NFC news in brief

PayPal is to demonstrate a new digital wallet solution at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas this week. The new wallet is designed to work across multiple devices, including mobile phones and, the online payments giant's Sam Shrauger explains, "will do for digital money what internet mash-ups did for digital information: Free it, so you can connect it, filter it, personalize it, share it and make it work the way that you want it to."

Phone maker Samsung has filed a trademark application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for "Samsung Wallet", a word mark relating to "computer software for mobile phones, smart phones and tablet PCs," PocketNow reports.

Bulgarian mobile network operator M-Tel is to begin a six month NFC payments pilot in May 2012, in conjunction with First Investment Bank, and hopes to begin commercial services this year. M-Tel is also investigating the potential for NFC public transportation ticketing.

Some Google Wallet users running the app on rooted NFC phones are now seeing a message pointing out that their phone is an unsuppported device. Clicking on a 'learn more' link, Droid Life reports, provides a warning that gaining root access can disable important security mechanisms and "we strongly discourage doing so if you plan to use Google Wallet".

Indian mass transportation operator Delhi Metro Railway Corporation has "started experimenting with NFC-enabled cell phones" for ticketing, reports The Times of India. 1.6 million commuters ride the Delhi Metro's 190km network every day.

Visa currently has six certified NFC phones and expects to double that figure in the next few months, the payments network's Andrea Fiorentino has told NFC World. In the near future, Visa expects to have "a conveyor belt of approvals" in place, he added.

Chip giant Intel has picked Giesecke & Devrient as its trusted service manager for the embedded secure elements built into its smartphone reference design (SRD), a 'plug and play' blueprint that handset makers can use to build Android handsets using Intel's NFC-enabled Medfield chips.

Mobile test equipment specialist Comprion has released an NFC testing solution that can be used in-store to check a device's NFC functionality. NFC Go offers a simple and quick method of testing the NFC antenna and tag reading capability of a handset, reader or other device. The device requires minimal user training and is aimed at phone shops, manufacturers' test centres and customer support departments.

Visa has certified Intel's smartphone reference design (SRD) for use in NFC payments and formed a strategic alliance with the chip maker, designed to develop mobile commerce solutions tailored to consumers in developed and developing countries. "Our work with Visa also extends to our customers designing products based on Intel's smartphone reference device," says Intel's Mike Bell.

Blackberry maker RIM has produced a short film to show consumers some of the ways using an NFC smartphone can change their lives. NFC payments, physical and logical access control, ticketing, and retail loyalty applications are shown in the video, which has been watched over 200,000 times since it was posted on YouTube two days ago.

The city of Barcelona, which is already converting to mobile contactless payments, also plans to introduce NFC for public transportation ticketing, the city council has announced.

Everything Everywhere, Vodafone and O2 will be submitting their plans for a UK-based NFC joint venture to regulators in Brussels next week, the Financial Times reports. Mobile network operator Three, which was not invited to join the venture, is continuing to object to the plans.

Opera Software has added support for NFC peer-to-peer information sharing to its popular mobile internet browser. The new functionality, which works via Android Beam, is included in the latest version of Opera Mobile which is now available to download from Android Market.

ID technology provider Morpho is to offer Inside Secure's new NFC-on-a-SIM technology to its customers under the Morpho SIMply NFC-Revolution brand name. "Our bridge solution enables mobile subscribers to be introduced to NFC without the need to change their phones," says Morpho's Paul Naldrett. "We are convinced that this is the way to bring NFC to mass markets."

A new version of content discovery platform StumbleUpon's Android app includes support for Google's NFC peer-to-peer Android Beam technology, allowing users with an Android 4.0 NFC phone to share content they discover with other NFC phone users.

Chile's Minister of Transport and Telecommunications is attending the Mobile World Congress this week to investigate the potential for introducing mobile transportation ticketing within the next few months, Chilean publication Emol reports. Plans call for requirements to be defined by April 2012 so that initial deployments can begin in June or July this year.

Gemalto has announced Advanced Connectivity, an end-to-end solution for delivering and activating M2M, NFC and streaming multimedia content applications over LTE networks.

Gemalto has signed a deal with Sony that will see it adding support for Sony's FeliCa contactless card technology to its new Upteq NFC SIM technology. FeliCa chips are embedded in 346 million cards and 170 million mobile phones, including Japan's Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet service which is switching to NFC, "Through this agreement, we aim to collaborate closely with Gemalto to develop globally compliant solutions for the growing NFC market," says Sony's Izumi Kawanishi.

Chip maker NXP has announced a new secure element platform which is form factor agnostic and incorporates the company's next-generation SmartMX2 technology. The new platform "brings passport level security, smart card performance and multi-applications capability to the SIM market" for the first time, says NXP.

A new version of task manager app Any.Do, voted best Android app of 2011 by Techcrunch, allows users with an NFC phone running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to share tasks via Android Beam.