ABI Research has released a new report predicting that 85% of point-of-sale terminals worldwide will be contactless-enabled by 2016 — up from just 10% in 2010.

In “Cellular-enabled POS Terminals, ATMs, and Vending Machinesm,” ABI attributes the growth to the proliferation of contactless cards, “rapid” adoption of NFC-enabled cell phones, and the introduction of major mobile payment services like Google Wallet.

ABI sees the greatest growth potential in the vending machine industry thanks to the increased speed and simplicity of contactless payments. Customers benefit from the quick and easy cashless transactions, while operators are spared the hassle of dealing with PIN entry or signatures. This, ABI says, plays into the “essence” of the vending industry. 

At the VARTECH conference, Key Source International will introduce a new desktop keyboard that integrates various authentication options.

The KSI-1700 line allows users to customize which authentication inputs they want in a desktop keyboard. Possible features include biometric fingerprint readers, NFC, contactless smart cards and secure session-locking walk away systems. The keyboard itself is a thin, ergonomic design.

The system is targeted mainly to the health care, government and banking industries.  

San Francisco-based Sifteo has developed a new interactive game system using NFC technology.

“Sifteo Cubes” are maude up of three compact color screen blocks that wirelessly interact with each other to play a variety of hands on developmental games, including puzzles, arithmetic, word sorting and even classic board games like chess. 

Frost & Sullivan has release a new report predicting that the revenues from trusted service managers (TSMs) for the NFC services market will reach €330 million by 2015, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 74% between 2010 and 2015.

“NFC handset availability will stop being a restraint and will, instead, become a driver for the NFC services market, and thereby, for the trusted services market with 2011 and 2012 expected to be key years in NFC-handset-deployment,” explained Analyst Mario Fernandez. “Moreover, the increasing number of collaborations between mobile network operators and service providers will constitute one of the major catalysts for trusted services market in NFC.” 

The Sziget Festival in Budapest, Hungary, one of Europe’s largest music festivals, has introduced a cashless payment system using contactless payment cards and NFC technology.

Concertgoers are now be able to make tap-and-go payments within the venue using preloaded contactless “Festivalcards,” operated by Metapay.

According to Sziget, some 1,200 payment terminals at the festival are equipped to handle contactless purchases. Users can add cash onto their cards at 34 Top Up Points situated throughout the venue. 

HTC Corp. has signed a deal with China UnionPay, China’s only credit card network, to launch a new NFC-enabled smart phone for mobile banking, according to Focus Taiwan.

The 4-inch, Android-powered HTC “Stunning” will allow UnionPay customers to pay their bills from their phones as well as make contactless payments at the point of sale. 

Texas Instruments has stepped into the NFC market with the launch of a low power NFC transceiver.

According to TI, the TRF7970A NFC platform supports both peer-to-peer communication, read/write capabilities and card emulation, all while saving twice the power of competitive transceivers.