Trade groups come together to accelerate NFC-based services

GlobalPlatform and the Global Certification Forum signed a liaison agreement that will enable both bodies to collaborate on the optimization of testing and certification procedures that will support and accelerate the deployment of secure near field communication (NFC) services, according to a press release.

GlobalPlatform is an association which standardizes the management of applications on secure chip technology. Global Certification Forum is an independent certification scheme for mobile phones and wireless devices based on 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards. 

GuardRFID receives CE Mark Approval for its AllGuard Active RFID Platform and Tags

Guard RFID Solutions Inc. announced
that it has received approval for the CE Mark for commercial sale of Readers, Tags and other components of its AllGuard Active RFID platform, used to create leading-edge real-time tracking, location and security solutions for healthcare, enterprise and industrial markets. GuardRFID’s systems have already been deployed in over a hundred facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia since GuardRFID’s inception in 2007.

The diverse range of solutions include TotGuard Infant Security, AllGuard Wandering Patient Protection, SafeGuard Staff Duress and AllGuard Asset Tracking, all specifically developed for healthcare facilities, as well as AllGuard Personnel Safety and Accountability, AllGuard Yard Management and AllGuard Asset Tracking and Security for deployment in industrial and enterprise environments. GuardRFID, in collaboration with its European partners, is already in the planning stages for deployment of systems required in Europe and expects to begin implementation of these over the coming months.
 
“Our 433MHz based AllGuard Platform is ideal for these environments, due to the nature of the frequency band allowing attributes such as long range, low power and therefore very small tags, and the ability to work in the presence of densely populated metal structures,” add Dalibor Pokrajac, Executive Vice President of GuardRFID. “Our technology has been adopted within the IEEE 802.11.4f Active RFID standard as well as the ISO 18000-7 standard, and therefore we are standards ready and the first standards compliant products are already available for commercial deployment. This makes our platform very compelling to end users looking for standards based solutions that offer longevity and multiple sources.”

Rebecca Minkoff Store Uses RFID to Provide an Immersive Experience

Rebecca Minkoff's new clothing store in New York City's SoHo neighborhood is slated to open today, featuring smart technology provided by eBay Inc.'s Retail Innovation team and RFID tags and consultation from Avery Dennison Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS). Thanks to the RFID system, the store can now identify which garments a shopper brings into a fitting room, and he or she can then request other items displayed on the room's mirror, which also acts as a touchscreen.

How Can We Implement RFID at Our Electronic and Home Appliances Retail Stores?

Start by asking what problems exist in your current operations. Do you waste time looking for specific products within the warehouse? Are shipments from the warehouses to the stores accurate? Do you have problems returning items from stores to the warehouse? If any of these are issues, then you will want to make sure you develop a solution that resolves these problems. My suggestion would be to conduct a pilot to determine the potential benefits. You will need to purchase some tags and readers. I would suggest using passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID. Have the tag placed on the carton containing the appliance.

Secure smart cards and mobile payments

Daniel Castro, of the Center for Data Innovation and the Information Technology Innovation Foundation, recently penned an opinion piece in The Hill asserting that secure smart card Chip & PIN is “old and outdated technology.” Castro could not have been more wrong. The president’s recent Executive Order on Improving the Security of Consumer Financial Transactions wisely mandated Chip & PIN because it is an established and trusted technology used worldwide to protect consumers, retailers and the banking system from identity theft and fraud. The recent increase in domestic fraud is a consequence of the United States being the last G-20 nation to adopt this technology, making Americans an easier target for financial fraud and identity theft than foreign consumers. 

GPS and RFID-enabled solutions for child safety

HandsTel, a brand new start-up dedicated to the development of technology products for civilian safety and security, has launched a wearable device that allows a child to instantly alert parents with precise location in case of an emergency and a multi-featured responder app for parents to respond instantly. The internet of things (IoT) wearable smart band/watch works as a detection device and parents will have an option to call the built-in phone on the device to confirm an ..

NFC systems hacked at Mobile Pwn2Own

Security professionals have exposed several bugs in Near Field Communication (NFC) payment systems during the Mobile Pwn2Own event in Tokyo. As part of the efforts to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of NFC, experts used eight smartphones including the Apple iPhone, Blackberry Z30, Amazon Fire phone and Google Nexus 7. Hackers were able to successfully exploited the already discovered bugs to attack five devices, with three teams successfully extracting data at will from the devices, the BBC noted.

Hospital boosts patient safety with RFID

Fletcher Allen was facing a problem. The 500-plus bed hospital in the heart of Vermont’s ski country needed to turn over as many as 20 to 30 medication trays within a limited time while maintaining patient safety, and the manual system had become unwieldy. It was almost impossible to keep up, in fact, and the pharmacy tech support staff realized that automating the system was the only alternative. When pharmacy director Karen McBride went to the Midyear Clinical Meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists she witnessed a demonstration of Kit Check's automated RFID system.

Optus launches NFC payments on Android

Optus customers using certain Android devices will soon be able to make payments with their mobile phone, thanks to a new near-field communications (NFC) SIM Optus has announced in partnership with Visa and Heritage Bank. Optus customers with one of the 20 compatible Android devices from Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC will be able to order a special SIM card from Optus that contains the NFC capability to make payments in conjunction with the Cash By Optus app the company has developed with Visa and Heritage Bank.

c2c expands ITSO smart card ticketing

UK: Commuter operator c2c began offering season tickets on its c2c Smart card from November 3, including Travelcards valid for travel on the National Rail and Transport for London networks within Greater London. c2c Smart is the government’s pilot for the South East Flexible Ticketing programme to introduce smart ticketing across 12 companies operating trains into London. c2c Smart cards are compatible with other cards meeting the national ITSO specification, including the Key smart card introduced by train operator Southern. Following the ITSO on Prestige project, they are also compatible with TfL’s proprietary Oyster smart card system.

Sixt Finds RFID Is Key to Improving Customer Service

Sixt, based in Germany, is one of the world's largest car rental agencies. It operates 2,200 branches worldwide, with a total of 144,000 rental cars available, and has earned a 14 percent share of the European rental car market. One of the company's challenges has been keeping wait times down for those renting vehicles, as well as ensuring that customers can rent the cars of their choice. A source of frustration for customers and employees at some locations has been the amount of time required to locate keys for a specific vehicle.

It’s more than the wallet-killer: Everything you need to know about NFC

NFC has finally gone mainstream. The number of tablets and smartphones with NFC technology is growing fast, but so are the questions surrounding it. You’ve probably heard about Apple Pay, the digital wallet for the iPhone 6 that is making its way into hundreds of thousands of stores. But you may not know what NFC is, the uses for it, or why we should actually care. The fact is, NFC is more than a wallet-replacement. There’s nearly endless potential when NFC chips are involved. This guide to NFC chips will help answer your NFC related questions.

Beyond Replenishment: Three Tipping Points for RFID in Fashion

In recent years, a growing number of retail RFID use cases have clearly demonstrated the benefits of being able to track inventory at the item level, leading to better shelf replenishment and fewer out of stocks.  Many retailers quantify the benefits of reducing out of stocks not just at the item level (potential lost sales) but at the transaction level, since retailers closely track the number of items that comprise the average transaction (e.g. 3.6 items/sale).  Using that example, an out-of-stock item (especially in a core category such as denim) could result in lost sales of an additional 2.6 items that were to be purchased with it.

Internet of Things will transform life, but experts fear for privacy and personal data

It will help you avoid traffic jams as you travel from work to that hot new spot you've been dying to try out, tell you on the way about the bar's half-price coupons and let you check your home video monitors while knocking back a few to see if your cat is clawing the couch again. But it also might alert your insurer if your car is weaving when you head home and report your frequent drinking to your boss.

"It" is the Internet of Things, which promises to transform daily life, making it easier to work, travel, shop and stay healthy. Thanks to billions of connected devices — from smart toothbrushes and thermostats to commercial drones and robotic companions for the elderly — it also will end up gathering vast amounts of data that could provide insights about our sexual habits, religious beliefs, political leanings and other highly personal aspects of our lives.

NXP Seeks to Drive NFC Phone App Use in Cars

Automakers have begun sampling a new radio frequency identification product from NXP Semiconductors that enables "connected car" applications that could integrate a driver's cell phone with a vehicle's operation. Last week, the company announced the launch of its new automotive portfolio, beginning with its NCF3340 Near Field Communication (NFC) controller. The NCF3340, which consists of a high-frequency (HF) RFID reader chip that interfaces with a vehicle's controls and other electronic components, meets the Automotive Electronics Council's Q100 Grade 3 requirements for operation across the full temperature range experienced by an automobile.

New NXP Module Creates a Paradigm Shift for Secure NFC Mobile Transactions

NXP Semiconductors introduced the PN66T module: the most comprehensive solution for secure mobile transactions. The module combines a highly secure Smart MX2 element (P61), Near Field Communications (NFC) radio, operating system and trust provisioning. To accelerate the deployment and meet the increased demands around mobile transactions, PN66T features a loader service, which enables service providers to easily deliver new applications by significantly simplifying the value chain of deploying credentials to devices.

The PN66T module is designed for mobile devices like smartphones and wearables and enables converged deployment of a broad set of transaction related applications such as mobile payment, access control, transit, and authentication.
 
The PN66T module leverages NXP's broad leadership in security and NFC, and delivers an outstanding user experience. The NXP secure element, the only common criteria certified EAL6+ product for mobile applications, providing the highest level of data protection and encryption to end users, payment issuers, and smartphone manufacturers. The PN66T is EMVCo (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) certified, ensuring that secure payment services can be deployed on a global scale while guaranteeing interoperability with legacy and future payment infrastructures. Offered on PN66T is trust provisioning to facilitate secure injection of cryptographic keys, enabling service providers to easily deploy new secure mobile transaction applications.

WhistlerBlackcomb eases loading with RFID technology

Remember those guys who used to hang out at the bottom of lift maze and zap your passes with a bar-code scanner? Well, guess they’ll be doing other jobs at Whistler Blackcomb this year because North America’s No. 1 resort (as voted by readers of SKI Magazine) is adopting RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) technology on all of its lifts. The device is a small circuit — actually a tiny antenna — integrated into your access card, which contains information pertaining to your lift ticket, season pass, or Edge Card. When you approach the access gate, the circuit in your card will automatically register and open the gate.

U.S. Payments Industry Can Layer EMV Chip, Encryption and Tokenization Security Technologies to Help Protect Against Card Fraud

Businesses processing credit and debit payments can help protect themselves against new and evolving fraud threats by implementing EMV chip technology, tokenization and encryption security technologies in conjunction, the Smart Card Alliance Payments Council states in a white paper.

Today, payments industry stakeholders are looking at many security technologies to protect their businesses and customers. This white paper explains how layering three of these technologies – chip, tokenization and encryption – in conjunction can help to secure the payments infrastructure and prevent card fraud," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance.

"The degree of layering will differ among payments stakeholders depending on their requirements, environment and budget. Reading this white paper is a good start for any stakeholder starting to consider their best approach for implementing the three technologies."

The three technologies recommended in the white paper to be used in conjunction are: Chip technology, which improves the security of a payment transaction by providing cryptographic card authentication that helps protect against the acceptance of counterfeit cards.

The EMV specification also offers cardholder verification and several means of transaction authentication that help safely authorize transactions Encryption, including end-to-end encryption (E2EE) or point-to-point encryption (P2PE), which can immediately encrypt card data at time of entry—at card swipe, key entry, tap or insertion—so that no one else can read it and use the card data for unauthorized transactions.

Tokenization, which replaces card data with surrogate values (i.e. "tokens") that are unusable by outsiders and have no value outside of a specific merchant or acceptance channel.

RFID Sets Sail With Quantum of the Seas

When Royal Caribbean International's newest cruise ship, the Quantum of the Seas, embarks on its maiden voyage on Nov. 2, its passengers will be treated to several RFID-based features, including passive high-frequency (HF) RFID "WOWband" wristbands that they can use to unlock their staterooms' doors and make purchases onboard. The ship is also adopting RFID luggage tags, enabling guests to use their cell phones to view the locations of their bags during loading and unloading.

Recall introduces on-demand RFID reporting

Norcross, Georgia-based Recall Holdings Ltd. used the occasion of the 59th annual ARMA Live! Conference & Expo to announce that more than 50 million assets stored in its information centers are now managed using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and technology. Recall’s RFID technology, which the company has used for more than nine years, serves customers in 24 countries and enables the rapid tracking of cartons, individual files and back-up tapes stored in Recall’s information centers, the company says. Recall says it also provides its clients with printable labels for in-house asset management, allowing customers a greater choice in their information governance activities.

Tageos Signs RFID Licensing Agreement with Round Rock Research

RFID label manufacturer Tageos has entered into a patent licensing agreement with Round Rock Research LLC for radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and labels to strengthen its position to support the adoption of UHF RFID at the item-level, especially for apparel retailers and brands.

This agreement allows Tageos to provide RFID labels and tags to suppliers and end-users including retailers, brand owners and partners in the U.S. and around the world. Tageos customers can confidently move forward with full RFID deployments and reap the value of RFID in their business. Item-level RFID is being adopted by the apparel industry at an accelerating rate around the world, and retailers are seeing significant improvements in their business processes, invento¬ry visibility and accuracy and shelf availability, and have seen marked improvements in their omnichannel retail business. Tageos looks forward to spurring on the adoption of RFID tagging solutions and help customers improve their business performance.

Volkswagen Group's Uruguayan Importer Improves Efficiency Through RFID

For the past four years, Julio Cesar Lestido S.A., the official Uruguayan importer of cars and trucks manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, has been employing passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags to track the metal tools it uses to maintain vehicles. The company says that it is now developing a plan to utilize the technology to record each vehicle's life history, including its date of import and sales information, as well as all maintenance provided.