on social networking sites. The services also could include payment and ticketing using the NFC tag-reading or P2P modes, with security not on a secure chip but based in the cloud, said Selby.

Most payment and ticketing applications will be stored on secure chips, however, and Selby added in April that Nokia would also support them in future NFC phones.

“I’m not saying secure (element-based) NFC is bad,” said Selby. “(Just) do not focus exclusively on that area because it is the smaller (opportunity). Whether I’m talking about Groupon, Foursquare or Facebook, there is an extraordinary value, and NFC has a role to play in this.”

Nokia has said it plans to produce several more Symbian phones this year and next, despite its move to the Windows Phone 7 platform. Some of the Symbian phones are expected to support NFC. 

As NFC Times has reported, Microsoft plans to incorporate NFC in Windows Phone.