Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Near-field communications

Major Japanese carriers join forces to adopt international NFC standard

December 23rd, 2011

NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank have created the “Japan Mobile NFC Consortium,” which will help the three carriers coordinate and adopt an international NFC standard. Currently, all three operators offer an NFC service dubbed Osaifu-Keitai (wallet phone) which uses a contactless-IC smartcard that’s called FeliCa. Unfortunately, the technology doesn’t work overseas where other carriers use …

RIM testing NFC-powered digital wallet service in Spain

November 23rd, 2011

Spanish wireless carrier Telefónica Digital announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Research In Motion on a new NFC-based mobile wallet pilot in Spain. The carrier provided 350 of its employees with NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones that are pre-loaded with its Telefónica Wallet application. The phones can be used to purchase goods and services at local retailers, or to …

NFC chip shipments may surpass 1.2 billion units by 2015

October 24th, 2011

Market research firm In-Stat released a report on Monday that suggests NFC chip shipments will grow dramatically during the next several years as an increasing number of mobile devices adopt near-field communications (NFC) technology. In-Stat said NFC chip shipments will surpass 1.2 billion units by 2015, the same year the technology is expected to reach …

New Jersey Transit to support Google Wallet mobile payments

October 19th, 2011

New Jersey Transit will soon introduce limited support for Google’s NFC-based mobile payment system, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Wednesday. Google Wallet is currently only available on one handset, Sprint’s Nexus S 4G, and supports a handful of retailers including Foot Locker, Macy’s, Jamba Juice, Walgreens and Subway. Commuters will be able to use the handset to …

Broadcom intros new NFC chips for mobile payments

September 26th, 2011

Broadcom on Monday announced the BCM2079x family of NFC chips which it hopes will spur the mass adoption of NFC. The 40nm-based chips are smaller and are reportedly the most power efficient solution currently available to device makers. Broadcom said the products use 40% fewer components on a 40% smaller surface area and consume 90% …

Visa ramping up move to mobile payments

August 10th, 2011

Visa is accelerating its efforts to dominate the mobile payment space, Reuters reported on Monday. Visa is no stranger to mobile payments. It began trialing an iPhone NFC payment solution in Europe early this year, has plans to work with Samsung on a system for the 2012 Olympics, and recently announced that it has partnered …

Mobile payments could balloon 76% to $86 billion this year, Gartner says

July 23rd, 2011

141.1 million people around the world will make mobile payments this year, a 38.2% increase from last year, Gartner said in a new report issued on Friday. Global mobile payment volume is expected to hit $86.1 billion in 2011, up 75.9% from the $48.9 billion recorded last year. Gartner says mobile payments are not growing …

LG’s 2011 lineup leaked, includes Fantasy, Victor, Gelato, more

July 22nd, 2011

LG has struggled to grab consumer interest the way Samsung has with its Galaxy S and Galaxy S II smartphones, and it doesn’t look like the manufacturer has a worthy competitor in the pipeline just yet. PocketNow purportedly leaked LG’s entire 2011 portfolio and while there are several attractive devices that run Android and Windows …

HP offering $50 rebate to TouchPad early adopters

June 30th, 2011

If you’ve been waiting for HP’s highly anticipated TouchPad tablet, the company just sweetened the deal a bit more for you. HP recently announced that anyone who purchases the 32GB TouchPad before July 31st will get a $50 mail-in rebate off of the purchase price. The catch? You’ll have to prove that you already own …