“We are committed to NFC at Google.” That is what the company’s Vice President of Payments Osama Bedier, told an audience of bankers and mobile operators in London on a summer afternoon.

Less than a month following the announcement of Google Wallet and Google Offers, Bedier was nothing short of a rock star at the NFC Payments Europe event organized by NFC Insight. It was, in a strange way, both encouraging and pitiful to see the banks and mobile operators laud the Google announcement.

He was praised for his insistence on openness, interoperability and the ‘help us, help you’ nature of the offering. To the side, however, the same proponents expressed concern. 

Payfirma has announced that the next version of its Blackberry Mobile Payment App will support NFC payments.

As for now, the just-released app allows Canadian merchants to accept and process credit cards on their Blackberry devices anywhere with a cellular or WIFI signal - either by swiping the card or punching the information directly into the phone. 

Could the death of the smartphone be imminent? Writer Barbara Hudson believes so. On LinuxInsider Hudson opines that within 20 years, today’s hot smartphone and tablet technologies will be obsolete, with telecom companies being the big losers.

Hudson points to 1991’s hot technology, the fax machine, and how telecom companies heralded it as the technology everyone will be using. By focusing on phones and phone numbers, Hudson says, telecom companies got out of the business of figuring out how to get people to communicate, which could mean imminent doom for their business models. 

Delphi Automotive has unveiled a new NFC-enabled smart key fob at this year’s IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany.

According to Delphi, the new key fob uses NFC technology to provide a ‘constant link’ to vehicle information, allowing the driver to better monitor and manage their vehicles. 

Nokia vice president Ilari Nurmi has announced that the company plans to embed all future devices with NFC technology, according to Thinq.co.uk.

Speaking at the Thailand launch of Nokia’s three new NFC-enabled handsets, Nurmi declared, “From now on, all of our products will have an NFC chip inside. All other NFC-equipped devices can also link to our products.” 

Secure ID and card personalization provider Datacard Group will hold an educational seminar for U.S. bank executives about incorporating EMV and NFC technologies into financial card portfolios.

The seminar will take place on Oct. 10 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago. Datacard’s seminar leaders will give a high level overview of the different options available to implement these technologies, as well as the infrastructure needed to do so. 

Mobile users should learn to be more aware of phishing scams, says Sashidhar Thothadri, regional sales manager of South East Asia and India for Gemalto, in mydigitalfc.com.

Thothadri contends that because mobile phones are powered on for long periods of time and their screens are small, the fraud is more difficult to spot.