Mobile Marketing Magazine

INSIDE Releases Open NFC Stack

INSIDE Contactless, which provides open-standard, contactless chip technologies, is making its Open NFC protocol stack more widely available, placing the full source code and API documentation on SourceForge.net for free download. The source code for the core Open NFC version 3.5 software - including Android, Windows Mobile, Linux and Java (JSR-257) editions - and API documentation will be available on SourceForge.net from 15 May. There’s also a web site with more information on Open NFC here.      
The Open NFC protocol stack brings well-documented NFC software into the open source arena, providing a complete NFC middleware solution for mobile phones, embedded products and other devices. INSIDE says that it benefits device makers, software developers, and others in the mobile ecosystem in several ways, providing greater impetus to implement NFC solutions across a broad range of consumer products. Open NFC supports the trend toward open platforms in the mobile industry, and INSIDE says it welcomes contributions from the developer community.
Open NFC supports several levels of functionality, from low-level RF control to high-level NFC Forum tag handling, peer-to-peer communications as well as Bluetooth and wi-fi pairing, 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.
"INSIDE's Open NFC software has received support from a broad array of participants in the NFC ecosystem, including major handset manufacturers, developers and carriers, and we are already in discussion with major industry players to support Open NFC as the de facto standard NFC stack for the Android, MeeGo, Linux and Windows Mobile platforms," says Philippe Martineau, Executive Vice President of the NFC business line at INSIDE Contactless. "Open NFC offers a number of benefits to these stakeholders, including an open, consistent API across all NFC hardware, faster time to market and greater flexibility."
Martineau adds that INSIDE's Open NFC protocol stack will be proposed to the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) as the reference implementation for Android to sit on top of the hardware abstraction layer. The company expects to release an NFC chip simulator and board to developers by the end of the third quarter of 2010. 

Topaz Takes Centre Stage at WIMA

Innovision Research & Technology’s Topaz NFC (Near Field Communications) tags will play a central role at WIMA 2010 – the 4th Global NFC Business & Technical Developers Summit – which brings together industry leaders, NFC developers, standards bodies and research and academic institutions. Innovision is also an official sponsor of the event, which takes place on 20-22 April at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.
This year, Topaz tags will be integral to the overall WIMA experience, which includes a range of interactive smart posters around the WIMA venue. In addition, Topaz tag sample kits will be provided to NFC Forum Global Competition entrants. The competition runs in conjunction with WIMA, and is designed to encourage creative and innovative developments in NFC technology. 
“It’s interesting to see how far NFC has come since we provided our tags to the very first NFC Competition winners back in 2007,” says Innovision VP Marketing, Stephen Graham. “Understanding of NFC technology has evolved and the competition has quickly evolved with it, to the extent that the entries are becoming increasingly advanced, wide-ranging and relevant in all aspects of life.”
In previous years, the NFC Forum Global Competition has generated a raft of innovative entries incorporating Topaz tags, like the Seeingeyephone, developed by VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, and aimed at the visually impaired. This year’s submissions include mobile couponing, healthcare, building access and security, retail merchandising, online user authentication, nutrition management, gaming, online banking and support for the disabled.

Barclaycard to Launch Contactless Mobile Payments with Orange

Barclaycard is to launch contactless mobile payments in conjunction with Orange before the end of the year. Barclaycard’s Head of Innovation Marketing, Sarah Mansfield, confirmed the news in a presentation at a mobile marketing event organised by the Institute of Sales Promotion and Mobile Interactive Group this afternoon.
“At the back end of 2010, we will have a commercial launch with Orange for mobile payments,” she told delegates. “You will be able to buy an NFC-enabled phone and make payments with it.”
Barclaycard first trialled mobile payments in 2008. It also offers SMS alerts, and has an iPhone and Android Augmented Reality application that enables users to find their nearest retail outlet that accepts contactless payments, or their nearest ATM. Last month, Barclaycard and Orange launched a joint contactless credit card which enables users to make payments of £10 and under using contactless technology.

Sagem Orga Demos Sim-based NFC Solution

Sagem Orga, Telenor Group and ST Microelectronics have staged demonstrations at Mobile World Congress using a key fob equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) capability and using it in combination with a wireless-enabled SIM card in a mobile phone, a scenario the companies say is supported by 100% of all existing and future mobile phones. The demonstrations include a sample solution for Calypso electronic ticketing in public transportation and for mobile payment.
For the demo solution, a key fob has been equipped with a Sagem Orga NFC-enabled SIM card connected by Single Wire Protocol to the ST21NFCA chip from ST Microelectronics to enable the contactless feature. This NFC key fob is connected to the SIM in the mobile phone using the new WLAN SIM ‘ConnectSIM’ developed by Sagem Orga and Telenor. This solution forms the bridge between NFC technology and the SIM card in any kind of mobile phone.
Any NFC application, such as mobile payment or Calypso for transportation, can be installed on the SIM card of the mobile phone and/or the NFC key fob, using any traditional or Over The Air mechanism. It can be executed in both devices or only in one of them, depending on the required performance, resources and connectivity.
For example, a terminal for contactless banking can trigger the mobile payment application stored in the key fob to start a transaction. Next, the key fob starts a remote SIM toolkit execution on the SIM inserted in the mobile phone to enable interaction with the user – asking for a password, displaying a message, or logging information to the network, for example.
With the same key fob solution, the user can also start a SIM Toolkit application on the mobile phone to order new transportation e-tickets; the Calypso vending server then uses the normal OTA infrastructure to send the tickets securely to the SIM and on to the key fob. The WLAN communication channel between the SIM in the handset and the secure element in the key fob is highly secured and can be protected by a PKI mechanism if needed.
“The NFC key fob in combination with the WLAN SIM brings more convenience and security to contactless technology,” says Sagem Orga CTO, Didier Sérodon. “We are demonstrating the advantages of a constant connection between the SIM in the mobile phone and the secure element in the accessory via a wireless link with examples from the transportation and the mobile payment area, but this can also pave the way for all classic NFC use cases such as access control, loyalty, etc. All of them can be managed by the NFC key fob.”

SIM-based NFC Payments Pilot Runs at MWC

The GSM Association (GSMA), Samsung Electronics, Telefónica and Visa, together with Giesecke & Devrient, Ingenico, mobile data management firm ITN International, and La Caixa, have announced the “arrival” of contactless mobile payments, as the companies unveiled the result of months of collaboration and brought the first ever SIM-based NFC payments pilot to Mobile World Congress.
The participating companies have provided more than 400 NFC handsets to guests for use at the Congress. The Samsung Star NFC handsets contain Telefónica SIM cards from O2, pre-loaded with €60 airtime credit, as well as a La Caixa Visa Mobile Payment Application. Participants can use their NFC phones to pay for food and drink up to a value of €75 at over 30 merchant locations around the Congress.
“It is a fantastic achievement to bring a full payment trial to Mobile World Congress and a testament to the hard work of the partners that this cross-industry collaboration has worked so well,” says GSMA Chief Marketing Officer, Michael O’Hara. “Mobile operators have been requesting SIM-based NFC handsets for some time now, and it’s great to see such progress in this area. Now that the handsets are coming, we can expect to see a number of commercial launches of mobile SIM-based NFC services this year.”
Participants in the trial will be able to buy food and drink, simply by holding their Samsung NFC mobile phone against the contactless terminal at the participating merchants to pay for purchases under €10. Purchases above €10 require a passcode which the participant keys into the handset before presenting it to the terminal. The transactions are authorised online, with funds deducted from a La Caixa Visa account.   
The partners have worked to bring the NFC experience to Mobile World Congress with the intention of raising awareness of the technology in anticipation of the commercial launch of these SIM-based handsets in the very near future. As more of the SIM-based handsets become commercially available it will help trigger global adoption and rollout of mobile NFC, the companies believe.

Open NFC Goes Open Source

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.  

Orange and Barclaycard Launch Contactless Credit Card

Orange and Barclaycard have launched a joint contactless credit card which offers customers the option to set their own spending levels and a choice in how they are kept up-to-date with their account. Orange says the Orange Credit Card is the first card to give customers this level of control over their account. It also provides customers with a range of rewards, as well as the ability to make easier and faster purchases of £10 and under using contactless technology.
The launch of the Orange Credit Card with contactless technology, budget manager and spend controls is the latest step in Orange and Barclaycard’s long-term strategic partnership aimed at introducing a broad range of mobile, financial and payment services to evolve the way consumers make payment transactions in the UK.
The new card offers automated SMS alerts, with weekly alerts on the balance, limit and credit remaining, and monthly alerts relating to payments due and received. Customers can also set alerts and blocks on card spend online, abroad or for high value transactions.
Customers will earn one Orange Credit Card reward point for every £1 spent, which can be redeemed online or by phone. These can be exchanged for vouchers that customers can spend at high street shops including Marks & Spencer and HMV, or used as discounts on Orange products and services bought through Orange shops – from discounts on new phones to mobile accessories. The points can also be used towards tickets for trips and special events, such as mountain biking, the Glastonbury festival, or  dry slope skiing lesson. Or users can donate their points to charity.
“We are seeing demand from both retailers and customers for ever more convenient ways to pay and accept payment, and believe that mobile and contactless technologies are key to meeting those needs,” says Barclaycard Managing Director, Chris Wood. “This announcement shows how, in partnership with Orange, Barclaycard is starting to make mobile contactless payments a step closer for UK consumers.”

Frost Predicts Mobile Payments Drive

The growing diversity of alternative payment methods suggests the stakeholders are scrambling to establish a lead in preferred payment form. The telecommunications and financial and payment industries are leading the drive to implement smart card technology that will transform users’ payment habits.
That’s the verdict of the analyst, Frost & Sullivan, which says that with the likely commercial deployment of Near Field Communication (NFC) in 2011/2012, there will be a renewed initiative from the financial and payments industry to enable secure mobile payments. The industry’s demand for more complex banking and payment cards that result in end-to-end solutions of products and services will further boost the overall revenue of smart card vendors, the company says.
According to Frost & Sullivan Analyst, Yiru Zhong: “As users’ payment habit trends become more entrenched, they will spill over to other regions, enabling lagging countries and regions to leapfrog traditional payment methods and provide smart card vendors with a new avenue of revenue potential.” 
Poland, as the first country in the Central and East European region to introduce proximity cards by banks and mobile operators within the last two years, is a good example. The newest methods include the ING Bank sticker that can be affixed to a mobile phone or any personal mobile device and a module in Laks watches introduced recently by Bank Zachodni WBK. Both methods are an enhancement for proximity cards that have already been introduced for use in MasterCard’s PayPass networks around the country. 
The telecommunications industry is pushing for NFC technology as the dominant means for mobile payment, relying on the ubiquitous mobile subscription to overcome underbanked society issues and to capture new ways in which businesses can reach out to customers.
“With expectations that NFC-enabled phones will come on stream in 2010 and commercial deployments (in) 2011/2012, we anticipate a fight for a dominant payment form between the two industries to buoy the smart card sector,” says Zhong. “After all, both industries will require the necessary services and solution backups to ensure a secure seamless payment transaction experience for merchants, users and middlemen.”
Ultimately, however, these developments suggest that form is less important than transaction volumes, the analyst says, and the recent example of the sticker payment card shows that it really serves to increase transaction volumes. Because volume generation is critical at this point, smart card vendors should make this process as easy as possible for their banking customers. Frost & Sullivan maintains that functional convergence is a significant end user driver for smart cards, and the extension to other capabilities is the next obvious step. Not only will its successful acceptance allow lagging regions to leap over traditional payment methods, but it will also provide smart card vendors with a new source of revenue potential.
“The smart card industry should demonstrate its full range of products and services that enable their banking customers to increase their value to their end user customers and businesses for additional services such as marketing and customer analytics,” concludes Zhong. 
If you would like to learn more about Frost & Sullivan Smart Cards programme or obtain information on Frost & Sullivan’s recent report, ‘Money in Mobile – European Transactions’, send an email to [email protected] with your full name, company name, title, and contact details.

INSIDE and Mobile Distillery in NFC App Platform Move

INSIDE Contactless and Mobile Distillery have partnered to create a new NFC mobile application development platform called ‘Celsius for Wave-Me’. The companies say the partnership will boost the development of NFC applications for the Wave-Me NFC services platform by making it easier for software makers to write applications once and deploy them across a broad range of NFC-enabled handsets.
The platform combines Mobile Distillery’s Celsius mobile application production framework with INSIDE Contactless’ Wave-Me Service Engine, a key component of the Wave-Me NFC services platform. This is an end-to-end solution that mobile carriers and third-party service providers can use to give subscribers easy access to a broad range of NFC consumer services and applications through their handsets. Celsius for Wave-Me will also include deeply integrated connectivity to INSIDE’s MicroRead NFC chip and software, enabling NFC mobile applications to be optimised for performance with access to advanced proprietary features of the NFC chip.  
“Along with our Wave-Me services platform for carriers and third-party service providers, the Celsius for Wave-Me will be a key component of the NFC ecosystem,” says Loic Hamon, Vice President of Marketing, NFC Business Line at INSIDE Contactless. “It’ll provide a platform that NFC application developers can use to efficiently address the diversity of handsets on the market today and in the future.”
The companies say that Celsius for Wave-Me will help mobile network operators overcome the major hurdle of wanting to provide easy access to services, but also wanting to wait until the deployment of NFC-enabled handsets fully ramps up. Celsius for Wave-Me allows developers to use its patented Parametric Development feature to automatically adapt their source code at compilation time. This creates applications that can read either QR Code or traditional NFC tags, depending on the capabilities of the target handset.
A beta release Celsius NFC for Wave-Me is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2010 for selected partners. The Celsius for Wave-Me licence will be free for the development stage of any project, and will be updated to include new NFC phones, additional NFC stickers and add-ons as they become available.

Innovision Secures NFC Funding

Innovision Research & Technology has secured funding of almost $9 million (£5.4 million) from existing and new institutional investors to further progress in the Near Field Communication (NFC) market. The company says the funding will be used to further develop and capitalise on opportunities for its NFC Intellectual Property (IP) and tags and help consolidate its position as a leading NFC IP technology developer. 
Innovision notes that three new NFC contracts, a major RFID contract in China and a joint licensing deal with NXP, all secured in the first half of 2009, have provided a strong start to the year. The company has also joined the board of the NFC Forum, alongside Sony, Mastercard and Nokia.
Innovision has licensed its NFC technology to some of the world’s largest global semiconductor companies, and says it is now working with them to incorporate its NFC IP into chips aimed at the mobile handset market. Once they reach production, Innovision expects that each deal could generate significant royalty revenue streams over several years, securing the company's NFC IP into NFC handsets shipped from 2012 onwards. Ultimately, the company says it sees its tag technology enabling a multitude of applications and smart objects.

Zapa Selects Postilion for Contactless Payments Task

Zapa Technology has chosen Postilion, a global provider of payments software solutions, to provide the core payments platform for its new mobile prepaid top-up, loyalty, and gift card processing services for European retailers. Zapa will make use of contactless and near field communication (NFC) technologies to drive customer acquisition and improve the consumer experience.
To differentiate its service offering, Zapa has introduced ZAPA TAG, an NFC ‘sticker’ placed inside or outside the mobile phone, which collects loyalty points or holds stored value. Consumers need only wave an enabled phone across the ZAPA terminal, located at participating retailers’ points of sale (POS), to redeem an offer, access a service, or collect loyalty points. Postilion will enable Zapa to centrally manage all loyalty points and contactless transactions and provide detailed reports for usage analysis. With Postilion, Zapa will also be able to add new payment services, as retailers diversify from prepaid top-up into other offerings, such as gift cards, and lottery ticket purchases.
Zapa is launching its services by seeding POS infrastructure to strategic retailers and providing their customers with ZAPA TAGs. Zapa is focusing initially on the Irish market, and aims to ignite consumer demand, turning the desire for contactless convenience into tangible business value for retailers. By doing so, it hopes to position Ireland as an early adopter of contactless and NFC technologies, setting a positive example for the rest of Europe.
The Zapa system will be available as a white-label service to retailers in Ireland, the UK, and continental Europe, providing them with a fast and cost-effective alternative to in-house contactless payments development. Zapa anticipates that loyalty applications will drive the initial push, with an emphasis on creating a universal system to support multiple retailers. In this scenario, a single ZAPA TAG would access separate branded wallets on the customer’s mobile display, showing loyalty points accrued from each retailer.
“We chose Postilion because we wanted to clearly differentiate Zapa as a European payments innovator,” explains John Nagle, CEO of Zapa Technology. “Contactless is still a relatively new concept for most retailers, so it was important to provide them with the assurance that it is powered by Postilion’s high performing, secure payments platform.”
Nagle adds that features such as online and mobile alerts to advertise in-store promotions, mobile-based incentives to encourage foot traffic, and interactive customer loyalty programs tailored to individual consumer spending patterns, will provide additional benefits for retailers using Zapa payments services.

Tetherball Launches Retrofit RFID Marketing Platform

US firm Tetherball, which specializes in mobile loyalty and rewards solutions, has unveiled an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)-based mobile marketing platform that works on any phone.
Using traditional marketing methods such as in-store advertising, customers are engaged to sign up for mobile loyalty rewards programs offering promotional discounts. Upon joining, customers are given a Tetherball Tag, a tiny RFID chip that is fixed to their mobile phones, and uniquely identifies them through Tetherball’s technology platform. How exactly it is fixed is not clear from the information the company has supplied. We have asked the question, but as they are in the US, it may be a while before we get an answer.
Tetherball clients are then able to send offers to their customers via standard text messaging. Offers are redeemed electronically using existing in-store RFID point of sale terminals or stand-alone RFID kiosks provided by Tetherball. Mobiquitous, a patent-pending, real time, web-based reporting system, delivers detailed visibility and analytics into coupon redemption rates and overall program performance.
One of the program’s users is fast-food chain International Dairy Queen, whose Website Manager, Jamie Guse, says:
“We are a big believer in the future of mobile marketing and are very excited to be partnering with Tetherball. Through their innovative RFID-based mobile loyalty program, we are able to provide great offers to our customers in a fun and easy way while precisely measuring the effectiveness of our Dairy Queen Mobile Rewards Program.”

Update: We have now had a reply from Tetherball, who inform us that the RFID tags have an adhesive back to them that sticks the tag to the phone, but which can be removed without leaving any residue on the phone. In addition, the tags have a protective backing to prevent RF interference, and a protective surface to resist physical wear.

Innovision and NXP in NFC Partnership

Innovision Research and Technology and NXP Semiconductors, the independent company founded by Philips, have announced a joint marketing and licensing agreement related to Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The agreement builds on an established relationship between the two companies and is aimed at bringing both partners’ complementary NFC capabilities to other companies actively involved in the NFC value chain.
The deal brings together advanced Innovision IP and proven NXP expertise in firmware, software and secure elements. The two companies say they aim to win NFC integration deals into deep sub-micron based connectivity solutions. NXP’s endorsement and licensing of Innovision’s advanced NFC IP, known as Gem, is expected to expand Innovision’s addressable market to include NFC applications such as payments.
“As co-inventor of the NFC technology and a leader in secure elements, we are pleased to work with Innovision and its advanced IP for NFC,” says Chris Feige, General Manager, NFC at NXP Semiconductors. “With standardization in place, we expect a major push for the adoption of NFC this year, and we are fully prepared to meet the demand from handset manufacturers, operators and other stakeholders in the NFC industry.” 
The companies note that recent announcements related to SIM-based mobile handset NFC implementations have stimulated an encouraging response from operators and the GSMA, regarding their commitment to launching new NFC services in future.
Innovision Research & Technology develops semiconductor technologies, ICs, RF systems (HF/UHF) and complete end product applications for mass volume commercialization, and then licenses customers for its incorporation into their own products.
The company also designs and develops NFC/RFID IC solutions for the global mobile handset and consumer device sectors, including the advanced process Gem NFC IP. Products include Topaz, mandated by the NFC Forum as the NFC number one tag type format; Jewel for mass transit ticketing applications; and io, the world's smallest standards compatible Near-Field RFID reader.

EC Issues RFID Recommendations

The European Commission (EC) has issued a set of recommendations “to ensure those involved in the design or operation of technology using smart chips respect the individual's fundamental right to privacy and data protection.”
The recommendations follow a public consultation launched in 2006, on the development and use of smart chips (or Radio Frequency Identification technologies). Based on this, it then adopted a Communication in March 2007, showing that further action was expected by the public in terms of privacy and data protection. The EC says the recommendations respond to these expectations and seek to create a level-playing field for the European industry, while respecting individuals’ privacy.
The EC notes that smart chips can, and already do, have a huge impact on business tasks, public services and consumer products, making everyday life simpler. Indeed, it says, there are already over 6 billion smart chips using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, that can be integrated into a variety of everyday objects from fridges to bus passes. The chips can process data automatically when brought close to readers that activate them, pick up their radio signal and exchange data with them.
“There is clear economic potential in using small, smart chips to allow communication between objects,” says Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. “But Europeans must never be taken unawares by the new technology. This is why the Commission (has) issued strong recommendations to the industry. European consumers must be confident that if and when their personal data is involved, their privacy will be impregnable also in a changing technological environment. The Commission therefore wants RFID technology to empower consumers to control their data security, which is the best way to make sure it is an economic success.”
The Commission's principles include: 

• Consumers should be in control whether products they buy in shops use smart chips or not. When consumers buy products with smart chips, these should be deactivated automatically, immediately and free-of-charge at the point of sale, unless the consumer explicitly opts-in by asking to keep the chip operational. Exceptions can be granted to avoid unnecessary burden on retailers, for example, but only after an assessment of the chip's impact on privacy.
• Companies or public authorities using smart chips should give consumers clear and simple information so that they understand if their personal data will be used, the type of collected data (such as name, address or date of birth) and for what purpose. They should also provide clear labelling to identify the devices that read the information stored in smart chips, and provide a contact point for citizens to obtain more information.
• Retail associations and organisations should promote consumer awareness on products containing smart chips through a common European sign to indicate whenever a smart chip is used by a product.
• Companies and public authorities should conduct privacy and data protection impact assessments before using smart chips. These assessments, reviewed by national data protection authorities, should ensure that personal data is secure and well protected.

We asked Jonathan Bass, Managing Director of mobile agency Incentivated, and a font of all knowledge on all things mobile, for his reaction to the EC’s plans. He told us:
“My first thought is, does Oyster comply? The part about consumers being in control whether products they buy in shops use smart chips or not makes no sense to me. The product with the embedded chip won’t come with private data installed; you have to add your data to it! So I don’t see this as an issue. Bullets 2 and 3 are very sensible, but bullet 4 means more EU bureaucracy and cost."
Member states now have two years to inform the Commission on the steps they intend to take to make sure that the objectives of the Recommendation are met. Within three years, the Commission will report on the recommendation's implementation, including an analysis of its impact on companies and public authorities using smart chips, as well as its impact on citizens.
Some 2.2 billion RFID tags, such as the ones used at toll booths or to identify shipping containers, were sold worldwide in 2008, roughly a third of these in Europe. The worldwide market value for RFID tags is estimated to be €4 billion (£3.6 billion) in 2008 and to grow to about €20 billion by 2018.
You can read the recommendation here.

Visa Hails Swiss NFC Pilot Success

Credit Suisse, PostFinance, SIX Multipay, Swisscard, Swisscom and Visa Europe have completed a pilot study of contactless payments using Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile phones incorporating Visa payWave card payment technology. In the pilot, which was held in Switzerland, over 90% of those who took part said they liked the ease and convenience of the technology. The same percentage also said they would use the technology when it becomes commercially available. These figures should, however, be weighed against the fact that those taking part in the pilot were employees of three of the companies involved.
Visa payWave allows payments to be made in under a second. Using short-range wireless technology, payment details are securely exchanged between a contactless chip card and a specially adapted point-of-sale terminal. With Visa payWave, a mobile phone or payment card is waved in front of the terminal to buy every-day, low-value items, with no need for it to be physically swiped or inserted into a point-of-sale device.
From September to November 2008, employees of Credit Suisse, Swisscard and SIX Multipay, could pay in their companies’ staff restaurants using their NFC-enabled mobile phone or contactless Visa credit card. The aim of the pilot was to test the technical and operating feasibility of contactless payments, as well as usability and preference of the Swiss consumers.
The pilot showed the different factors that are essential for the successful roll out of the technology. These include a broad range of acceptance locations. Being able to pay for small-ticket purchases in busy locations such as kiosks, in car parks and for public transport was seen as particularly advantageous. Cashiers in the restaurants confirmed that the contactless technology accelerates the buying process, in comparison to using cash.
“Our projects across Europe demonstrate a strong interest in payment solutions with mobile phones and consumers’ acceptance of modern payment methods offering high standards of speed, convenience and security,” says Sandra Alzetta SVP, Innovation, New Product and Channel Development at Visa Europe. “Pilots such as these help us to gauge consumers’ preferences so that we can respond quickly when the market is ready with more NFC-enabled mobile phones and with a broad point-of- acceptance network.”
In the next phase of the pilot, a working group will gauge the best available solutions for expanding the number of acceptance points in Switzerland.
There’s more information about Visa Contactless here.

Mobile Distillery and Stollmann in NFC Partnership

Mobile Distillery, which supplies an NFC (Near Field Communications) porting platform for NFC-embedded and NFC-enabled phones, and Stollmann, which specialises in portable, modular protocol stacks for NFC, ISDN and Bluetooth, which can be used in mobile phones, embedded and PC-based devices, have revealed that they are cooperating to ease the adoption of NFC technology.
The companies note that NFC has two contrasting reputations. One for being a technology that will revolutionize the way that consumers will use electronic devices, particularly mobile phones; the other that the industry forecasts for start of the ‘NFC revolution’ have been pushed out several times. All the numerous trials worldwide have returned unanimous and enthusiastic consumer acceptance, yet much of the talk in the NFC sector today is about how the ecosystem can work together to launch mainstream consumer services.
This is where the association between the Mobile Distillery and Stollmann cooperation comes into play. Developers writing applications using the Celsius framework will benefit from time saved on creating their applications and ease-of-use when porting Stollmann’s stacks across mobile devices.
“During conversations at previous NFC events, we realized that we were both working on a common goal, but at different levels of the software architecture,” says Mobile Distillery CEO, Vincent Berge. “Both of us are working to ease the use of NFC technology by smoothing out the difference in hardware or software implementations. By coordinating our research and development efforts, we can ensure that an application using NFC could be ported with the maximum reliability and minimum effort across a large number of hardware platforms.”
For Stollmann, CEO Christian Lührs says:
“We have been involved in embedded software for almost 30 years and we know that non-compatibility, despite the existence of standards, has seriously limited the domains of application and the quality of the user experience in technologies such as Bluetooth. “Our cross-platform NFC stack removes this blocking point and allows device manufacturers to concentrate on their core business.”

mobilkom Launches NFC Phone Complete with Tags

Austrian mobile operator mobilkom austria is launching an NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled mobile phone, the Nokia 6212 classic, complete with Topaz NFC tags from Innovision Research & Technology in the box. mobilkom austria is the first mobile operator to commercially distribute a phone with a set of NFC service tags.
The Nokia 6212 includes all the usual mobile phone features, including a camera, stereo radio, music player and bright QVGA screen, together with NFC. The phone will come with four Topaz NFC tags, enabling quick, safe and convenient access to mobile services with a single touch.
Each tag is pre-programmed with a WAP link. The user simply touches the appropriate tag with their NFC phone and follows the link to the desired Vodafone live! WAP page. The use of NFC tag technology, says Innovision, will enable consumers to access ringtones, pictures and animations more easily. The second tag links to traffic information and fuel price updates provided by the Austrian automobile club, while the third links to sports news, provided by Austria’s sport channel Laola1.
The fourth tag has a link to a WAP page for purchasing ÖBB Handy-Tickets for use on the train. This ÖBB tag is currently in use in a trial launched in January 2009 by mobilkom austria, ÖBB and Nokia. Participants in the trial place their mobile ticket order by touching the ÖBB Handy-Ticket Topaz NFC tag with their NFC phone to receive an electronic ticket, which will be validated via NFC by the train conductor The Handy Ticket trial is currently running on two routes around Vienna.
NFC is designed to improve the user experience of mobile services and make service initiation more convenient, which is critical for a broad adoption of mobile services. A recent survey compiled by Mformation found that 85% of users reported they were frustrated by the difficulty of getting a new phone up and working. NFC tags can be programmed to enable the consumer to access online services more easily. Topaz can also be used to help pair the handset with other devices, such as Bluetooth headsets, at a touch.