First commercially available NFC-based mobile payments for BlackBerry smartphones via MasterCard PayPass™

Waterloo, ON and Istanbul, Turkey – Turkcell and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the commercial availability of an NFC mobile wallet application, the Turkcell Cep-T Cüzdan, for BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone customers in Turkey.

The power of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 combined with the Turkcell Cep-T Cüzdan application enables Turkcell customers to enjoy making payments in a simple, easy, safe and convenient way by simply tapping their NFC-enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900 against a MasterCard PayPass™ reader in shops, retail outlets, cafes and restaurants across Turkey. In addition, Turkcell customers travelling abroad will also be able make payments in the same way .   (more…)

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Who remembers NFC? Some BlackBerry 7 smartphones are equipped with the technology.  We just can’t wait until we can actually use it.  At CES 2012, RIM has demoed out BlackBerry Tag as we’ve seen in the past.  Here we get a better walkthough on the process and its key benefits. Annu Dawar, Sr. Product Manager for BlackBerry 7 discusses NFC in OS 7.1 and of course shows us how it’s all done.

NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Research In Motion approved for use with Visa payWave, Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale

SAN FRANCISCO, January 10, 2011 — Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and Visa Europe today announced that NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Research In Motion (RIM) have been certified for use with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale, Visa payWave. The Samsung Galaxy SII, LG Optimus NET NFC, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry® Curve™ 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 have been added to the list of Visa compliant payment products available for commercial deployment by financial institutions.

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Alec Saunders from Research In Motion has confirmed on Twitter that BlackBerry 7.1 SDK will be releasing today.  About an hour ago, OS 7.1 NFC features were getting demoed on stage at DevCon Asia 2011, as also mentioned in the tweet.  I went over to the BlackBerry SDK site, but it looks like it’s still at just 7.  You can check up on the site to see when (and if) it updates to SDK 7.1.  I’m excited to see NFC applications finally launch!

BlackBerry SDK Site >>

Source: BerryReview

Thanks bogizo for the tip!

NFC is included in various BlackBerry smartphones, but we still have no actual use for it just yet.   Research In Motion and the carrier Telefonica are currently testing NFC (Near Field Communication) in Spain.  The carrier has been looking into testing NFC and chose the BlackBerry for it due to its high security.  Below is the full press release.

WATERLOO, ONTARIO and MADRID, SPAIN–(Marketwire – Nov. 23, 2011) -

Telefónica Digital and Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced a pilot program of the Telefónica Wallet for BlackBerry® smartphones.

In collaboration with local banks and retailers, Telefónica will roll out the Telefónica Wallet for BlackBerry to 350 employees at its headquarters in Distrito Telefónica, Spain. Those taking part in the trial will be able to make payments in a simple, easy, safe and convenient way by simply tapping their NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphone against a reader. Employees that are part of the NFC pilot project will also be able use their BlackBerry smartphone (in lieu of a security card) to gain physical access to the Telefónica headquarters office.

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Near Field Communication (NFC) is a feature we have yet to use on the latest BlackBerry devices which support it.  We saw an application take off in the PocketBerry Store which used NFC, just may not have been useful for the average since it required additional hardware.

It looks like RIM is now reaching out to developers on opportunities available with NFC as they are starting to push it out on the BlackBerry DevBlog.  They will be publishing various posts in the BlackBerry Developer Zone outlining benefits of implementing NFC in apps and technical sides to it as well.  As a developer, do you see NFC tying in with your apps? Let us know!

A few weeks ago we let you know about the BlackBerry Bold 9900 getting Mobile Mastercard approval.  Now it looks like the BlackBerry Curve 9360 has joined in the approval as well.  According to the press release, both these devices are the world’s first SIM-based smartphones to get MasterCard PayPass Handset Certification.  Pretty neat.  Below is the full press release from MasterCard.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Curve 9360 Are World’s First SIM-Based Smartphones to Receive MasterCard PayPass Handset Certification

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Oct. 26, 2011) – Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced the BlackBerry(R) Bold(TM) 9900 and BlackBerry(R) Curve(TM) 9360 smartphones are the first SIM-based NFC smartphones to be certified by MasterCard Worldwide as PayPass-approved devices.

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According to N4BB who heard a tip from a RIM NFC engineer, the company was asked by T-Mobile to specifically block out NFC capability via vendor ID.  This means that no matter what OS you install on your T-Mobile 9900, you won’t get NFC to work.

Surely the service isn’t usable at the moment, but in time RIM and other app developers have plans to take advantage of the feature. Bothered or does it really not matter to you?

BlackBerry Tag enables effortless ‘tap to share’ exchanges of multimedia content and contact info between friends

Friends can also add each other as BBM contacts with a simple ‘tap’

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES–(Marketwire – Oct. 10, 2011) – GITEX – During his keynote presentation at the GITEX conference in Dubai, Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) Co-CEO Jim Balsillie today unveiled a new way for BlackBerry® smartphone users to connect with one another and share multimedia content.

BlackBerry® Tag, which will be incorporated in the next BlackBerry® 7 OS update*, will allow users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by simply tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together. BlackBerry Tag will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger).

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been anxious to take advantage of NFC on my BlackBerry Bold 9930.  There really is no use yet for NFC, unless you have a Google Nexus S which supports Google Wallet.  Now for the good news, MasterCard posted up on their site that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is NFC approved for the Mobile MasterCard.  The approval process for the device includes functional reliability, interoperability, and security.  Thankfully the Bold 9900 series meets the standards!  So hopefully we’ll be seeing an application launch soon enough for the Bold as the approval has just taken place.  Still no Curve 9360 on the list yet, but hopefully that will go into consideration soon as well since the device has launched (and still is launching) all over the world.  Read more on the NFC approval here.

Source: NerdBerry