2012 will be a break out year for cashless music festivals, thanks to the success of contactless wristbands at the 2011 Isle of Wight Festival in June, reports NFC World.

Intelligent Venue Solutions (IVS) partnered with MasterCard to provide Isle of Wight attendees with PayPass-enabled wristbands pre-loaded with £30. Fans participating in the pilot could quickly and conveniently purchase food and drinks by simply tapping the wristbands against a reader. 

Proxama, Blue Bite and Tapit are joining forces to form the NFC World Alliance, an organization designed to promote the development of NFC as a mainstream marketing tool.

The partners, based in the UK, U.S. and Australia respectively, say they will aim to create a network of NFC specialists to help brands across the world connect with their target audiences via the mobile NFC channel. 

The value of global mobile payment transactions is expected to exceed $945 billion in 2015, according to IE Market Research’s Global Mobile Payment Market Forecast 2011- 2015.

IEMR says this marks a 30-fold increase from the $31.5 billion recorded in 2010, placing the mobile payments mainstream boom between 2012 and 2014. 

Yale Locks & Hardware, an ASSA ABLOY Group company, has announced it will demonstrate a new NFC-enabled version of its Real Living locks at this week’s CEDIA Expo 2011 in Indianapolis.

Accoriding to Yale, the NFC Real Living lock is the first U.S. brand of NFC-enabled residential locks designed to integrate seamlessly into the ‘digital home.’ 

Google has launched a new search feature on its Google Wallet website that lets users punch in their zip code to find participating local merchants.

The site also contains a link to a mobile app that helps you locate NFC PayPass acceptance points on the go, as well as a list of national retailers using Google Wallet, including Subway, American Eagle, Walgreens, Macy’s, RadioShack and more.  

French supermarket chain Casino is working on a new system that uses NFC tags to give the visually impaired and disabled access to product information like pricing and ingredients.

According to NFC World, Groupe Casino is currently testing the technology at a special Casino mock-up alongside L’Institut de la Vision at Hopital des Quinze-Vingts in Paris. A commercial trial is slated for next year. 

NFC software provider Stollmann has announced a partnership with Harman, a global audio and infotainment group, to deliver NFC capabilities to the auto industry.

According to Stollman, the partners will collaborate on a solution to connect the driver’s cell phone with in-vehicle components via Bluetooth and ‘NFC hotspots.’