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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

Despite efforts to diversify its customer base for its NFC chips, France-based Inside Secure will rely on sales to BlackBerry maker Research In Motion for the bulk of its revenue in 2012 and for its goal to become profitable by the end of the year.

Organizers of a recent NFC hackathon in London gave “kick-starter” funds to two teams of app developers and handed out other awards, all in an effort to bring the apps closer to a market launch.

France-based NFC chip supplier Inside Secure has relaunched its initial public offering, planning to raise up the €79 million (US$103.4 million), as it seeks to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded NFC market.

Inside Secure today announced it has shipped 20 million NFC chips the past 12 months and said its chips will be used by a leading phone maker on a major mobile platform–as it seeks to build interest in its renewed IPO.

Infineon Technologies said it shipped at least 10 million embedded secure chips during both the third and fourth quarters of 2011 and predicts it will continue to sell “double-digit millions” of embedded chips each quarter after that.

Spain-based Telefónica Group and Research In Motion announced today an employee trial at Telefónica’s headquarters that will test up to three NFC-enabled BlackBerry models for payment and physical access control.

Research in Motion has announced that MasterCard Worldwide has certified two of its NFC-enabled BlackBerrys to run MasterCard’s PayPass payment application, and mobile operator France Telecom-Orange is interested in introducing the phones for NFC payment and other services.

France-based Inside Secure announced it has shipped 10 million NFC chips this year through Oct. 15 and told NFC Times that most of the chips come stacked with embedded secure elements that could support ID, payment and other secure applications.

Etisalat, the United Arab Emirates’ largest telco, disclosed plans to introduce NFC payment to the Gulf state, putting a MasterCard PayPass application on SIM cards in at least one NFC-enabled BlackBerry model.

Research in Motion is promoting peer-to-peer applications in its NFC phones, announcing today a BlackBerry Tag feature that will be included in an update to its BlackBerry 7 operating syste