NFC TimesThe premier source for news, analysis and commentary on
Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC TIMES Exclusive – The 76th Annual Golden Globes held Sunday featured the usual share of Hollywood celebrities preening for the cameras, showing off their new designer gowns and latest nips and tucks, while holding their trophies high if they won.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – In one of the first implementations of its kind, Sweden-based hybrid smartwatch brand Kronaby plans to enable personalization of tokenized payment cards over the air using a Bluetooth connection to what is essentially a passive contactless chip in its watches.

NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight ­– In what may be a response to the proposed tie-up between Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics has announced that it is “cooperating” with Taiwan-based MediaTek, the No. 2 supplier of processor chips for smartphones, to integrate its NFC technology into MediaTek reference designs.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chip maker STMicroelectronics has been gearing up to make a play for the payments wearables market, an initiative punctuated by its announcement last week that it is working with Germany-based Giesecke & Devrient and payments wearables technology start-up FitPay to streamline provisioning of card credentials on its embedded chips.

NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Chip maker STMicroelectronics is hoping its $77.8 million-plus acquisition of the NFC assets of Austria-based ams AG will help it accelerate its move into the Internet of Things market, especially for wearables.

BARCELONA, Spain – NFC Times Exclusive (UPDATED): The Galaxy S6 will carry an embedded secure element, mainly to enable nonpayment applications, while supporting NFC payments with host-card emulation and storing payment tokens in a secure area on the processor, an ARM-based TrustZone, a representative of Samsung told NFC Times. The embedded secure element also could be used to store tokens outside of the U.S. 

U.S-based Texas Instruments said it expects to see prototype launches of devices using its recently launched NFC sensor transponder in the first quarter of 2015, as the U.S.-based chip maker seeks a larger stake in the promising markets for wearables, Internet of Things and industrial applications that sometimes require an NFC interface.

NFC Times Exclusive: Samsung Electronics has switched back to an NFC controller chip from NXP Semiconductors for most of the planned shipments of its new flagship, the Galaxy S5, but the phones will not pack NXP’s embedded secure element, NFC Times has learned.

China’s NFC market continues to gather steam, with No. 3 telco, China Telecom, announcing a nationwide launch Thursday and one of China’s largest commercial financial institutions, China Merchants Bank, introducing mobile payment on embedded chips in three Samsung NFC devices.  

NFC Times Exclusive: With Broadcom scoring an unexpected design win to supply NFC chips to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 earlier this year, and the U.S.-based chip maker gaining an endorsement from Google for its NFC technology, it looked like Broadcom could dethrone rival NXP Technologies as the premier supplier for Android NFC devices.