Fans attending gigs by Warner Music act The Wild Feathers have been provided with guitar picks containing an NFC tag. These could then be used to enter a competition, share content via social media and take part in votes at the gig, all initiated by tapping the plectrum with an NFC phone. More
“Host card emulation is good for the NFC ecosystem as a whole, but remains immature, unstandardised and, relative to secure element based deployments, vulnerable to malicious attack,” says SIM card manufacturer association SIMalliance, which has published an HCE discussion paper called Secure Element Deployment & Host Card Emulation. More
Equity Bank, Kenya’s largest bank, is to provide more than 300,000 free NFC phones to retailers across the country for use as POS devices, ITWeb Africa reports... More
Ticketmaster Spain has teamed up with Samsung to offer NFC tickets to an upcoming Dum Dum Girls concert in Madrid... More
Transport for London (TfL) is testing payments via NFC phones for use on the tube and the overground rail network and is piloting contactless card payments with some 5,000 volunteers. Passengers will be offered the option of paying with a contactless card from later this year but the availability of NFC phone payments will depend on the results of performance tests. More
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A total of 4.2bn SIMs were shipped in 2013 by members of the SIMalliance, an organisation that represents suppliers responsible for 86% of the global SIM market, 5% down on 2012. The drop was due to fewer low-end SIMs being shipped in Asia, the group says, and was accompanied by “significant increases” in high-end SIM shipments — especially those supporting secure NFC services. More
Australia’s Heritage Bank has unveiled prototypes of a suit that comes with an embedded NFC chip and antenna to allow its wearer to make NFC payments at contactless POS terminals by simply swiping their sleeve. 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. “I’m moving from being a massive skeptic of NFC, to being cautiously optimistic on NFC HCE take-up in very specific shopping use cases,” he says. More
New versions of nine NFC Forum specifications have been published today, including version 1.3 of the NFC Connection Handover Technical Specification which now provides a way to use an intermediary NFC device to set up a connection between two other NFC devices located at a distance from each other. 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
One in nine attendees at Mobile World Congress (11.8%) made use of the NFC Badge function available at this year’s event, the GSMA has told NFC World, and there was a “significant increase” in the number of people participating in the NFC Experience as a whole this year. More
Thales Group has unveiled its Immersive Business Class Seat, an airline seating concept that uses NFC to enable passengers to use their mobile phone to set their comfort and entertainment preferences before boarding. More
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Canadian carrier Rogers Communications has added support for multiple card types to its Suretap wallet service. The new NFC-enabled cards include a Rogers prepaid MasterCard and gift cards from a range of merchants including Swiss Chalet, Milestones Grill and Bar, Montana’s Cookhouse, Harvey’s, Kelsey’s, Indigo, Earls Restaurants, Ardene and Spafinder Wellness 365. More
Apple will enter the wearable devices market “this fall” with an iWatch that includes a secure element, NFC communications capabilities and support for biometrics, according to a new research note by Taiwan-based KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. More
Cloud-based vending solutions provider Cantaloupe Systems has added support for the Isis SmartTap NFC platform and is to offer Isis Mobile Wallet users a “buy three get one free” promotion on purchases made at its cashless-enabled vending machines around the US... 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
Chip maker Qualcomm has unveiled a new generation of Snapdragon processors aimed at “premium mobile computing devices”... More
Fujitsu has launched a series of ATMs aimed at the European market that support its PalmSecure biometric verification technology as well as contactless and NFC transactions. More
Sequent Software has gained Visa approval for its digital issuance platform, a service provider TSM (SP-TSM) solution that enables card issuers to manage and distribute payment credentials to consumers’ NFC phones... More
Canadian carrier-owned TSM provider EnStream is to use Bell ID’s Trusted Service Manager platform to provision and manage secure applications on consumers’ NFC devices. More