INSIDE Contactless, which supplies open-standard, contactless chip technologies, is making its Open NFC commercial-grade NFC protocol stack (formerly MicroRead Software Foundation) available in a free and open source edition under the Apache Licence, Version 2.0. Open NFC 3.4 is available now for WinCE 6.0 (compatible with Windows Mobile 7 and Linux 2.6 platforms), while an Android implementation will premier with the planned release of Open NFC 3.5 at the end of March.
“Our decision to release Open NFC under the Apache licence demonstrates our willingness to lead the way in bringing high quality, well documented NFC software into the open source arena,” says Philippe Martineau, Executive Vice President of the NFC business line for INSIDE Contactless. “Open NFC fits right in with the trend toward open platforms in the mobile industry, and will benefit device makers as well as software developers and others in the mobile ecosystem in several ways, providing greater impetus to implementing NFC solutions across a broad range of consumer products.”
Martineau adds that the availability of an open source NFC protocol stack should also improve the interoperability of NFC devices, and thus accelerate market adoption.
The Open NFC protocol stack provides a complete NFC middleware solution for mobile phones, embedded products and other devices. Open NFC supports several levels of functionality, from low-level RF control to high-level NFC Forum tag handling, plus peer-to-peer communications and Bluetooth and wi-fi pairing, as well as interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs and other secure elements, and compatibility with smart cards and RFID tags based on Felica, Mifare and ISO 14443 standards.
“Having an open-source NFC stack like Open NFC is a game-changing development, providing greater flexibility in sourcing NFC controllers and a consistent programming interface,” says Gary Koerper, Vice President of Engine Systems at Motorola Mobile Devices. “We congratulate INSIDE Contactless for their contribution to the open source movement."
And John Elliott, Senior Director of Emerging Connectivity Technologies at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies says: "Qualcomm understands the increasing importance of open source and community-driven software to the mobile industry, and is pleased to see INSIDE Contactless taking this bold move to bring NFC into the open source movement. Qualcomm is already optimizing two of its UMTS and CDMA2000 NFC handset reference designs for use with the Open-NFC stack, and continues to invest in a number of open source initiatives as customer demand for open and flexible software coupled with powerful mobile hardware platforms continues to increase."
Open NFC was originally developed for INSIDE's third-generation MicroRead NFC chip that provides the broadest range of NFC options, enabling numerous new contactless applications, and was the first NFC solution to support the single-wire protocol (SWP). The award-winning MicroRead suite combines third-generation silicon, a full set of interfaces, NFC software libraries and APIs, a field-proven reference design and robust standards support to provide a turnkey contactless reader solution.
According to a report from Juniper Research, open source operating systems are now running on 60% of the Smartphones on the market, and the number of Smartphones shipped with open source operating systems will increase from 106 million in 2009 to 223 million by 2014.
“Our decision to release Open NFC under the Apache licence demonstrates our willingness to lead the way in bringing high quality, well documented NFC software into the open source arena,” says Philippe Martineau, Executive Vice President of the NFC business line for INSIDE Contactless. “Open NFC fits right in with the trend toward open platforms in the mobile industry, and will benefit device makers as well as software developers and others in the mobile ecosystem in several ways, providing greater impetus to implementing NFC solutions across a broad range of consumer products.”
Martineau adds that the availability of an open source NFC protocol stack should also improve the interoperability of NFC devices, and thus accelerate market adoption.
The Open NFC protocol stack provides a complete NFC middleware solution for mobile phones, embedded products and other devices. Open NFC supports several levels of functionality, from low-level RF control to high-level NFC Forum tag handling, plus peer-to-peer communications and Bluetooth and wi-fi pairing, as well as interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs and other secure elements, and compatibility with smart cards and RFID tags based on Felica, Mifare and ISO 14443 standards.
“Having an open-source NFC stack like Open NFC is a game-changing development, providing greater flexibility in sourcing NFC controllers and a consistent programming interface,” says Gary Koerper, Vice President of Engine Systems at Motorola Mobile Devices. “We congratulate INSIDE Contactless for their contribution to the open source movement."
And John Elliott, Senior Director of Emerging Connectivity Technologies at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies says: "Qualcomm understands the increasing importance of open source and community-driven software to the mobile industry, and is pleased to see INSIDE Contactless taking this bold move to bring NFC into the open source movement. Qualcomm is already optimizing two of its UMTS and CDMA2000 NFC handset reference designs for use with the Open-NFC stack, and continues to invest in a number of open source initiatives as customer demand for open and flexible software coupled with powerful mobile hardware platforms continues to increase."
Open NFC was originally developed for INSIDE's third-generation MicroRead NFC chip that provides the broadest range of NFC options, enabling numerous new contactless applications, and was the first NFC solution to support the single-wire protocol (SWP). The award-winning MicroRead suite combines third-generation silicon, a full set of interfaces, NFC software libraries and APIs, a field-proven reference design and robust standards support to provide a turnkey contactless reader solution.
According to a report from Juniper Research, open source operating systems are now running on 60% of the Smartphones on the market, and the number of Smartphones shipped with open source operating systems will increase from 106 million in 2009 to 223 million by 2014.
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