We all know that more and more smartphones are shipping with NFC capabilities, however the use of NFC is somewhat limiting. RIM in Spain are now testing NFC wireless payments and I would imagine this will roll out to other countries in due course.
You can see the the full press release below.
Telefónica Digital and Research In Motion have announced a pilot program of the Telefónica Wallet for BlackBerry smartphones.
In collaboration with local banks and retailers, Telefónica will roll out the Telefónica Wallet for BlackBerry to 350 employees at its headquarters in Distrito Telefónica, Spain. Those taking part in the trial will be able to make payments in a simple, easy, safe and convenient way by simply tapping their NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphone against a reader. Employees that are part of the NFC pilot project will also be able use their BlackBerry smartphone (in lieu of a security card) to gain physical access to the Telefónica headquarters office.
The Telefónica Wallet for BlackBerry currently supports the following NFC-enabled smartphones: BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380, all of which run the new BlackBerry® 7 operating system.
The Nokia Lumia 800 is the Finnish companies first Windows Phone to go on sale. To say that Nokia are rather proud of the handset would be an understatement and if you ask me they have a right to be proud. The device is beautiful. As well as looking good it is powered by a 1.4GHz processor, runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, sports an 8 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and and shoots video in 720P HD.
The device will be available in three colours over the coming weeks however initially it is just the black variant you can buy. The device is available now at all the usual places and I have a sneaky suspicion it may do rather well.
You can see our unboxing video below along with the Lumia 800’s full specs and of course we will have a full review in due course.
O2 has announced its first bespoke targeted marketing campaign for House of Fraser, a leading UK premium department store group, encapsulating a range of O2 services. This is the first time that O2 has combined and integrated different services to deliver a mobile campaign that is part of House of Fraser’s wider marketing mix for their Christmas activity. A portfolio of O2 Media services, including Priority Moments and real time location reach have been combined with O2 Wifi to deliver personalised targeting for O2 customers around the House of Fraser brand, which is focused on delivering an innovative consumer experience.
One element of the campaign will see 11 House of Fraser stores across the UK offering all their customers free O2 Wifi. Customers will benefit from full access to the internet, while House of Fraser will gain aggregated rich customer insights and data. Already above the line, as part of O2’s own advertising campaign to support it Priority Moments service, House of Fraser will also offer O2 Priority Moments customers a £15 gift voucher when they spend £40, until the end of January 2012.
The bespoke O2 service has been designed to offer House of Fraser a comprehensive marketing solution in the run up to the vital Christmas period that not only drives footfall, brand awareness and loyalty but also increases incremental sales and drives purchase decisions around specific offers and promotions.
Alongside this, O2 Media’s real time location services will be used to direct consumers into House of Fraser stores by offering a range of promotional activities. O2 Media will also be sending out rich media messages, such as pictures and videos of in-store fashion shows and products. Further messages will be sent to consumers directing them to House of Fraser’s own department store app, the latest development in their multi channel offer, which also provides information on deals, offers and planned in-store activities.
As a part of the annual BlackBerry EMEA Alliance Summit, the event that RIM hold for Alliance Program members (developers and other partners that work with the BlackBerry platform) taking place on 30th Nov – 1st Dec, they will announce the winners of the BlackBerry EMEA Innovation Awards, taking the opportunity to celebrate the work done by RIM’s partner community and highlight innovative ways BlackBerry customers use their solutions.
The EMEA Innovation Awards 2011 consists of seven categories across both Consumer and Enterprise Solutions for BlackBerry. New for this year is the People’s Choice Award, a special category where the winner is chosen by BlackBerry fans across EMEA.
In support of recent launches, a shortlist of five apps has been chosen to highlight BBM Connected and BlackBerry OS 7 compatible features. In promoting these elements of the BlackBerry platform we hope to encourage our partner and developer community to find innovative ways to incorporate them in future apps.
This could quite easily be the most anticipated smartphone of the year. Just looking at the specification of the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus is enough to get the blood pumping.
This new Galaxy Nexus is the third in the lineage of handsets to have the Nexus name and follows the Nexus One, made by HTC, and the Nexus S from Samsung.
In terms of specification the Galaxy Nexus is definitely at the top end of the market. Not only have we got a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU but also 1GB RAM and 16GB ROM. Perhaps the most stand-out features though are the Screen and the OS. The screen is nothing short of awesome thanks to the Super AMOLED technology and the 720×1280 HD resolution display. This is also the first phone to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Check out my unboxing and demo video below. I’ve given you just a taster of the new OS and user interface here but will cover it in much more detail when I get to the full review.
It’s just Gareth and Matt this week for a fun filled show. The Motorola Pro + gets reviewed, Matt has a look at the HTC Sensation and the Galaxy Nexus is unveiled. Gareth finally gets his hands on the Huawei Ideos S7 Slim after about a year of waiting!
Sony Ericsson in partnership with culture brand Umbro and Kasabian bring together front-man Tom Meighan and England star Darren Bent to play against each other in the first ever, real life video game football match.
To celebrate Sony Ericsson’s ever-growing catalogue of football games, the new viral Kasabian Football Gaming Live sees the gaming world collide with reality.
Tom and Darren took two five-a-side football teams to a real life pitch, controlled by wireless headsets and specially programmed Xperia PLAY smartphones to move the players around.
Never before has a live match been played like this. Sony Ericsson transformed the smartphones to have the ability to command the players to strike, tackle, cross, dribble, slide, pass – just like in the video game, but with real-life footballers.
You can see a video of the match below:
Motorola launched the original Motorola Pro in February of this year. It wasn’t hugely successful. Specs were not great, the screen was simply HVGA and the keyboard lacked the finesse of it’s Blackberry rivals.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Motorola should come up with the successor to the Pro, the Pro+, so quickly after the release of it’s predecessor. The Pro+ has a similar form factor but a more refined design that the Pro, sleeker lines and more curves. The CPU clocks at 1Ghz and it benchmarks favourably against other handsets with the same CPU. The screen size has increased and fortunately, so has the resolution which is now up to 480×640 or portrait VGA. Let’s see how this phone compares to the other physical keyboarded phones with touchscreens out there!
Sony Ericsson have just launched their vscreens Android app which allows Xperia owners to share images and presentations to other internet enabled devices using a cloud service.
Details from Sony Ericsson:
Recently, we tried a service from Sony Ericsson that makes showing images and presentations really easy from your Xperia: vscreens.com, a cloud service that allows you to make any big screen with a browser, like a PC, Google TV, PlayStation3 or Internet enabled screens, display your content within seconds
With vscreens.com, you only need to download the app from Android Market, then set your browser on the big screen to vscreens.com and hold your phone up so the app reads the QRcode in the screen, and that’s it! You can start showing off the great pictures you took on your latest trips to your friends and family, without the need of cables, bluetooth pairing or setting up things like DNLA or SMB servers.
The service works with any device with Android 2.1 and higher versions, so you can use your Xperia phone or any other phone or device with Android.
Posted by: Matt
Here is an excellent accessory that was revealed for the up-coming Asus Transformer Prime. It’s a magnetic folding cover, similar to the one for the Apple iPad, but it looks vastly improved and far more impressive. In fact, its design looks inspired by the art of origami, although much simpler to operate. Although there is no word on when this accessory will ship, (just as we aren’t sure about the Transformer Prime either), you can already order the origami like add-on on Amazon.de for EUR 39.99.
There is no word on whether a version will come to the States, but perhaps that might eventually happen.
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