One of the highlights of Docomo’s roll-out of their 2013 “Spring Collection” was the Xperia Z Smartphone and Tablet pair. President and CEO, Kaoru Kato kicked off his product descriptions with these products and they were the centerpiece of the company’s product roll-out.
Designed to interact together as a pair in a seamless way, data, photos, etc. can be passed between each other easily and smoothly. Both are run on Android 4.1 and 100 Mbps Xi LTE, with a 1.5 GHz …
NTT Docomo unveiled its 2013 Spring lineup to a packed house of invited Japanese and technical press at the Prince Park Tower Hotel in Tokyo. They showed off and explained 12 new models that will launch, beginning on January 25th, with a lot of nice improvements over their current line-up of 16 models.
NTT Docomo President and CEO, Kaoru Kato, 7 months into his tenure at the position, gave a confident, nicely-paced, clear and concise presentation of the company’s lineup and vision of …
If you had planned to S-Beam your media around on Samsung’s Galaxy S III mini, only to be disappointed by the lack of Near Field Communication on our UK review model, then we’ve got some good news for all twelve of you. Yes, Samsung has announced that Brits will be treated to an NFC iteration before the end of this particularly chilly January and it will arrive across the major carriers and in phone stores both online and real. While the announcement didn’t arrive with a price tag, we’ve been tipped off to some pricing at Finnish retailer Gigantti, where the NFC version rings in at 349 euros. Sidestep the contactless communication, however, and you’ll only have to pay 299 euros. There’s the choice of both blue and white finishes on either model, but you’ll still have to decide whether tappable file transfer and sharing warrants that 50 euros ($67) extra.
SAMSUNG ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF GALAXY S III MINI WITH NFC
New NFC variant set to hit shops at end of January
21st January 2013, London, UK – Samsung Mobile UK today announced that an NFC-enabled version of the Galaxy S III Mini smartphone will be available to buy in the UK from the end of January.
Owners of the new Galaxy S III Mini will be able to share content, such as photos, videos and music, much faster and more easily. Its S Beam feature allows a 10MB music file to be shared in just two seconds by simply tapping on another S Beam-enabled device, such as the Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note II, even without a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. By combining NFC and Wi-Fi Direct, S Beam is capable of sending larger files between phones, such as images, videos and music tracks.
The Galaxy S III Mini is powered by Android[TM] 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and packed with many of the same features available on the Galaxy S III, including S Voice which people can use to tell the phone to wake up, answer an incoming call, or even take a photo, and Direct Call which allows customers to automatically call someone they’ve just received a text by simply lifting the phone to their ear.
Simon Stanford, Vice President, Telecommunications & Networks, Samsung UK and Ireland said: “
“NFC technology and the digital wallet started to gain significant traction in 2012, particularly in the run up to the Olympics. It’s an exciting time in the mobile market watching the next phase of its evolution take shape, so we’re happy to announce that we are bringing these new experiences to our customers through our growing number of NFC-enabled devices.”
The Galaxy S III Mini will be available to buy in the UK across all major networks, key high street and out of town electrical retailers and online retailers from the end of January.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Via: ESPhone Blog
Source: Gigantti (Finnish)
Well, well, what do we have here? Apparently, there is word that Samsung has deemed the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini to be worthy enough to carry the NFC mantle, so we can expect a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini NFC edition headed to the market in due time. The thing is, when the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini first rolled out in October last year, there was a promise by Samsung to deliver an NFC-capable model of the dumbed down version of the smartphone, but somehow issues cropped up and that did not really happen.
It is nice, then to hear that Samsung intends to fulfill that promise of a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini NFC edition just like how politicians work hard to ensure their manifesto’s promises go through and become reality before election season arrives. It seems that the NFC-enabled version of the smartphone will arrive before the month is over, sporting the model number I8190N. We wonder how much of a premium one would have to fork out to bring home the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini NFC edition over the vanilla model.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: LG Optimus G Kicks Off Global Rollout , Smartphone Dock Bowl Helps You Slurp Ramen While Keeping Your Eyes On Your Phone, 
Sony is utilizing its NFC (Near Field Communication) technology to develop the next generation in backing up and sharing data – “one touch backup”. Photos, videos can be backed-up, saved and shared in the cloud, or locally to its 1TB (terabyte) hard drive, all without going through a PC.
Data will be shared totally wirelessly by a simple wave of your smartphone, tablet, etc., making the whole process of saving, sharing and managing data much more efficient and less …
Sony continues to roll-out high-quality products utilising its wireless NFC bluetooth technology. Smartphones, regular mobile phones etc. can be paired with these wireless headphones to deliver great sound and great mobility.
Multiple devices (up to can be wirelessly paired with the headphones, and listening to the music on your device can be toggled between your headphones and the portable bluetooth SRS-BTX300 and SRS-BTX500 speakers we wrote about on January 18th.
The headphones feature …
Samsung is readying an NFC-equipped version of its Galaxy S III Mini smartphone, the company has confirmed, with the smaller handset expected to go on sale in the UK by the end of January 2013. Building on the existing Galaxy S III Mini, announced back in October, the tweaked version adds in support for Samsung’s S Beam system, pairing NFC and WiFi-Direct for speedy data transfers.
With S Beam, the NFC in the Galaxy S III Mini is used to set up an impromptu WiFi-Direct connection between the phone and another compatible device. That’s then used for whizzing across music, video, and other content; Samsung says a 10MB music file can be shuttled over in around two seconds.
Otherwise, the NFC is expected to be used for the growing range of mobile wallet services, though Samsung is being vague about whether any specific providers will actually be taking advantage of the updated handset’s abilities. Elsewhere, it’s the same – somewhat disappointing – phone as we’ve seen before, borrowing some of the brand cachet of the full-sized Galaxy S III but with altogether humbler specifications.
So, you get a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display and a 1GHz dualcore processor running Android 4.1, clad in Samsung’s own TouchWiz skin. The camera is a 5-megapixel unit (with a VGA snapper up-front for video calls) and there’s WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage.
Samsung isn’t talking pricing at this stage, but online retailers are currently offering the existing Galaxy S III Mini from around £270 ($429) unlocked and off-contract.
Samsung Galaxy S III Mini update adds NFC this month is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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After almost sixteen years of trying to encourage EMV adoption in the US, MasterCard has hit upon a potential reason why it’s not catching on: its closed, proprietary standard. But that’s changing today, with the financial giant announcing it’s making some of its circuit card tech open to other US debit networks instead of waiting on them to come up with their own solution. An alternative to magnetic strips, EMV claims to provide more secure payments thanks to the use of cryptographic algorithms and user-specific PINs, but hasn’t captured much interest outside of Europe and Asia. Perhaps in opening the standard, MasterCard and crew will spur its adoption stateside and thus garner more EMV followers. Of course, it has to catch on before NFC replaces cards entirely, rendering the issue moot.
MasterCard Strengthens Commitment to Make U.S. EMV Migration Easier
Opens Proprietary, Market-Ready Debit Solution to Speed Industry Adoption
PURCHASE, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MasterCard today announced it is making some of the company’s proprietary technology solutions available to other U.S. debit networks. This decision was made to provide an option to support debit EMV transactions and reinforce the company’s continued support of the U.S. migration to the EMV standard.
“By making our EMV solution available today, debit networks, merchants, acquirers and processors can take advantage of a market-ready solution currently in place. This will allow financial institutions to begin issuing EMV cards across their portfolios immediately, rather than waiting for a new solution to be developed.”
In opening this technology standard, MasterCard will allow acquirers to brand transactions originating from the Maestro AID (application identifier) for all debit networks within the United States.
“We felt it was important to take this step for the greater good of the future of U.S. payments,” said Chris McWilton, president, North America, MasterCard. “By making our EMV solution available today, debit networks, merchants, acquirers and processors can take advantage of a market-ready solution currently in place. This will allow financial institutions to begin issuing EMV cards across their portfolios immediately, rather than waiting for a new solution to be developed.”
Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of decisions by MasterCard to advance the future of electronic payments in the U.S. With the availability of this technology, issuers will be able to simplify their EMV implementation and enabling chip entry with potentially lower costs. At the same time, as merchants and their acquirers map out their terminal plans, they will be able to further optimize their investments, simplify their certification processes and choose their routing of debit transactions.
“We have spoken extensively with the EMV Migration Forum and other groups about the need to cooperate and find a common way to support debit transactions,” said Jane Cloninger, director, Edgar, Dunn & Company. “Based on our experience around the globe, this announcement is a good step to continue the momentum of the U.S. market’s migration toward EMV. We applaud MasterCard for taking a leadership position in this turning point for the industry.”
Additional details around the implementation of the Maestro AID will be made available to all parties involved in the coming weeks.
Filed under: Misc
Source: MasterCard
Sony announced today not one but two new portable Speaker with the SRS-BTX300 and SRS-BTX500. Announced for a Japanese launch schedule at the end of February at a price around 20,000 and 30,000 Yen respectively, the SRS-BTX300 and SRS-BTX500 comes both equipped with Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC support for NFC Capable smartphones and other devices. Slime and elegant both models are actually technically similar but comes however with 20W output with a 8hrs battery life for the SRS-BTX300 and a 40W …
RIM, the manufacturer of all things BlackBerry, has just announced that Visa has given their nod of approval for their NFC-based mobile payment solution which allows carriers to support payments on just about any NFC-enabled smartphone. This underlines RIM’s seriousness in getting a slice of the growing mobile payments market, where RIM’s Secure Element Manager (SEM) solution that paves the way for users to enjoy mobile payments will be made available for any device that has Near Field Communication (NFC) technology apart from their own stable of BlackBerry devices, of course.
Frank Maduri, senior director of NFC Services and Trusted Service Manager (TSM) product management at RIM, mentioned, “The approval from Visa of RIM’s SEM solution is an important step in that it will enable carriers to support Visa-issuing banks and financial institutions. We now offer carriers a robust solution with around-the-clock global support that works on any NFC-capable device and meets the stringent technology and usability guidelines for Visa.”
Hopefully this will be the beginning of something good for RIM in the build up to this January 30th’s event.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: T-Mobile Supports HSPA+ Nexus 7, Expands Nexus 4 Availability To Retail Stores, Facebook Rolls Out VoIP Calling To U.S. iPhone Messenger Users, 
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