Android

Australian banking group ANZ has begun an NFC payments field trial and announced plans to launch a commercial service in 2013. The small pilot project uses Samsung Galaxy S III Android phones. "ANZ has selected... More

A leaked device service bulletin from US Cellular spotted by Android Police indicates that the US mobile network operator is about to add support for Google Wallet, beginning with the Samsung Galaxy S III. Other... More

A new Android app called FileBeam allows users to transfer files held on the Dropbox cloud storage service between two NFC devices. "Tap on a folder to expand it, select files (and even folders!), and... More

Mobile network operator SFR has launched France's first rechargeable MasterCard PayPass card, in a first step towards issuing its own NFC mobile payment service. The new SFR PayCard will be available from October to anyone... More

Researchers at Intrepidus Group have demonstrated how an Android NFC phone can be used to add value to a transit card without paying but, says NXP, the vulnerability is limited to transportation card issuers that haven't upgraded from Mifare Ultralight to the newer Mifare Ultralight C technology. More

HTC has announced its first two WP8 devices, the Windows Phone 8X with NFC and the Windows Phone 8S, which does not include NFC. The 8X, which includes a PN544 NFC controller from NXP, has... More

A US-based start-up has developed an alternative approach to storing the sensitive data required to make a transaction with an NFC phone. Rather than placing it in a secure element on the phone, SimplyTapp stores the data in the cloud on a "remote secure element" and passes encrypted transaction data through the phone to a point-of-sale terminal when the user makes a purchase. More

"MasterCard is providing a programmer-friendly set of functions that make it easy for application developers to rapidly deliver payment apps to consumers — without having to become smart card programming experts," says the payments network. More

A new NFC phone from Motorola is a variant of the Droid Razr M, announced earlier this month, with an Intel processor at its heart instead of the M's dual core Snapdragon S4. The Motorola... More

LG's flagship Optimus G smartphone is to start shipping in Korea next week and will arrive in "key global markets" from October, says the company. The NFC-enabled handset runs Android 4.0 and sports a quad... More

Barclaycard US, Green Dot, and Silicon Valley Bank as well as six credit unions have joined Discover in adding support for the NFC mobile wallet. More

Instant messaging app IMO has added support for NFC, allowing users of the latest version of the company's Android app to share profiles by touching their devices together. More

Shoppers at the French supermarket chain's Les Belles Feuilles branch in Paris will be able to use shelf-edge labels equipped with NFC tags to obtain details of each of 25,000 products on offer, scan items into their basket and then checkout by simply tapping their NFC phone to a reader attached to the retailer's cash register. More

Beginning with the UK, consumers in Europe will be able to equip their Apple and Android smartphones with an NFC add-on and use it to make prepaid contactless payments from later this year. More

The access control giant — owner of HID Global, Yale, Vingcard Elsafe and more — has unveiled a new platform that allows NFC phones to be used to replace mechanical keys and access cards in homes, hotels, offices, hospitals, universities and commercial buildings. More

Music streaming service Spotify has added NFC support to the latest version of its Android app, allowing users to share music via NFC on devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and above. More

The Droid Razr M, Droid Razr HD and Droid Razr Maxx HD will be exclusive to Verizon in the US and developer editions will also be available. More

The Ativ S Windows Phone 8 smartphone, Ativ Tab Windows 8 tablet and the new edition of the Galaxy Note will all ship with NFC as standard, says Samsung. More

"Sony is putting NFC at the heart of content sharing," says the electronics giant as it announces six new products featuring NFC capabilities, including two new smartphones, Vaio touchscreen and Ultrabook PCs, a premium headset and a portable speaker unit. More

A number of improvements have been announced for Moneto, the DeviceFidelity microSD-based payments service that lets any US consumers add NFC functionality to their iPhone or Android device: iPhone owners can now opt to use... More