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. 

When Blackboard deploys Sony’s FeliCa contactless smart cards, the credentials have two areas, one that is a secure area where payment and physical access control transactions take place and an open area where the school can add its own applications, says Jun Shionozaki, technical consulting manager, FeliCa Business Division at Sony.

At the National Association of Campus Card Users conference Blackboard and Sony were giving out USB dongles that included a FeliCa software developers kit that included some sample applications and a tutorial on how to create them. “In the past they could only use the mag-strip credential but now they can go out and be creative,” Shionozaki says.

Blackboard says that some 60 schools have deployed FeliCa readers and 20 have deployed the cards. Some of the applications schools are creating include computer login, ticketing and event tracking, Shionozaki says.  

AuthenTec has announced that its AES1750 fingerprint sensors are to be included on some new waterproof mobile phones from Fujitsu.

Specifically, the biometric feature provided by AuthenTec will be embedded onto the docomo PRIME series F-09C, docomo STYLE series F-10C and the docomo SMART series F-11C phones. All are waterproof and utilize the fingerprint biometrics both for securing the phone as well as touch-powered personalization options.