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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

Reports are citing comments from Microsoft vice president and Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore as emphasizing an NFC-based “wallet experience” for the software giant’s planned Windows Phone 8 platform.

Nokia has introduced an app supporting NFC-based check-ins on social-networking site foursquare and is testing a tag system that it says could provide more security for rewards and other loyalty programs.

Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s Windows Phone division, confirmed in an interview Wednesday that the mobile platform will support NFC and reportedly that it would support payments.

Nokia today introduced yet another Symbian-based NFC phone, the Nokia 603, which like other recent models, it is targeting at first-time smartphone users.

While handset makers are beginning to ship more popular smartphone models with NFC inside, some key industry observers say they expect significantly fewer than 40 million NFC phones will be shipped for all of 2011.

Chinese social-networking site Jiepang has expanded its use of NFC, and has announced a tie-in with Nokia and the handset maker’s new line of affordable NFC-enabled smartphones.

Update: Nokia today launched three new NFC-enabled Symbian smartphones, along with yet another update to its Symbian operating system, but the handset maker told NFC Times it will not support secure elements on its Symbian NFC phones until the first half of 2012.

The project has launched at the Museum of London and its sister institution, the Museum of London Docklands, which together got a combined 600,000 visitors last year.