NFC World

Mercedes partners with Garmin for NFC smartwatch

Garmin collaborates with Daimler to bring connected features to Mercedes-Benz vehicles with the Vivoactive 3 GPS smartwatch — Garmin — “In addition to providing heart rate data and a driver’s stress level, the Vivoactive 3 GPS smartwatch will be exclusively modified for Mercedes-Benz customers with custom branded materials and display screens. The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is one of the company’s flagship smartwatches and is packed with features that include built-in indoor and outdoor sports apps, smart notification alerts delivered right to the wrist, and a contactless payment solution to make secure payments from the watch thanks to Garmin Pay.”


NFC World

Tory Burch unveils smartwatch with NFC payments support

Tory Burch launches its Classic Gigi as the brand’s first touchscreen smartwatch — Tory Burch — “This new piece is a state-of-the-art smartwatch that balances fashion and function with features that include heart-rate tracking, swimproof functionality, payment methods, untethered GPS and more… Powered with Wear OS by Google and Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC, the new ToryTrack Gigi Touchscreen Smartwatch is compatible with both iPhone and Android phones.”



NFC World

NFC Forum expands support for device pairing and personal healthcare monitoring

Four NFC Forum technical specifications speed and enable new NFC services — NFC Forum — “The Connection Handover Technical Specification 1.4 allows users to define additional specific services when two devices are paired together using other wireless communication technologies, such as Bluetooth or WLAN by a tap of an NFC-enabled device. The Personal Health Device Communication (PHDC) Technical Specification 1.2 defines the exchange of ISO/IEEE 11073 messages often used for personal healthcare devices such as heart, blood pressure and glucose monitors. Also, updates were made to the NFC Digital Protocol Technical Specification 2.1 and NFC Controller Interface (NCI) Technical Specification 2.1.”




Heart scan biometrics could let computers continuously monitor logged in users

Goodbye, login. Hello, heart scan — University of Buffalo — “The system uses low-level Doppler radar to measure your heart, and then continually monitors your heart to make sure no one else has stepped in to run your computer… The system needs about eight seconds to scan a heart the first time, and thereafter the monitor can continuously recognize that heart.”


KISA to unveil bio authentication for mobile banking in 2018

KISA to unveil bio authentication for mobile banking in 2018 — Korea Herald — “Korea Internet & Security Agency is developing bio authentication for mobile banking to commercialize it by late 2018… The biometric authentication reads heart rates and electrocardiograms on a user’s smartwatch, which sends the information to his or her smartphone. The smartphone is then unlocked with the user’s fingerprint which enables the use of mobile banking.”





What's New in Payments

Tattoos confound Apple Watch wrist detection, making Apple Pay “unusable”

Apple Watch encounter problems with wrist tattoos

Apple Watch owners with tattooed wrists have been reporting that their smartwatches are not functioning properly as the LED-based heart monitor built into the devices experiences difficulty detecting that the watch is being worn — an issue which impacts the use of Apple Pay among other features such as receiving notifications, placing phone calls and using some applications. More