Y Combinator-backed Tagstand, an NFC startup which is carving out a niche for itself given the increased number of Android devices supporting the technology, has now signed several deals with mobile carriers and OEMs for co-branded integrations and preloads. The largest of these new deals is with T-Mobile, which was almost leaked during this year’s CES, but there was no mention of the Tagstand… → Read More
NFC has always struck me as one of those things that everyone says is going to get really big next year, and the growing number of smartphones and tablets that come bearing support for the standard is proof that at least a few people care about it. But what if you want to experience the NFC lifestyle but your gadget(s) of choice don’t play nice with it? Enter Spain-based Sistel Networks, and its… → Read More
NFC-based mobile payments are getting another boost in the States: U.S. Bank, one of America’s largest, has announced that it will begin to trial a new mobile payments service called “U.S. Bank Go Mobile,” which allows iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users to pay for purchases at point-of-sale by waving their smartphone. The initial tests will take place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Portland, Oregon. → Read More
Tagstand, the Y Combinator-backed startup intent on taking NFC mainstream, is announcing a partnership with mobile accessories maker TYLT in advance of this year’s CES in Las Vegas. The deal involves three new products, manufactured by TYLT, which use Tagstand’s NFC technology: TUNZ, a portable Bluetooth speaker; CAPIO, a universal smartphone mount for the car; and TAGZ, which are the NFC stickers… → Read More
Interesting news from the NFC front today: despite recent reports that the iPhone 5′s lack of NFC has set the market back by two years in the U.S. and Western Europe, an NFC-based mobile advertising startup known as Tapit has closed on a $2.3 million in Series A funding. Maybe being based in Sydney, Australia helps in this case. → Read More
Apple’s decision not to add the NFC wireless transfer tech to the iPhone 5 has set the NFC market back by two years in the U.S. and Western Europe, says analyst Juniper Research. It has revised its forecast for the market — significantly scaling back growth estimates in those regions and noting there is a risk of a cycle of “NFC indifference” in the short term. → Read More
Isis, the carrier-led mobile payments venture backed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, is today announcing a partnership with USA Technologies, to introduce up to 7,500 NFC-enabled vending machines in Isis’ two test markets of Austin and Salt Lake City. The machines will allow for payment acceptance using USAT’s ePort hardware and ePort Connect service. That means consumers can soon purchase… → Read More
Tapestry, the latest contender in the fashion-tech startup space, wants to connect a shopper’s digital identity with the physical products in the store they’re in by using barcode/NFC-scanning smartphone apps which shoppers use to build up a virtual collection/wish-list of items they might like to buy in future that are linked to the retailer’s ecommerce database. → Read More
Back in July, Reuters reported that Apple was looking to acquire mobile security solutions company AuthenTec for around $356 million. Part of the company’s business involved providing embedded mobile security but that division is being sold off to NFC company Inside Secure for around $48 million. Still, it looks like there’s reason to believe this move suggests continued interest in NFC. → Read More
Just in case you needed more proof that the leaked news revealing a forthcoming physical Google Wallet Card is indeed legit, you can just visit Google’s own Help section on its Google Wallet website to catch a reference to the yet-to-be announced addition. On the page entitled “Eligible Devices,” Google mentions that all Android devices with an operating system of Android 2.3.3 or higher are able… → Read More
FlockTag, a loyalty card startup built by SideCar co-founder Adrian Fortino (who has since left SideCar to focus on this project), has been quietly flying under the radar, growing its CRM solution for small businesses over the past six months. Today, the company reaches 60,000 users across 100 businesses, primarily in the midwest. And here’s the really odd part: it’s an NFC-based solution. → Read More
Vodafone Group is partnering with m-commerce company CorFire to bring NFC-powered mobile wallet capabilities to its smartphone users next year. CorFire said it would be “providing mobile wallet capabilities to Vodafone Group, enabling Vodafone’s customers to use their smartphones to conduct a number of transactions, including paying for goods and services at the point of sale, during 2013″. → Read More
Apple decided to forgo NFC support with the release of the iPhone 5, but that hasn’t stopped payments companies from continuing to invest in the space. MasterCard released a software development kit for its mobile PayPass technology with support for the Android and Blackberry OS 7 platforms. The toolkit will allow mobile operators and third-party developers the ability to integrate support for… → Read More
With all the new features in the iPhone 5, there have been a couple of standout omissions. Reuters, WSJ and others on Friday published articles about how last week’s iPhone 5 launch has put Europe in the slow lane and created winners and losers. Their reason: the device will not support LTE on the 2.6GHz and 800MHz bands, frequencies being most commonly used in Europe for 4G. Similarly, Apple’s… → Read More
As a small startup, the mobile payment space shouldn’t be appealing. Every carrier and credit card company seems to have its own system, the space is fragmented, crowded and no standard for payment mechanisms has emerged. (QR codes, really?) To compete, startups need lots of capital, and then they need hardware. Which is why you have to give LevelUp some credit.
Since relaunching its mobile… → Read More
Without a doubt, Spotify is my service-of-choice for listening to music these days. It was a huge win when I was in Mexico, and its offline mode is an absolute life-saver.
For those of you that use the Android version, an update has hit the tubes, and here’s a look at what’s new. → Read More
In late July, NFC industry news site NFC Times reported that ViVOtech, a software and systems provider which makes everything from smart posters to transaction management infrastructure, was shutting down. The company soon after released a statement explaining that it wasn’t closing up shop, but it was “restructuring its operations.” Today, ViVOtech has made progress on that front: it has… → Read More
Because we’re in need of some brighter NFC-related news today, Flomio, a TechStars-backed startup, and makers a platform for building NFC and RFID enabled applications, has closed a seed round of $525,000. The round was led by RMR Capital, and included participation from TechStars, the Cloud Power Fund, Matthew Lally (Augme, Pickflair), and Clint Watson (FASO).
Based in Miami, Florida… → Read More
ViVOtech, a near field communication (NFC) software and systems company, is shutting down operations due to cash-flow problems. This, despite having raised nearly $100 million in outside funding over the past decade. The company is planning to announce the news to employees later today via conference call, according to a report emerging today from NFC Times. → Read More
Another strong step ahead of mobile payments today: MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom have announced that they will work together to roll out services across DT’s footprint in Europe, starting with an NFC wallet solution in Poland in Q3 and Germany following soon after. For now, the U.S. is not being factored in as part of the deal. In all, Deutsche Telekom has 93 million mobile subscribers in… → Read More
Google is making a serious push with NFC on Android. As we detailed last night, Android product management director Hugo Barra revealed yesterday that Google is now shipping 1 million NFC-equipped devices every week. Beyond Google Wallet, the company announced some cool new features to Android Beam at I/O on Wednesday, including giving users the option to share video through NFC or pair their… → Read More
Google I/O is in full swing, and stories have been pouring out at a fairly steady pace: Tony Stark Sergey finally demoed Google Glass, Google Drive passed 10 million users and is available on iOS, and we all got a look at Jelly Bean — to name a few.
Yet, overshadowed and buried in lengthy liveblogs is one piece of news that deserves some more attention — and it’s all about NFC. During… → Read More
NFC, the technology that can help turn a mobile handset into an instant, superpower payment device, has been long on promise but largely short on delivery. But today, the France Telecom-owned mobile operator Orange took a step that could see some of that potential realized: it has announced that it will initiate a nationwide deployment of NFC SIM cards across its home market of France, covering… → Read More
Samsung has a handful of NFC-equipped phones, like the Galaxy S II and III, and the Galaxy Nexus, but little has been done to put the technology to use. Sure, there’s Google Wallet and other mobile payment platforms, but we’re still a ways off before paying with your phone becomes mainstream. Either way, there’s plenty you can do with NFC outside of tap-to-pay, which is why Samsung is introducing… → Read More
Today PayPal opened up a new front in its strategy to expand its role in mobile payments, a business PayPal projects will generate it $7 billion in revenue this year. The eBay-owned payments company today launched a new retail mobile payments app for iOS and Android devices, PayPal InStore, where users can create barcodes that get scanned to deduct payments from users’ PayPal accounts. → Read More
Tagstand, the YC-backed company focused on making NFC a more mainstream technology, is getting some action at a pretty big black-tie event in New York this weekend which will see its technology used to enable some nifty actions for the 3,500 guests, like tapping to tweet, posting pictures to Facebook and registering “likes” for the cocktails they’re drinking. Sounds like (kind of geeky) fun! → Read More
Nokia has been weathering a series of glitches around the launch of its Lumia range of Windows Phone devices — the most recent of which saw the company issue credits to users affected by data connection issues around the new Lumia 900. It is pressing ahead with new devices, though, and we have confirmed with sources close to the company that it will be launching its first NFC-enabled Windows… → Read More
If you tried to judge whether NFC mobile payments are ready for prime time — based on the amount of chatter you hear in your newsfeed — you’d think the contactless technology was on the brink of ubiquitous adoption.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, there are documented sources out there citing that we are four, five, maybe even ten years away from a realistic and… → Read More
YC-backed Tagstand, a company intent on helping make NFC more of a mainstream technology, is rebooting its Android app, NFC Task Launcher with a whole new feature set and user interface. The app was already one of the top NFC-based utilities in the Android Market Google Play store before coming under Tagstand’s control recently, when the app’s creator joined the team.
The company also says it… → Read More
When it comes to daily deals and loyalty programs, local merchants are constantly bombarded with new options. Groupon has leapt ahead in daily deals, and there quite a few players in the loyalty program space, all trying various approaches to mobile, to rewarding influencers, to encouraging social engagement, gamification, and more.
New York-based Social Passport is taking a different approach… → Read More
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