Digital design agency Aurnhammer is using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons placed in bars and restaurants to guide participants to their next pub crawl destination — and provide them with sponsored rewards for taking part... More
Prepaid voucher provider Groupon has launched an iPad-based point-of-sale terminal that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to let merchants “instantly recognize their Groupon customers as they enter their business, seamlessly redeem Groupons and save time and money.”... More
PayPal Beacon, a mobile payment service that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to let shoppers make “hands free” payments, is now undergoing pilot testing in Palo Alto... More
San Francisco Soup Company, operator of 17 soup, salad and sandwich restaurants around the Bay Area, has selected mobile solutions provider Punchh to create a customised mobile guest rewards program... More
St George Bank is testing the use of Bluetooth LE technology to send a welcome message and personalised information directly to a customer’s iPhone when they enter a branch... More
Twentieth Century Fox is to use Bluetooth beacons to promote the new X-Men: Days of Future Past movie to cinema-goers in Japan... More
A Canadian startup has introduced a range of smart sports shirts that monitor the wearer’s heart rate, breathing and movement and then use Bluetooth LE to send the collected data to their smartphone for real time analysis. More
US start-up RealtyBeacon is making it possible for real estate agents to deliver details about a property for sale to potential buyers as they drive by, by adding Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to their ‘For Sale’ boards... More
Canadian payments and money transfer provider nTrust has begun piloting a new mobile payments service that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons placed in stores to make wireless purchases... More
Retailer-owned mobile payments provider Yapital is to add “one click” purchases from printed advertising media to its app, enabling shoppers to order and pay for promoted products by scanning QR codes in merchants’ billboard and newspaper ads, flyers and shop window decals... More
New York-based drugstore chain Duane Reade has upgraded its iPhone app to include support for iBeacons and ten of its 240 New York stores have been equipped with Bluetooth LE beacons in a bid to “foster greater customer engagement.”... More
Upmarket UK supermarket chain Waitrose is working on a new app that will use Bluetooth LE beacons to welcome customers to its stores and push promotional messages to shoppers... More
Starting today, NFC World has a new name and a new mission — to report on the full array of emerging technologies that are transforming how consumers choose what to buy, who to buy from, and how to pay... More
French bank Credit Mutuel-CIC is to pilot a mobile wallet in the Boulogne-Billancourt area of Paris from May 17, Les Echos reports, enabling consumers to make payments via NFC or QR in around 100 stores... More
The arrival of host card emulation (HCE) has led to a re-think of online payments giant PayPal’s famously anti-NFC point of view, company president David Marcus has revealed... More
International fresh produce distributor Total Produce is to provide consumers with access to videos, recipes, interactive games and content about the benefits of a healthy, balanced diet via NFC tag and QR code-equipped SmartStands located in supermarkets and convenience stores... More
Chinese embedded CPU provider Ingenic Semiconductor has unveiled a MIPS-based developer board that can be used to create wearable, healthcare and industrial devices that include a wide range of environmental sensors and wireless communications interfaces. More
Wirecard has integrated support for host card emulation (HCE) into its mobile wallet platform, “enabling telecommunications companies, financial service providers, banks and also retailers to quickly enter the mobile payment market through near field communication.”... More
Bank-led payment service Digicash has expanded its QR-based mobile payments platform to include new POS beacons that support NFC, QR and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) — “automatically providing the customer with the best user experience based on the features of his smartphone.”... More
Mahindra Comviva has introduced Mobiquity Wallet, a digital wallet platform that supports QR codes, Bluetooth LE and NFC... More