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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC TIMES Exclusive – After two years addressing design, certification and legal issues, UK-based start-up Kerv Wearables says it’s finally ready to launch its NFC-enabled ring.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Silicon Valley-based chip technology licensing company Rambus is seeking to expand its customer base beyond chip suppliers to banks and other service providers with its purchase of mobile payments vendor Bell ID and a smaller sister company.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide appear to be stepping up the pace of NFC phone certifications as they gear up for the launch of more mobile-payment rollouts this year.

MasterCard has announced certifications for 17 NFC phones as well as its own mark that handset makers could display on device packaging, advertisements or even on the devices themselves, showing the phone is able to do contactless payments with MasterCard PayPass.

The NFC Forum has relaxed its rules for device makers to display its N-Mark symbol on their products and also is allowing software providers to show the mark, as it seeks to broaden use of the touchpoint symbol on consumer products.

Visa has announced its first certifications of NFC phones, approving six models to run its contactless application, payWave, on SIM cards.

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.