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 Type A or Type B NFC standards, which means Osaifu-Ketai won’t function properly for NTT DoCoM...

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 open doors at the Telefónica’s headquarters with a simple tap to another NFC sensor. Read on for more. (more…)

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 a 30% global penetration. “As the costs of NFC chips decline, and NFC radios are combined with other chip functions, the cost to integrate NFC into han...

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 quickly purchase tickets in a tap-and-go fashion at New York Penn Station, Newark Liberty International Airport Rail Stati...

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% less power than competing models. The chips also support a new technology called “Maestro middleware” that allows developers to create NFC apps with support for Wi-Fi ...

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 with ISIS for the development of a mobile payment network in the United States. “As mobile payments and other chip-based emerging technologies are poised to take off in the coming ye...

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 as fast as originally projected due to slower than expected uptake in developing countries. In addition, the “complexity of the [NFC]” service model has impeded its ability to tak...

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 Phone, there is nothing that really blows us away. The lineup includes the following devices:LG Prada K2 - An Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) smartphone with a 4.3-inch NOVA ...

American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa announced a new partnership with ISIS on Tuesday. ISIS is a mobile initiative that was formed in April of last year by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless in an effort to help foster the growth of using near-field communications for mobile payments. It’s currently being tested in Salt Lake City and Austin. Tuesday’s announcement means that, as the mobile market moves closer and closer to a time when we can actually use our phones to make tap-an...

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 a Palm Pre, Pre Plus, Pixi, or Pixi Plus smartphone. The TouchPad offers a 9.7-inch display, NFC capabilities for unique interactions with HP webOS phones, and a 1.2GHz Qualcomm S...

HP is working on phones and tablets with built-in near-field communication (NFC) technology for mobile payments, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Much like Google Wallet, which will soon launch for the Nexus S and eventually other Android devices, HP hopes its customers will be able to use the company’s products to make mobile purchases in retail outlets. Similarly, HP has a plan to create an entire ecosystem where users will be able to to receive coupons or other benefits, such as loyalty points, from NFC...

HTC isn’t just planning one or two successors to its first Android tablet — the HTC Flyer — instead the company plans to deploy an entire range of Android tablets, said HTC’s European president, Florian Seiche, during the Reuters Global Technology Summit. One such tablet could be the HTC Puccini, possibly destined for AT&T with a 10-inch screen and LTE in tow. “I really believe that the tablet market is really going to be a big market in the future and this is just a start,” Se...

We’re here in Orlando at RIM’s BlackBerry World developer event and have scored some more hands-on time with the recently announced BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930… and we’re pretty impressed with what we see so far. The Bold 9900 felt light in the hand, but definitely had a premium feel thanks to its thin form factor and metal accents around the body — it’s also the thinnest BlackBerry to date. The new BlackBerry 7 operating system was very snappy and we didn’t experience any ...

After years of waiting from BlackBerry users, the ultimate BlackBerry has finally been made official. We broke the story on the next generation BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, and we even spent some one-on-one time with it, but there is nothing like an official announcement, right? As far as specs, it’s everything we reported it would be — 1.2GHz processor, 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, 8GB of onboard storage, and more. As far as ava...