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Apple could make the iPhone's NFC more useful at WWDC
Apple has a lot in the cards for WWDC, and that might include improvements for... well, cards. The 9to5Mac team and Steve Troughton-Smith claim to have details of developer-friendly updates that will be unveiled in early June, and NFC support would be in line for a serious upgrade. App developers will finally have the option to read NFC tags based on ISO 7816 (usually ID and access cards), FeliCa (Japan's tap-based system) and MiFare (a popular mass transit format). In other words, you might use your iPhone to enter your office or hop aboard a bus in many cities.
iPhone 7 could have tap-to-pay feature for Japan's subways
Apple might give its upcoming iPhones an extra feature exclusively for people living in Japan. According to Bloomberg, the tech titan is planning to add tap-to-pay support for the country's extensive subway system. To accomplish that, it will equip the devices with FeliCa chips, the Sony-developed mobile tap-to-pay standard in the country. Think of FeliCa as Japan's equivalent to NFC, except a lot more people use it.
Sony is crowdfunding a smart watch with a dumb face
For the better part of a year, Sony has encouraged employees to come forward with their own projects and showcase them via its First Flight crowdfunding platform. Early ideas have included an e-paper watch, a smart remote and a DIY smart project maker, but limited interest in them means they'll likely never see the mass market. Sony's latest project, however, has a lot more potential. It's called the Wena Wrist and it's a stylish watch that earns its smart credentials by packing technology into the strap.
Samsung partners with FeliCa for Japanese NFC solutions, unveils 2012 Olympics' mobile payment app with Visa
Across the globe today, Samsung is bringing a number of pushes to broaden NFC adoption. On the island of Japan, the company's sealed a partnership with FeliCa Networks to implement its NFC-Secure Application Module chips in its mobile devices. Notably, the solution is ensures compatibility between Japan's long established Osaifu-Keitai contactless payment services and the newer breed of NFC Types A and B which normally don't play nice together. The chips are touted has having "advanced security" to keep your funds in check, and are expect to hit "commercial deployment" set for 2013. Flying over to London, Samsung and Visa have unveiled the official NFC payment app for the 2012 Olympics, in their continued preparation for the event. Despite the unveil, the application (based on Visa's PayWave) will officially debut for display at Mobile World Congress next week. This comes nearly ten months after the duo announced their plans to further establish NFC-based payment options for London and the event itself. Hit up the two press releases after the break for the full details on the announcements.
Sharp RW-T107 Android tablet packs NFC reader, will accept payments in Japan
Tools like Square's credit card reader and Apple's proprietary iOS retail system make mobile payments possible in the US, but they're hardly streamlined, or widespread. A new Gingerbread tablet from Sharp -- the RW-T107 -- sets out to simplify payments in Japan with its built-in NFC reader. You won't be using your own tablet to pay -- instead, retailers will utilize point of sale apps to process transactions, without a customer ever needing to swipe their credit card. RFID payment cards, like Sony's FeliCa, have been used throughout Japan for the last decade, so consumers are already familiar with the technology and ready to make payments. There's no word on what retailers will expect to pay to add Sharp's tablet to their checkout mix, but with the company set to release only 5,000 devices per month (and no plans to introduce them to the US), we're not planning to ditch our cash just yet.
Tiny RFID amulet stores medical records, makes paramedics' lives easier
Using RFID to store medical records, ultimately making the jobs of paramedics and doctors that much easier, is hardly a new concept. But, for the most part, such devices have been limited to clinical trials. Asahi Kasei Corp. is hoping to change that with the debut of a tiny, 3cm-square charm that can be read by a computer or smartphone. In addition to basic info, such as name, birth date, and blood type, the chip could transmit links to more storage-intensive data like X-rays images. Instead of building out a proprietary system, the company is relying on established technology called FeliCa from Sony. That means the device will enjoy broad compatibility with existing products, and should be inexpensive to produce. Asahi Kasei hopes to begin selling the medical amulets to cities and hospitals within a year, for as little as ¥2,000 (around $25).
NEC's MEDIAS N-04C is only 7.7mm thick, has Android 2.2, NFC, and no ambition to leave Japan
It's only been three months since the last avalanche of NTT DoCoMo phones, but that's not stopping the Japanese carrier from scheming up another hardware refresh. Leaked out ahead of what's expected to be a February 24th launch, we've now laid eyes on what's likely to be the highlight device of this year's spring batch : the 7.7mm-thick NEC MEDIAS N-04C. It follows last year's N-04B in nomenclature only, what with the older model being a flip phone, and offers a spacious 4-inch touchscreen, a 1seg TV Tuner, NFC contactless payments using Sony's FeliCa standard, and a skinned version of Android 2.2. Look out for it in Japan soon, but don't hold your breath if you live outside the sunlit kingdom -- history has shown devices like the N-04C tend to stick to their native market.
iPhone 4 gets stuck with NFC 'sticker' from Japan's Softbank
One of the lesser known predictions of the Mayan calendar foretells that 2011 will be the year of NFC. The contactless communications stuff looks to be building all kinds of steam in the Western world, but don't lose faith in your current smartphone if it doesn't already have it. Japanese carrier Softbank has responded to complaints about the iPhone 4's NFC deficit -- the FeliCa payment system is pretty popular over in the land of sumo, sushi and sun-rising -- by introducing a new "seal" for the back of Apple's latest and greatest. It sticks on, covering almost the entire rear, but is apparently thin enough not to get in the way of using one of Apple's own Bumpers alongside it. From our reading of the press release, the sticker doesn't actually communicate with the iPhone, it's just a dumb NFC card, but hey, other people don't need to know that when you're swiping payments with your phone, now do they? On sale in February at a price of ¥2,980 ($36).
Sony and Global HID to unify FeliCa and NFC laptop reader technologies
Sony and Global HID are coyly batting their eyelashes at each other over a memorandum of intent to jointly develop an embedded contactless smart card reader platform for laptops. The idea is to create a single reader compatible with Sony's popular FeliCa solution in Japan as well as NFC, HID Global's own iCLASS, and more. As a refresher, about 315 million FeliCa cards are in circulation worldwide with another 67 million FeliCa-capable mobile phones in Japan used for electronic payments, access, interactive advertising, and membership rewards systems. Hell, Sony's even got a FeliCa reading remote control. The dark arts of Near Field Communication have been given a boost recently with support from Nokia and the US carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Even Apple is rumored to be getting in on the action. So let's ink a contract already fellas, anything that will unify all these "standards" into a common embedded laptop reader sounds like a good idea to us.
Sony takes the wraps off 240Hz, RFID enabled BRAVIA LCDs in Japan
If the trouble of typing in a credit card number was the thing keeping you from renting acTVila video on-demand movies in Japan, Sony's fixed that right up by including FeliCa reading capability in the remote for its latest BRAVIA LCDs. No longer tied to an ugly outboard box, now you need only to press your credit card, cellphone or other RFID enabled device against the remote to authorize payment. The Japanese edition W5 and F5 line of LCDs mostly feature 240Hz MotionFlow and the latest BRAVIA Engine 3 display processing, and top out around ¥450,000 ($4,614) for a 52-inch. Check out video of the RFID remote on Akihabara News or embedded after the break and imagine living in a Blade Runner-type world of the future where overpriced rentals downloaded via fiber directly onto an HDTV screen are billed to whatever card desired with a mere flick of the wrist, as opposed to overpriced, overcompressed rentals that shamefully expand ones cable bill each month.[Via Akihabara News & AV Watch]
Robot ticketer greets amusement park visitors, offers frightening glimpse of the future
Manufactured by NEC, this new FeliCa payment terminal (seen here at iEXPO 2008 in Tokyo) is designed for amusement parks, arcades, or any place where a whimsical touch-screen device might trick you into spending more money than you normally would. And if handing control of your e-wallet to an android wasn't bad enough, in addition to selling tickets and dispensing data the device boasts integrated facial recognition for identifying and profiling park visitors -- a feature to be used for determining your demographic information and pointing you towards appropriate "amusement," such as a restaurant for Ma or a wave pool for the kiddies. What could possibly go "worng," you ask? Have you even seen Westworld?
Video: Sony's new Vaio Type C brings a little Rolly to your lap
We're fans of Sony's little Rolly -- despite its general uselessness and non-impulse-buy $400 price tag. It exists as more of a corporate statement than a real piece of useful consumer electronics, one that Sony is ready to exploit by applying its internals to something rather more tedious: yet another Vaio laptop. The 14.1-inch VGN-CS60B offers a multi-colored light bar on the front that uses the Rolly's trademarked "12 Tone Analysis" to turn your dorm room into a (dimly lit) discotheque, and a series of blinking LEDs above the keyboard that makes adjusting the volume level a little more interesting. The Type C includes a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, 802.11n WiFi and a FeliCa port, all served up by Windows Vista Home Premium. Despite its ho-hum specs It should be enough to make Japanese schoolgirls giddy when it releases in Japan later this week for about $1,400. Video of said light show after the break.
Japan to push its whiz-bang handsets overseas
With Japanese handset sales declining pretty much across the board (thanks, lower subsidies!), it follows logic that the government and Japanese-based handset makers would look internationally to pick up the slack. In a rather vague report, we're told that the nation is hoping to push its technologically advanced mobiles in other countries, though it'll have a tough time marketing mobile TV without sufficient infrastructure. One of the token handsets chosen to lead the parade is a Sony-made "wallet phone," which is only described as having cashless technology built in. Color us (very) mildly enthused.
NEC's ad system pumps out spots based on gender, age
For better or worse, targeted advertising isn't going anywhere. Seemingly, it's not getting any more discrete, either. NEC's Digital Signage Solution combines a camera, a large display and a FeliCa contactless IC card reader / writer in order to dole out advertisements that cater to certain demographics. The system includes the innate ability to determine "gender, generation and other attributes" of a person in order to serve up advertisements that will cause him / her to spend some dough. From there, the individual can scan their phone in order to access related content on their mobile internet browser. That's all and fine and dandy we suppose, but how on Earth do you convince busy citizens to stop by and have a look at an otherwise uninteresting flat-panel?[Image courtesy of NEC]
Sony, NXP get official with Moversa joint venture
Chances are, you had forgotten all about Sony and NXP's little initiative to cooperate on a NFC (near-field communications) standard, but the two seem to have finally worked out all the kinks and are ready to move forward. The joint venture, dubbed Moversa, will seek to "drive global adoption of contactless smart card applications in mobile phones," and it's already planning to develop, produce and market a Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) that "incorporates both MIFARE and FeliCa operating systems and applications." Essentially, the duo is hoping to accelerate the adoption of integrated contactless support, which would enable users to make payments (among other things) easily via their handset. If you're curious about availability, we're hearing that samples should be shipped out in mid-2008, but commercial deployments aren't scheduled to happen until the end of next year.[Via Yahoo / Reuters]
GSM Association gets everyone together for phone e-wallets
With services like NTT DoCoMo's FeliCa-based Osaifu-Keitai in Japan and Mifare deployed through much of Europe, perhaps one of the last great hurdles to widespread acceptance of phone-based e-wallets is a lack of standardization. Either that, or most people don't feel the need to pay for things by tapping their phone on various devices, but we digress; the point is that the GSM Association has now taken up the cause of getting everyone on the same page with its global "Pay-Buy Mobile" initiative. We really mean global, too -- among a slew of carriers, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, and KTF are on board, representing the US, Japan, Europe, and South Korea, respectively, and the manufacturer camp counts Nokia, Samsung, and LG as its members. The first Pay-Buy Mobile trials are schedule to kick off this October, a schedule that is probably helped along by the availability of existing software and chips from Sony and NXP and the GSMA's pledge to build off financial institutions' existing NFC initiatives. We can't promise we'll use it -- but yeah, if it's secure, go ahead and build it into our phones, folks.[Via Phone Scoop]
McDoCoMo: McDonald's and NTT DoCoMo team up for payments
This is great use of cell technology -- we need this at Starbacks, like, yesterday... essentially, DoCoMo's FeliCa-based "Osaifu-Keitai" e-wallet service allows users to purchase goodies by just swiping their cell phone over a special reading device; no need to remember PINs and passwords or having to dig cash out of your pocket. A new deal struck between the two corporate giants gets Mickey D's into marketing Osaifu-Keitai based services, including the use of DoCoMo's "iD" platform for paying for those delicious McRibs and Chicken Selects. The companies will also be launching some sort of membership club this fall that'll presumably give special benefits for folks whipping out their phones instead of their cash or plastic. As long as we can keep splatter ketchup off our gorgeous SO903iTVs, we're cool.
Sony's firmware 1.5 update for PS3 includes contactless payments
Sony's latest PS3 firmware update (1.5 already? Oh how the time flies!) really has its heart in the right place. None of this magnanimous 720p Blu-ray playback nonsense, or any other help for the True HD impaired. No, this time around Sony is concentrating on what really matters: raking in the cash. See, the update lets you hook up a fancy little PaSoRi reader, which can pull contactless payments from your Edy money card or Felica phone to fill up your Network Wallet with relevant monies. It's all Japan-only, of course, but perhaps one day we can be cool like our island friends. Other minor enhancements include the addition of WEP128 and WPA-PSK (TKIP/AES) for wireless security, and a few other smaller fixes. The firmware should be headed to Japanese PS3s tomorrow.[Via gearfuse]
Sony develops enviro-friendly FeliCa cards
Sony's FeliCa contactless smart card system has already seen a fair degree of success, in Japan if not here, with Sony signing up NTT DoCoMo to put the technology to use in its cellphones, and, of course, pushing the technology hard in its own laptops. Not one to rest on its laurels, however, the company's now looking to further broaden its FeliCa appeal, not to mention do the right thing, by creating cards made of vegetable-based plastic (itself a product of sweet, sweet biomass) instead of the less renewable petroleum-based plastics. Apart from that not-so-secret ingredient, the cards are apparently identical to and just as durable as existing cards.This isn't the first time Sony's used vegetable-based plastics in its products, however, with the company previously putting it to use in a Walkman, DVD player, and a few AIBO parts, as well as some product packaging. Keep it up, Sony, there's plenty more plastic you can replace.
Sony, NXP to cooperate on NFC standard
Using cellphones to pay for stuff via NFC (near-field communications) is certainly nothing new; Sony, for one, has been doing it for years with its FeliCa system in Japan. Regardless of how dominant FeliCa or NXP's Mifare are, though, standardization is always a welcome move in an industry that hasn't quite taken off yet on a global scale. Sony and NXP have committed to putting their noggins together to come up with a unified standard for NFC payments that will ultimately support both FeliCa and Mifare-based equipment, while also bringing together two of the most widely-deployed systems to date. Given that both Sony and NXP parent Philips are members of the NFC Forum, we have hope that this announcement lines up nicely with that group's efforts, too, rather than going against the grain with a parallel effort. Not to say we'd put that kind of buffoonery past Sony, of course.