Though NFC hasn't quite reached the penetration level required to make it a ubiquitous and critical tool like, say, Bluetooth or WiFi, the NFC Forum is still pushing ahead to make the short-range communication standard ever better. Two new specifications have been published for inclusion in the NFC ecosystem of protocols this week: Generic Control RTD and Connection Handover. Generic Control RTD is simply a way for one NFC-enabled device to tell another to perform a particular action; Connection Handover is where it gets interesting, allowing NFC to be used to establish a connection over some other technology (like Bluetooth) with a more complicated pairing procedure. As the NFC Forum puts it, that gives you the best of both worlds -- the ease of use afforded by NFC along with the higher bandwidth of a more robust protocol -- which makes it easier to use NFC to initate transmission of larger files. That's cool, but seriously, can we just pay for our train fare to start?

[Via Phone Scoop]

This is the day we've been waiting for. While the 3G Nokia 6212 classic doesn't look like much, what it lacks in style is more than made up by the genius of Bluetooth-enabled Near Field Communication. If you remember the video we showed you way back in March of 2007, the combo makes device pairing and transferring content like photos, video, music, calendar data, contacts, etc. as easy a touching the phone to a NFC-enabled picture frame, cellphone, speaker, or headset like Nokia's own NFC-variant of the BH-210. It will also work with NFC payment systems. According to Jeremy Belostock, the Head of Near Field Communications at Nokia, "NFC-capable handsets such as the Nokia 6212 classic are set to change the way mobile phone users interact with devices and services in their surroundings." You said it Jeremy, you said it. Expected to start shipping in Europe and Asia in the Q3 for about €200.

We've handled handsets with unorthodox keypads before, but there's quite a bit more about this here device that's off-kilter than just a unique method of input. Discovered in the always unpredictable database of the FCC, the Mobicom-built mobile plays on the 850 / 1900 GSM bands and features a built-in MP3 player, file manager, speakerphone and accelerometer -- you know, for accessing icons by simply tilting the phone. The most astounding inclusion, however, isn't the integrated NFC technology that allows users to make payments on the go, but rather the unmistakable logo of a financial services company. Sitting front and center. On a cellphone. Something tells us this thing better print greenbacks if it hopes to seriously lure any suits away from their precious BlackBerrys.

[Via PhoneScoop]

The GSM Association has been rearing to go for a while now with its Pay-Buy Mobile initiative with the ultimate goal of making contactless payment more the norm than the exception, but naturally, the GSMA isn't the only standards body that wants in on the action. ETSI -- the European Telecommunications Standards Institute -- has just decided on the final piece of what will ultimately become Europe's NFC standard. It seems the little matter of communication between the NFC circuitry and the phone's SIM was the holdup, and now that it's settled, the GSMA says it'll "[enable] mobile operators to prepare for the rollout of contactless payment services and other applications that make use of this flexible short-range radio technology." If there's one surefire way to redouble support for a new technology, it's by standardizing it -- now, let's just hope those standards start to cross borders.

[Via Phone Scoop]

For whatever reason, phone-based contactless payment systems have been incredibly slow on the uptake stateside, while others -- those on NTT DoCoMo's well-received Osaifu-Keitai system, for example -- have had no qualms about turning their handsets into wallets. Every so often we catch wind of a trial in the works, though, which gives us hope that we'll eventually all be able to whip our cellies out of our pockets and clog our arteries in one deft motion. Case in point: Sprint has teamed up with Jack in the Box and San Francisco's Bay Area Transit Authority to offer fare and food payments with a tap of a phone in a trial that runs from January through May of next year. Strangely, the pictured phone appears to be the somewhat ancient A920 clamshell, so we're guessing Sprint is modifying the devices for the trial; Boost Mobile customers should be able to get on the action in some capacity as well. If you live in the area, ride BART at least once a week, and are willing to sacrifice that Touch for a trial phone, go sign yourself up -- just take it easy with the bacon burgers, k?

[Thanks, Allan]

Chances are, you had forgotten all about Sony and NXP's little initiative to cooperate on a NFC (near-field communications) standard, but the two seem to have finally worked out all the kinks and are ready to move forward. The joint venture, dubbed Moversa, will seek to "drive global adoption of contactless smart card applications in mobile phones," and it's already planning to develop, produce and market a Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) that "incorporates both MIFARE and FeliCa operating systems and applications." Essentially, the duo is hoping to accelerate the adoption of integrated contactless support, which would enable users to make payments (among other things) easily via their handset. If you're curious about availability, we're hearing that samples should be shipped out in mid-2008, but commercial deployments aren't scheduled to happen until the end of next year.

[Via Yahoo / Reuters]

And you thought going away to college was the first step to freedom. Au contraire, students (and faculty, no less) entering Pennsylvania's Slippery Rock University will actually be faced with an RFID tag made for their handset, which will "allow them to pay for everything from laundry and copier services to movies and groceries in the surrounding town of Slippery Rock." The 13.56MHz tags were developed by Heartland Payment Systems and utilize NFC to make spending their parents' cash all the more simple. Of course, high rollers should be aware that their guardians can log in at any time and view their purchasing habits, so we'd be careful before pulling out the long face and car trouble story. The cards will reportedly cost around $1 apiece, but will be "available for free" to all of the SU students.

[Via Textually]

With services like NTT DoCoMo's FeliCa-based Osaifu-Keitai in Japan and Mifare deployed through much of Europe, perhaps one of the last great hurdles to widespread acceptance of phone-based e-wallets is a lack of standardization. Either that, or most people don't feel the need to pay for things by tapping their phone on various devices, but we digress; the point is that the GSM Association has now taken up the cause of getting everyone on the same page with its global "Pay-Buy Mobile" initiative. We really mean global, too -- among a slew of carriers, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, and KTF are on board, representing the US, Japan, Europe, and South Korea, respectively, and the manufacturer camp counts Nokia, Samsung, and LG as its members. The first Pay-Buy Mobile trials are schedule to kick off this October, a schedule that is probably helped along by the availability of existing software and chips from Sony and NXP and the GSMA's pledge to build off financial institutions' existing NFC initiatives. We can't promise we'll use it -- but yeah, if it's secure, go ahead and build it into our phones, folks.

[Via Phone Scoop]

With all the hullabaloo going 'round about Cingular's increasing involvement in NFC trials, it seems like it's in manufacturers' best interests to start pumping out phones that can do the duty (read: GSM 850 and 1900 radios, please). Nokia's first to answer the call with an NFC-enabled version of the standard-duty 6131 clamshell, aptly named the 6131 NFC. An N76 it's not, but it still gets the job done with FM radio, microSD expansion, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel cam -- and, of course, that all-important NFC hardware for quick payments, wireless contact info exchange, or whatever nifty use cases the NFC folks can dream up. The 6131 drops this quarter for around $340 before carrier (and when we say "carrier," we think we probably mean "Cingular") subsidies.

We'd previously noticed that Cingular was collaborating with Citigroup on some sort of mobile payment system in New York City, though details were pretty slim for the picking at the time; now the carrier has come out with full disclosure on exactly what it is they have up their sleeves. Like its Atlanta trial last year, the New York program involves Nokia handsets fitted with NFC (near-field communication) guts -- though for the sake of the trial participants, we hope Cingular is offering something a little more up-to-date than the lowly 3220 this time around. Unlike Atlanta, however, Cingular has switched up their financial partner from Chase / Visa to Citi / Mastercard, giving users the ability to use their phone for payment anywhere Mastercard's PayPass system is accepted. Parties involved expect the trial to last a total of three to six months, at which point we should all have a better perspective on how folks feel about shedding cash by tapping their cellphones against various surfaces. Of course, Japan seems to like it just fine -- so why not us?

Using cellphones to pay for stuff via NFC (near-field communications) is certainly nothing new; Sony, for one, has been doing it for years with its FeliCa system in Japan. Regardless of how dominant FeliCa or NXP's Mifare are, though, standardization is always a welcome move in an industry that hasn't quite taken off yet on a global scale. Sony and NXP have committed to putting their noggins together to come up with a unified standard for NFC payments that will ultimately support both FeliCa and Mifare-based equipment, while also bringing together two of the most widely-deployed systems to date. Given that both Sony and NXP parent Philips are members of the NFC Forum, we have hope that this announcement lines up nicely with that group's efforts, too, rather than going against the grain with a parallel effort. Not to say we'd put that kind of buffoonery past Sony, of course.

Payments by cellphone are obviously a hot area right now, with everyone from SanDisk and Philips to Visa and Nokia to PayPal getting into the game. And if you needed any more proof that it is for real, the NFC Forum (that's Near Field Communications, for anyone not versed in the lingo) have just announced the first five specifications for cashless payments by cell, although the full specs will only be available "sometime between July and September." What we do know is that the NFC's architecture will include specifications that define a modular NFC device, as well as protocols for interoperable data exchange, device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability. That also includes specifications for smart posters or other advertising, which contain embedded tags that can deliver content to cellphones. And, unlike some other standards committees, the NFC Forum has most of the major players in the industry on side, so it doesn't look like we'll see much controversy over these specifications.