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For release: 24 Mar 2009
NFC Forum Global Competition 2009 Announces Finalists
Winners to be Announced at WIMA NFC Developers Summit, Monaco, April 23
WAKEFIELD, Mass., USA - March 24, 2009 -- The NFC Forum (http://www.nfc-forum.org), a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, today announced it has selected 20 finalists for its NFC Forum Global Competition 2009. In all, 52 contestants submitted entries from across the globe, representing 21 countries and four continents.
In the competition, developers in a Commercial Track compete for the honor of having their solutions named "The Best NFC Service of the Year 2009," while a Research Track recognizes "The Most Innovative NFC Research Project of the Year 2009." Winners in each track will be awarded cash prizes. First-place winners will receive 5000 euros, second-place 1500 euros and third-place 1000 euros.
The 10 finalists in the Commercial Track are:
Collis B.V., (Netherlands): ING NFC Mobile Payment Product
HORATIO GmbH and Audiantes GmbH (Germany): NFC Mobile Live Help
Interactive Research & Development (Pakistan): Interactive Alerts for Childhood Pneumonia
NEXPERTS GmbH (Austria): NFC-based Gift Voucher System
Nordea (Finland): NFC-based Strong End-user Authentication Solution for Online Banking
Precise Biometrics (Sweden): BioXpress
Reslink Solutions, Ltd. (Finland): Reslink mobile NFC Client Builder, "The NFC Enabler"
Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund GmbH (Germany): RMVmobil - The NFC-based Customized Mobile Portal
Sabre Technologies (Pvt) Ltd. (Sri Lanka): Customer Intimacy with NFC
servtag GmbH (Germany): friendticker.com - NFC Location-Based Mobile Social Ticker
The 10 finalists in the Research Track are:
ETH Zürich (Switzerland): APriori: An NFC-Based Product Rating System
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA): Eclectyk
Technische Universität München (Germany): NFaCebook, NFC-based Facebook Profile Matching in the Hybrid Space
Université Joseph Fourier Grenoble (France): EasyRide, An Ecological, Ethical and Social Ride-Sharing NFC-Enabled System
Univerza v Ljubljani, Faculty of Electrical Engineering (Slovenia): Touch to Communicate
University of Oulu (Finland): Touch & Learn: NFC-based Application for Language Learning
University of Oulu (Finland): Touch & Collect: Collecting Multimedia Content from Museums
University of Oulu (Finland): Touch & Control: Controlling Public Displays by Touching RFID tags
VTT Technical Research Centre (Finland): Hot in the City
VTT Technical Research Centre (Finland): UBITEMS - Ubiquitous Temperature Measurements with NFC Compatible Batteryless Sensor Tags
"This year's submissions prove that the true power of a technology can best be measured by its success in enabling new innovations," said Koichi Tagawa, chairman of the NFC Forum. "We at the NFC Forum are pleased to see that our finalists include many imaginative new NFC solutions for everything from location-based social networking to language learning, and from secure airline travel services to online banking authentication."
The competition's goal is to promote the development and deployment of innovative and exemplary NFC services. Commercial entries are evaluated on market viability and how successfully and innovatively they meet the identified need using NFC technology. Research entries are judged on quality of design and their creative and innovative use of NFC technology.
Each team of finalists is invited to deliver a presentation and live demonstration in a demo space at the WIMA NFC Developers Summit (http://www.wima-nfc.com) on April 23. The jury, composed of senior and recognized professionals and experts from academia and sponsoring companies, will vote to select the first-, second- and third-place winners for each track. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony that evening at WIMA. The finalists will continue to showcase their entries in the demo space on April 24.
Further details about the competition may be found at http://www.nfc-forum.org/competition
NFC Forum members Nokia and WIMA are Platinum sponsors of the competition. Silver sponsors are NFC Forum members INSIDE Contactless and Stollmann E+V GmbH.
About Near Field Communication Technology
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a standards-based, short-range wireless connectivity technology that enables simple and safe two-way interactions between electronic devices. NFC technology allows consumers to perform contactless transactions, access digital content and connect devices with the simplicity of a single touch.
Near Field Communication (NFC) technology provides global interoperability of contactless identification and interconnection technologies. NFC operates in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a typical distance of a few centimeters. The underlying layers of NFC technology are based on ISO, ECMA, and ETSI standards. NFC technology is supported by the world's leading communication device manufacturers, semiconductor producers, network operators, IT and services companies, and financial services organizations. NFC is compatible with hundreds of millions of contactless cards and readers already deployed worldwide.
About the NFC Forum
The NFC Forum, http://www.nfc-forum.org, was launched as a non-profit industry association in 2004 by leading mobile communications, semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. The Forum's mission is to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum's 150 global member companies currently are developing specifications for a modular NFC device architecture, and protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability.
The NFC Forum's Sponsor members, which hold seats on the Board of Directors, include leading players in key industries around the world. The Sponsor members are: HP, INSIDE Contactless, MasterCard Worldwide, Microsoft Corp., NEC, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Inc., NXP Semiconductors, Panasonic, Renesas Technology, Samsung, Sony Corporation, and Visa Inc.
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.
About WIMA
WIMA 2009: 3rd Global NFC Business & Technical Developers Summit will cover all aspects of the business, technical and developer chain for NFC. Leading industry experts will present an international conference programme with parallel tracks for Business (NFC Products, B2B, B2C) and Technical (Application Development, Integrating NFC, Standards, Test & Measurement). Event highlights include the NFC Forum Global Competition Awards Ceremony and Demo Space, over 30 exhibiting companies, a dedicated NFC Forum track, a Pre-conference Workshop day and an update on the deployment of NFC in Monaco. Don't miss being a part of this exciting event driving forward the evolution of NFC for business and the consumer. For more information: http://www.wima-nfc.com or contact Joanna Merchie: j.merchie@wima.mc.
About INSIDE Contactless
INSIDE Contactless is the global leader in open-standard contactless payment and Near Field Communication (NFC) semiconductors and software that power the next generation of payment, transit, identity and access control applications. The company's intelligent, microprocessor-based platforms offer the flexibility to be embedded in smart cards, mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices, documents, badges and other items to support a wide range of innovative contactless applications and bring new levels of convenience to users. INSIDE has delivered more than 300 million contactless platforms worldwide to customers and partners. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France. For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.
About Stollmann E+V GmbH
Stollmann, http://www.stollmann.de, based in Hamburg, Germany, is one of the leading developers and suppliers of standard products and licensed products for communications technologies such as NFC, Bluetooth, Cable and ISDN. Stollmann's team of 44 specialists develops protocol stacks, reference designs, and modules. Stollmann provides an NFC upper layer stack and JSR-257 API for mobile phones, PDAs and smart phones, a NFC API for embedded devices and a NFC evaluation kit, featuring an easy-to-use interface, USB reader, and NFC tags, all complying with the most recent NFC Forum standards.
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