Near Field Communications Handsets and Tags, NFC Pilots and Projects

Touch, BERG use LED lights to visualize RFID fields

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Oslo’s NFC research team Touch has once again teamed up with London design firm BERG to create visual representations of RFID fields using LED lights.

The project was created and carried out by Jack Schulze and Timo Arnall, who made specially designed LED probes that light up in the presence of an RFID field. The resulting long exposure photographs show patterns of surprising depth and shape.


Shulze and Arnall developed the project as a way of elucidating the “magic” of RFID’s invisible wireless communication, which they feel is widely misunderstood and in some cases mistrusted. The researchers hope that by seeing the functionality of RFID, more designers will be inspired to to work in the field.

Read more here [end] 

On Track Innovations has received a U.S. patent for adding contactless capability to existing mobile handsets through contactless SIM technology.

U.S. Patent No. 8,090,407, aka “Contactless Smart SIM,” covers the capabilities necessary to turn existing mobile handsets into NFC-enabled devices through the use of a SIM card and a specifically designed antenna, all while keeping the phone and operating system “fully agnostic,” says OTI.

read more »

Proclaiming its entrance into the RFID space, Honeywell introduced part of a new product portfolio designed to bring efficiency to the retail industry, the Optimus 5900 RFID mobile computer.

read more »

Japan’s Fukumi Corporation has opened the world’s first physical shop for NFC tags, applications, starter kits and printing and encoding services in Yaesu, Tokyo.

read more »

UPM has reached an agreement with SMARTRAC whereby UPM will sell its RFID business to SMARTRAC. UPM will become an indirect shareholder of SMARTRAC with a 10.6% economic interest through the company OEP Technologie.

read more »

Datacard Group has announced that it will host a seminar to educate bank executives, financial card issuers, acquirers, service bureaus and retailers on EMV technology and NFC adoption in the U.S. marketplace.

read more »

Salt Lake City-based Cirque demonstrated a prototype of its NFC-enabled GlidePoint computer track pad at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to Engadget.

read more »