Finland

Nokia has officially confirmed the Lumia 610 NFC, its first near-field communications enabled Windows Phone, after the handset was prematurely leaked earlier today. Based on the budget Lumia 610 announced back in February, the NFC variant will initially launch with Orange in Europe, promising compatibility with both MasterCard and VISA mobile payment systems.

The 610 NFC is certified for contactless payments both with VISA’s payWave system and MasterCard’s PayPass. Those with compatible bank accounts should be able to use their Lumia 610 NFC to tap-to-pay in stores with NFC-enabled POS-terminals.

Meanwhile, the NFC will also be used for hooking up accessories, such as Nokia’s Play 360 speaker, more easily. Rather than demanding users scan for new Bluetooth devices and then punch in a PIN-code, the Lumia 610 NFC will allow them to simply tap the handset against the accessory and see it automatically pair up.

The head of NFC at Nokia, Jeremy Belostock, has left the handset maker, the latest departure from Nokia’s NFC staff

Belostock, who served in the post at Nokia for four years before leaving this month, has taken a position outside of the NFC industry, as head of group strategy with France-based mailroom equipment maker Neopost.

Belostock’s departure follows that of Damien Balsan, Nokia’s head of NFC business development for the Americas and Mikko Saarisalo Nokia’s senior technology architect, who represented Nokia in the NFC Forum trade group, an organization Nokia co-founded.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has unveiled details of an NFC research project designed to make life easier for the elderly and visually or audibly impaired people.

VTT worked with Finland's Top Tunniste, Tecnalia of Spain and Demokritos from Greece on the HearMeFeelMe project, which focused on the use of NFC in the medical arena but could equally be applied to food labelling and other fields. Applications developed included:

Fukumi Corporation, a member of the UPM Pro RFID Alliance, has today opened the world’s first ever physical shop for NFC tags and applications, NFC starter kits, and printing and encoding services. ‘RFID/NFC Real Touch Shop’, located in Yaesu, Tokyo, exclusively features NFC tags from UPM RFID. The shop allows both beginners and professional NFC smartphone users to ‘tap and touch’ and learn more about and experience the opportunities of NFC technology in real-life applications.

Three of Nokia's most senior and high profile NFC executives have jumped ship from the handset maker.

Damien Balsan, head of NFC business development for the Americas, has joined PayPal as director of ecosystem partnerships at the online payments giant's newly formed point-of-sale unit.

Mark Selby, Nokia's UK-based VP of industry collaborations, will leave the company at the end of December for "a new adventure".

Mikko Saarisalo, Nokia's lead delegate to the NFC Forum and vice chairman of the trade association, has also left the handset manufacturer to join NFC trusted service manager C-Sam, a key supplier to the US Isis NFC joint venture.

Story: http://www.nfcworld.com