nfc

A new video purporedly shows limited NFC functionality on the Lumia 800

A video has appeared today (which we have been unable to verify for legitimacy) that reportedly shows a Nokia Lumia 800 making brief near-field communication (NFC) contact with a Nokia Play 360 (which supports NFC pairing). The phenomenon happens when toggling WiFi on and off, suggesting the powering of the NFC is connected somehow to WiFi.

The question naturally presents itself: does the Nokia Lumia 800 in fact support NFC? And will it get an update to enable this if so? The answer is a bit messy but we’ll just be brief here and say “no” and “no”.

Yesterday, Apple Inc. finally revealed their latest iteration of iOS for iPhone and the iPad.  There were no real "wow" moments just the continued rehash of market numbers and a collection of little improvements to the world-wide hit operating system.

We're not trying to be too bitter here--look, Apple and iOS have a massive success on their hands so they're not messing with a good thing (think of all the grandparents with iPhones!). But today's unveiling of the new iOS is starting to show that Cupertino may be out of "big" ideas for mobile and are instead concentrating on refinements. That's not exactly a bad thing and we don't necessarily blame them, especially with their strong market share. But it sure does make for some boring discussion.

Our friends at iMore were there for the whole event, turtlenecks and all, documenting all the new additions to the sixth version of the OS.  Due this fall, here is their summary of the major changes:

• Maps - Probably the biggest news was the addition of Apple's own Maps app which will be powered by TomTom. Maps will come stock with turn-by-turn navigation, traffic info, and a new feature called Flyover.
• Siri additions and enhancements- Siri received quite a few updates under iOS 6 including iPad support, integration with many car manufacturers, and several new features. 
• Passbook - Passbook is a brand new way to store and save airline apps, boarding passes, and more all in one place. Many different services and Passbook apps are already available such as express check at hotels, Target cards, movie tickets, coupons, and more.
• Photo Stream sharing - Photo Stream sharing will allow you to create separate streams (similar to how you'd create albums currently). You can then share those separate streams with whoever you'd like. Have one with family for vacation pics and one with mom and dad for baby pics. They'll also be given the ability to comment and like photos native in iOS.
• Mail enhancements - Multiple e-mail signatures, VIP Mailbox allows you to add all the important people in your life to a VIP list and their messages will automatically be filtered into a new VIP mailbox that appears under your default inbox.
• Facebook integration - In iOS 5 we saw Apple integrate Twitter into iOS natively. This year the same will happen with Facebook. Post status, upload pictures, and more without needing a third party app.
• FaceTime over the cellular network - FaceTime has only ever been available for us on a Wi-Fi network since it's release in iOS 4. iOS 6 is about to change all that and you'll soon be able to FaceTime wherever you are, Wi-Fi or 3G/4G.

Read more after the break for some exclusive Windows Phone 8 news...

MasterCard announced that seventeen near field communication (NFC) enabled smartphones have been certified to work with their PayPass mobile phone payment system.  Among the bunch is the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC. The approval essentially means that the device has been tested by MasterCard and is confirmed to work with PayPass. 

In addition to giving the thumbs up to the group of smartphones, MasterCard also unveiled their PayPass Ready identifier, "a way for mobile device manufacturers to differentiate products that have undergone testing for MasterCard PayPass and received a Letter of Approval."  Manufacturers will have the option to use the PayPass Ready logo in advertisements, or even as a decal on the devices themselves.  Nokia and RIM are the first two phone makers to embrace the new branding.

"Nokia is honored that the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC will be one the world's first smartphones to include MasterCard's PayPass Ready brand mark," said Andrea Bacioccola, NFC Lead Program Manager, Nokia. "This sends a clear message to operators, banks and other service providers that Nokia is able to quickly enable their payment services on this smartphone."

NFC hasn't quite made it into the mainstream, though services like Google Wallet are making a lot of headway.  That being said, it's a positive sign that Nokia is jumping on the bandwagon and becoming a player in the game.

You can check out the full press release below for details on the PayPass program and the other companies and devices involved with it.

While the previous line of Lumia devices including the 710, 800 and 900 don't have near-field communication (NFC) on board (we even asked recently about the 900), evidently a variation of the low-end Lumia 610 will.

A video from Nokia was erroneously made public on YouTube early this morning and then quickly pulled. In the video, the Lumia 610 is shown demonstrating various NFC tasks like payments (Mastercard Paypass), streaming music to NFC-enabled Bluetooth speakers and more.

Even though the video was pulled the site NokiaBuff was able to rip and post a much poorer quality version back on YouTube. (It's running at about 5 FPS but you get the idea.)

Orange UK is also reportedly going to be one of the first partner carriers to get the Lumia 610NFC though no time-frame was given. The Lumia 610NFC is expected to be revealed today at WIMA NFC 2012 in Monaco as Nokia is a chief sponsor of that convention.

Developing...

Source: YouTube (pulled); via NokiaBuff, WPSauce

Intel's press conference at CES 2012 looked exclusively at ultrabooks running Windows 8. That might be a bit of a let-down for those of us primarily interested in smartphones, but we're starting to see how the super-slim, super-light computers will collide with the tablet world. 

The announcement of Windows 8 already painted a picture in that direction, but the hardware shown today displays even more overlap with tablets.

For one, there's touch control. Intel unveiled a number of ultrabooks which would make use of a touchscreen without requiring it as a primary input, as on a tablet. PCs have been trying this for awhile, and laptops too in the pre-iPad tablet days, both without particularly great results. What might make ultrabooks more successful is their slim size and hardware layout. One ultrabook Intel showed off had a fully reversible display, so you could carry it around as a tablet, or plop it on a desk and use it as a standard laptop. We've already seen some of the current breed of tablets, like the Transformer Prime, reach for the laptop world with its signature keyboard docking station, but it may hit a brick wall with full-fledge, equally-portable alternatives like these available. Another ultrabook had a slide mechanism  to show and hide the keyboard, which we've seen in smartphones, but not yet in tablets.

For those of you who were original Zune 30 owners in 2006, you may remember in the first iteration of that device and service had a feature called "Squirting". While hands down the worst name ever given to a function it was ingenious at the time. Basically it allowed you to share music with other Zune players via WiFi, something that was as far as we know not done at the time by anyone else. The Zune would detect other Zunes within 30 feet and allow you to effortlessly send over a song (or photo, podcast). After three days though (or a couple plays) DRM'd music would disappear--Microsoft wasn't inventing illegal file sharing for mobile here, folks. While brilliant, many complained it didn't go far enough (what about video?) and for various reasons, "squirting" was phased out.

Now rumor-starter MS_Nerd has Tweeted that Microsoft is bringing back "squirting", albeit with a new name simply "beaming". What's more, it will reportedly use NFC, WiFi and Bluetooth (depending on the devices) and will work seamlessly between the Xbox 360, Windows 8 and Windows Phone. It's not clear when this would happen e.g. Windows Phone "Tango" (early 2012) or Windows Phone 8 aka "Apollo" (second half 2012) nor what types of media would be allowed to be transferred.

Couple of things. Is this rumor legit? There's no confirmation, but in the video above from Infusion/Microsoft's 'The Future of Retail Banking' video, you can clearly see "beaming" in action between Windows Phone and a TV and then later, a tablet--perhaps this is what MS_Nerd was referring to in the first place? Regardless, it seems fairly obvious that Microsoft has Squirting v2 in mind. In addition, if Microsoft isn't thinking of rolling this out then shame on them because everyone else is doing nearly the same thing with NFC on board (e.g. Android, Nokia N900) and they did sort of pioneer such technology back in 2006.

We'll have to wait till 2012 though to see if any of this happens, but if we were a gambling site, we would put our money on Microsoft bringing this to their '3 screens'.

via: LiveSide