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Nexperts and PharmaFabula win NFC Forum’s 2010 competition

Sarah Clark — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:20:48 +0000

The winning entries in this year's NFC Forum Global Competition include retail payments, healthcare, education and social networking applications.

COMPETITION: Winners were announced at this week's NFC Forum meeting in Sweden

The NFC Forum has announced the winners of this year's Global Competition, designed to find the most innovative new applications of near field communication technology.

In the commercial track, for business ideas that address a specific market, business, or consumer need or want, the winning entry is Nexperts' Touch & Pay self-service shopping application which has been on test at a rural farm shop in Switzerland. Second place went to ITN International for its NFC events and tradeshow service and third place was awarded to NTT DoCoMo for its wellness support service. This uses dynamic tags embedded into personal healthcare devices to enable patient data to be instantly and conveniently exchanged.

In the research track first place went to Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca's Club de Innovacion for PharmaFabula, a system using an NFC-enabled mobile device to provide object identification for the blind. The system reports medical information from prescriptions, leaflets and other useful data in audio format and can also provide personal information such as dosage and treatment duration.

Second place in the research track went to Artesis University College Antwerp for its NFC learning environment, which lets teachers tag objects that students can then investigate and explore. The system provides exercises, registers student achievement and keeps teachers up-to-date with progress. Third place went to Lancaster University for MyState, an NFC service which integrates with Facebook and allows users to create interactive environments by placing NFC tags on objects to create individual, personalized applications.

Cash prizes of €5,000 were awarded to the winner in each category with €1,500 for second place and €1,000 for third place.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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Finalists announced for 2010 NFC Forum Global Competition

Sarah Clark — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:00:43 +0000

The NFC Forum has announced the twenty finalists for its 2010 Global Competition. This year's entries covered a broad span of consumer and business application areas, says the NFC Forum, and came from Asia, Europe and North America. They included projects in mobile couponing, healthcare, building access and security, retail merchandising, online user authentication, nutrition management, gaming, online banking and support for the disabled.

The competition includes two tracks, one focusing on commercial NFC services and the other focused on research projects. The 10 finalists in the Commercial Track are:

BCNTouch (Spain): Chasing Clothes
Mautilus (Czech Republic): The 3rd Eye Platform
MoLo Rewards (USA): MoLo Wallet
Objecs (USA): Personal RosettaStone
Adamsoft (Slovenia): Smart Poster System
Clear2Pay (Belgium): NFC Vouchers — Next-generation payments at your fingertips
ITN International (USA): Bcard Reader — NFC ecosystem for events and tradeshows
Nexperts (Austria): Touch & Pay
NTT Docomo (Japan): Wellness Support — NFC dynamic tags enable new-style data communication
VTT Technical Research Centre (Finland): Worldcom

The 10 finalists in the Research Track are:

Artesis University College Antwerp (Belgium): NFC Learning Environment
Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (Germany): Localice — a corporate location-based infrastructure built on NFC and WiFi
Interactive Research & Development (Pakistan): Interactive chart for childhood diseases
LaBRI, University of Bordeaux I (France): ZeKmop — Zero knowledge mobile phone
Lancaster University (UK): MyState — Allowing users to describe themselves and their environment with NFC and Facebook
NTTPC Communications (Japan): Digital content distribution system with NFC P2P
Technische Universität München, chair for information systems (Germany): DropTheBeat — Making online music playlists touchable
Technische Universität München, chair for information systems (Germany): Touch 'n Document — a nutrition management system on an NFC-tagged TFT display
Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Club de Innovacion (Spain): PharmaFabula — NFC mobile technology and RFID for identification of medicines for the blind
Universite Joseph Fourier, Polytech'Grenoble (France): TouchKey — Home and building access management platform for NFC door locks

"This year's NFC Forum Global Competition finalists underscore the remarkable versatility and applicability of the technology," says Koichi Tagawa, chairman of the NFC Forum. "These creative solutions introduce new business models, capabilities, and convenience, and we are delighted to showcase them at this year's WIMA event."

Each team of finalists will deliver a presentation and live demonstration in the Wima NFC Developers Summit demo space on 21 April. Following these events, the jury will vote to select the three winners for each track. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony that evening and the finalists will continue to showcase their entries in the Wima demo space on April 22.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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NFC trial begins at Mobile World Congress

Sarah Clark — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:27:06 +0000

Four hundred Samsung Star NFC handsets are being distributed to selected Mobile World Congress attendees for use at the event, which opens in Barcelona today.

Participants can use their NFC phones to pay for food and drink up to a value of €75 at over 30 merchant locations around the Congress.

GSMA, Telefonica, Visa and Samsung, with Giesecke & Devrient, Ingenico, ITN International and La Caixa have teamed up to deliver the service at the event.

The NFC handsets contain Telefonica SIM cards from O2 pre-loaded with €60 airtime credit as well as a La Caixa Visa Mobile Payment Application.

Participants in the trial will be able to purchase food and drink, simply by holding their Samsung NFC mobile phone against the contactless terminal at the participating merchants to pay for purchases under €10. Purchases above €10 require a passcode which the participant keys into the handset before presenting it to the terminal. The transactions are authorised online, with funds deducted from a La Caixa Visa account.

"It is a fantastic achievement to bring a full payment trial to Mobile World Congress and a testament to the hard work of the partners that this cross-industry collaboration has worked so well," says Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA. "Mobile operators have been requesting SIM-based NFC handsets for some time now and it's great to see such progress in this area. Now that the handsets are coming, we can expect to see a number of commercial launches of mobile SIM-based NFC services this year."

"The partners have worked successfully to bring the NFC experience to Mobile World Congress with the intention of raising awareness of this technology in anticipation of the commercial launch of these SIM based handsets in the very near future," says the official announcement. "As more of the SIM based handsets become commercially available it will help trigger global adoption and rollout of mobile NFC. Mobile NFC services will change the way people transact with their phones, everything from payments, travelling and ticketing will be transformed to ensure ease and convenience in the lifestyles of consumers around the world."

The partners' roles in the project included:

GSMA acted as the project lead, leveraging its Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative which, supported by over 50 mobile operators, has been working to make SIM-based NFC payment services a reality.
Samsung Electronics provided the NFC-enabled Samsung Star handsets and offered technical support to ensure the stability of the trial.
Telefonica provided the user interface enabling display and management of the core payment application on the handset, the O2 Wallet.
Visa provided the Visa Mobile Payment Application, a made-for-mobile contactless payment application, to La Caixa and Telefonica for use within the O2 SIM cards with €60 preloaded airtime credit. Visa coordinated activities with La Caixa, Telefonica, Ingenico and G&D to ensure that the accounts, O2 Wallet, terminals and SIM cards were Visa-compliant and mobile contactless ready.
La Caixa have issued accounts and have credited them with €75; La Caixa is also serving as the acquiring bank for the participating merchants.
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) manufactured the NFC-enabled SIM cards and personalised them with a La Caixa Visa Mobile Payment Application, allowing the Samsung NFC mobile phone to make EMV mobile payments by connecting to the SIM card through the standardised Single Wire Protocol (SWP).
Ingenico provided the participating merchants around the FIRA exhibition hall with unique colour screen contactless EFT930G wireless payment terminals, enabling participants to pay for food and drink by simply presenting their mobile phone at the terminal.
ITN International, a mobile data management company for the event marketing industry, was a founding member of the NFC experience at Mobile World Congress.

Last week, Telefonica announced it is to run an NFC trial in the Spanish resort of Sitges, 40km from Barcelona, from May this year. The trial will be run in conjunction with Visa and La Caixa. The 1,500 participants will be able to use their Samsung phones at 500 shops in Sitges and the project could expand later to Barcelona and beyond.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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NFC Forum gets new board member, adds more associates

Sarah Clark — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:22:50 +0000

Membership of the NFC Forum is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Handset manufacturers, mobile service providers, payment services providers, chip makers, solution developers, municipalities and academic institutions have all recently joined up.

GROWING FAST: The NFC Forum has announced a slew of new members

Inside Contactless has announced that it has upgraded its membership of the NFC Forum. The technology company has now joined HP, MasterCard, Microsoft, NEC, Nokia, NTT Docomo, NXP, Panasonic, Renesas, Samsung, Sony and Visa as a top tier 'Sponsor Member' and has joined the association's Board of Directors.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory has joined as a Principal Member alongside a long list of new Associate Members including American Banknote, Arygon, Atrua Technologies, Austriamicrosystems, China Mobile, Collis, Comprion, Human Chain, Integri, ITN International, JSC People's Bank of Georgia, Kyocera Wireless, LGAI Technological Center, Mobile Payment Systems, Polaric, Sagem Mobiles, Toro, Toshiba, Tranzfinity, Trusted Logic, TwinLinx, Velo Information Technology (Shanghai), Venyon, Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV), Visa Europe and Vocalink.

A number of organisations have also joined the NFC Forum as Non-Profit members. They include Cartes Bancaires, the City of Oulu, In-Q-Tel, INSO (Vienna University of Technology) and MBDS (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis).

"As one of the pioneers of NFC technology, Inside Contactless brings great insight and expertise to the NFC Forum board of directors," said Koichi Tagawa, chairman of the NFC Forum. "We extend them a warm welcome, along with our new Principal and Associate members, whose diverse businesses, ideas, and perspectives further enrich the global NFC ecosystem."

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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US tradeshows collect visitor information with NFC phones

Sarah Clark — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:15:52 +0000

Five hundred Nokia NFC phones were issued to exhibitors by event registration specialists ITN International at last week's Greenbuild 2008. A host of advanced features such as the over-the-air provision of promotional information, special invitation tickets and event-based social networking are to be added soon...

TOUCH AND GO: 150,000 NFC transactions were logged during the three day show in Boston

ITN International, a provider of registration services and information exchange tools for trade shows and events, says it deployed five hundred NFC-enabled Nokia phones at the Greenbuild 2008 show in Boston last week.

The phones were issued to five hundred of the eight hundred exhibitors at the show that had opted to use ITN's lead management solutions. The exhibitors used the Nokia 6212 phones to wirelessly scan visitors' NXP chip-equipped badges to collect contact information and qualified inquiries, and to conduct surveys. The event attracted over 25,000 attendees and 150,000 NFC transactions took place in all over the three days of the show.

"Launching our Touch 'N Go Event Solutions on the Nokia 6212 classic NFC phones has finally allowed us to provide a completely integrated NFC mobile lead retrieval product to exhibitors at tradeshows and events," said ITN's president, Ivan Lazarev.

"It won't be long until many applications will be available for attendees to download over the air before or during an event," he explained. "Attendees will be able to download coupons and special invitation tickets onto their own NFC phones. They will be able to use their own NFC phones to touch hotspots on posters that will instantly launch brand or product messaging and facilitate social networking."

"Touch 'N Go poster hotspots can initiate customized, targeted messaging such as videos and brochures and can initiate applications that enable the exchange of contact information and deliver preloaded cash value or prize points to the phone," Lazarev added.

"ITN continues to drive the deployment of NFC technology in event marketing, by using our contactless chips inside Bcard credentials and the new Nokia 6212 classic NFC mobile phones at Greenbuild 2008", said Jeff Fonseca, NXP's director of business development and sales. "ITN developed the perfect formula for the tradeshow and events industry, and has proven their ability to successfully deliver powerful NFC experiences."

• You can see a video of the Touch 'N Go system in action at Greenbuild 2008 on the ITN International website.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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