Some 560m NFC secure elements will be shipped worldwide in 2017, representing a 12% increase from 2016, smart security industry association Eurosmart reveals. A total of 495m NFC secure elements were shipped in 2015, which increased by 1% in 2016 to reach 500m units. More
Tattoo artists across the US, Australia, Austria and Singapore have signed up to start offering their customers augmented reality tattoos that get inked onto the skin and play audio clips when scanned by a smartphone using a mobile app that is due to be released in June 2017. More
You’ll get a kick out of this: Qualcomm patents the ‘Internet of Shoes’ — The Register — “Qualcomm sees the shoes not only logging steps and helping navigation, but also monitoring the user’s gait, using the vibration motors to tell users when they should speed up their pace, and tracking both blood pressure and heart rate.”
Android Pay will be rolled out to a number of additional countries including Brazil, Canada, Russia, Spain and Taiwan over the “coming months”, Google’s director of engineering for payment products Varouj Chitilian has revealed... More
Square will replace meters in Washington taxis — Bloomberg — “The overhaul of the city’s cab system will help drivers compete with Uber… By the end of August, all of the taxis in Washington have to tear out their traditional meters and start using smartphones or tablets, in what the city government has been describing as a complete reimagining of how the cab system works.”
NXP has announced that its Android Things platform now supports the new Google Cloud IoT Core, enabling enterprise and city developers to use NXP’s platform “to help create a smart, interconnected system of devices that are securely managed and provisioned through the Google Cloud”. More
Apple Pay has begun rolling out across Italy with support for Mastercard and Visa cards issued by Carrefour Banca and UniCredit, with American Express, CartaBCC, ExpendiaSmart, Fineco Bank, Hype, Banca Mediolanum, N26 and Widiba listed as “coming this year”. The launch takes Apple Pay to a total of 16 markets globally. More
Capital One forays into digital ID, aiming to leverage KYC know-how — American Banker — “Capital One is one of the first in the US to test if businesses will pay banks to check users’ identities, and if consumers will sign into websites through their banks the way they use social media accounts.”
Delta is testing facial recognition technology, plans first biometric-based self-service bag drop in US — Delta — “Delta is introducing four self-service bag drop machines at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this summer… One machine will be equipped to test facial recognition technology to match customers with their passport photos through identification verification, a first for US carriers.”
More than a third of US consumers (36%) are now using person-to-person (P2P) mobile payment services, with millennials leading the way at nearly double that rate (62%), research released by Bank of America reveals... More
Burger King seeks edge over McDonald’s in mobile payment battle — Bloomberg — “The chain has been testing mobile payment technology in the Miami area since December and is looking to introduce it more broadly soon, according to Jose Cil, Burger King’s president. That will set the stage for a national rollout within months.”
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group have developed a working concept that enables smartphones to interact with smart home appliances using electromagnetic emission sensing technology. More
CMU researchers create touchpads with a can of spray paint — Carnegie Mellon University — “Walls, furniture, steering wheels, toys and even Jell-O can be turned into touch sensors with the technology, dubbed Electrick… The ‘trick’ is to apply electrically conductive coatings or materials to objects or surfaces, or to craft objects using conductive materials.”
Chinese tourists in North America will soon be able to make in-store mobile payments at some 4m locations using Alipay, following a partnership between the mobile payment service and payment processor First Data... More
Tencent extends WeChat Pay to the US with focus on Chinese tourists — South China Morning Post — “WeChat Pay’s US launch is the company’s latest globalisation push as both Tencent and Alibaba seek to expand overseas amid their intensified mobile payment competition at home.”
More than one in ten German mobile phone users (11.4%) will make a “proximity mobile payment by tapping, swiping or checking in with that device” while in a store in 2017, compared to 20.5% in the US, research released by eMarketer reveals... More
Customer satisfaction, overall brand image and retention metrics for banks are higher among customers who have a mobile payment service linked to their bank account, findings from the J.D... More
Samsung Pay has expanded to four additional markets with official launches in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and early access launches in Hong Kong and Switzerland. The service has also been made available on Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch in Russia, Sweden and the UAE in addition to its availability on the Gear S3 in the US, Singapore and Australia. More
US consumers made more than one billion Visa chip transactions for the first time in March 2017, an increase of 330% compared to a year previous... More
Subway, FreshDirect and The Cheesecake Factory have begun rolling out payment bots for Facebook Messenger across the US, allowing their customers to secure and complete payments using Mastercard’s Masterpass digital payment platform without having to leave the instant messaging service. More