Barnes & Noble’s Nook eReader business is expected to see continued growth and was recently spun off into a new subsidiary that Microsoft invested $300 million in. The company’s CEO William Lynch sat down with Fortune and spoke about the future of the Nook business, and the executive said NFC-equipped Nook eReaders will be released as early as this year. “We’re going to start embedding NFC chips into our Nooks,” the CEO said. “We can work with the publishers so they wo...

Barclays on Thursday announced the launch of the Barclaycard PayTag, a sticker that can be placed on any handset to equip it with instant NFC compatibility. The PayTag is an extension of a customer’s credit card account that can be used to make payments of £15 and under, though the limit will rise to £20 in June, and it is available at no cost to Barclaycard owners. “Today, we are offering the choice of mobile payments to millions of our customers at no additional cost to them,” David Chan...

Global sales of NFC-equipped smartphones increased tenfold to 30 million units in 2011, according to a report from Berg Insight. The research firm estimates that by 2016 there will more than 700 million handsets with NFC capabilities. In 2011, several leading handset vendors released more than 40 NFC-enabled devices. “Even though it will take some time before the stakeholders agree on business models for payment networks, other use cases such as reading tags and easy pairing of devices may well be compe...

Google temporarily disabled the use of prepaid cards with its Wallet service last month as a precautionary measure following the discovery of several security threats. In an email obtained by Droid-Life, Google announced that its Wallet service has been updated and the newest version allows users to again add prepaid cards. “We are happy to announce that you can now add the Google Prepaid Card back to your wallet with the newest version of Google Wallet, and any funds that you previously had on the ca...

Google’s mobile payment service has gotten a fair amount of attention from the media, but user and partner adoption has been slow since the service was unveiled nearly a year ago. Google Wallet is the Internet giant’s eWallet offering, which incorporates NFC technology and allows users to pay for purchases using their Android smartphones rather than physical credit cards. According to Bloomberg, Google is now rethinking its service in an effort to bolster adoption. Citing multiple unnamed sources,...

During the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, PayPal finally showed off its upcoming digital wallet product that will compete with the likes of Google Wallet and other digital payment platforms. The EBay-run eBay Ink blog also posted a pair of videos on Tuesday in which PayPal vice president of global product and experience Sam Shrauger walks us through a number of the new eWallet product’s capabilities. PayPal’s digital wallet has a simple desktop interface and of ...

Sony on Tuesday announced the Xperia sola, the latest addition the company’s Android portfolio. The handset is equipped with a 3.7-inch Reality Display, a 1GHz dual-core processor, NFC and Android 2.3 Gingerbread with an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich promised for the summer months. The Xperia sola also features “floating touch” navigation, which enables “magic” web browsing without physically touching the screen. “Xperia sola comes with the power of Sony and a sense of magi...

Apple on Tuesday was granted a significant patent by the United States Trademark & Patent Office, Patently Apple reported. The technology, which is supported by 23 Patent Claims, allows credit card companies to send statements directly to a user’s iTunes account for purchases made using an NFC-enabled iPhone. Account holders will also be able to allow a secondary account holder, such as a child, to make purchases on the same card while allowing the primary account holder to control spending and imp...

Google announced at the Mobile Money: Delivering Innovative Mobile Payment Services panel during Mobile World Congress that Sprint will introduce “at least 10 additional phones” with Google Wallet support in 2012, Fierce Mobile Content reported on Thursday. The Samsung Nexus S 4G is the only smartphone currently offered by the carrier that supports Google’s NFC mobile payment system. Both the Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper will launch with Wallet support later this year, however, and Osama B...

Visa on Monday announced a “one-stop” mobile payment solution that looks to compete directly with Google Wallet and the carrier-backed ISIS payment system. After a consumer purchases a “Visa-certified” NFC-equipped smartphone, he or she can contact the company and activate the handset for mobile payments. The device will be securely linked with a user’s bank account and can then be used to make mobile payments anywhere Visa’s payWave system is accepted. “In the same w...

Mobile payment joint venture ISIS, a partnership between Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile, on Monday announced launch partners and availability. The service will become available in mid-2012 starting with locations across Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas. Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard have entered into agreements to offer credit, debit and prepaid cards alongside the service. “Today’s announcement is testament to the vision and commitment of Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard to mak...

Images of LG’s mid-range Windows Phone — the Miracle, previously code-named Fantasy — have been published once again, this time with an accompanying video. The images and footage were obtained by Mobilissimo and confirm the handset’s 5-megapixel rear camera and 4-inch display. The Mango-powered smartphone is also rumored to feature a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8GB of storage and an NFC chip, although Windows Phone 7.5 Mango does not yet include support for NFC. LG is expected to unveil the M...

LG is preparing to unveil a mid-range Windows Phone code-named “Miracle” at this year’s Mobile World Congress trade show, according to PocketNow. The Mango-powered handset will feature a 4-inch WVGA display, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8GB of storage, a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of shooting 720p video and a VGA front-facing camera. Perhaps the most interesting detail is the smartphone’s purported NFC capabilities, although it is unclear how this feature will be implemented in a ...

We’re still waiting for Microsoft to launch Windows Phone “Tango,” but supposed details have already emerged surrounding the next major Windows Phone release code-named “Apollo.” According to Pocketnow, which claims to have obtained a video of Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore that was intended to be viewed only by Nokia employees, Apollo will launch as Windows Phone 8. Read on for more. (more…)