NFC + more news

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NFC

Digital Evangelist: What would I rather pick up my phone or my keys as I leave my house? – Ian on NFC. NFC or near field communications. Like most technologies NFC has been a long time coming. It sprang out of work that was done around RFID (radio frequency identification), where a passive device is powered and communicates with a powered transmitter. Its the tag that’s in library books or items to prevent shoplifting.

Standards for what we now know as NFC were set in a technical outline by Philips and Sony back in 2002. Two years later they established the NFC forum. A year later and Sony launches an NFC shell add-on for its Nokia 5140 ruggedised mobile phone. Nokia, France Telecom and Samsung experiment using NFC to pay for public transport and mobile payments. China Unicom rolls out NFC in public transport across Beijing and Chongqing. This year Nokia launches the first NFC compatible smartphone and Nice experiments with being a contactless city with bankcards and mobile phones.

China

FT.com / China – China launches own online mapping service – its a bit poor, but this is a first iteration. China has concerns about state secrets leaking out

Batman Wins Chinese Lottery – WSJ – absolute genius, love it

Consumer behaviour

For Millennials, Brands May Be as Important as Religion, Ethnicity | Fast Company – wasn’t this the case for generation X and even boomers as well? Brett Easton Ellis built a writing career on documenting the brands of disaffected youth. Yuppies were status brand obsessives. William Gibson and Douglas Coupland fetishise brands or deliberately create a brand void in their works. The move from glasses to bottled beer in European bars and clubs was about the bottle label being a brand totem for the user

Innovation

Three Innovation Trends in Asia – Harvard Business Review – interesting article. What the middle-market segment looks like in different Asian countries is particularly pertinent especially as it gets hollowed out of the developed world

Japan

HISTORY of HEIBON PUNCH 平凡パンチの歴史 – fascinating cover designs. Heibon Punch was a homegrown Japanese men’s magazine a la GQ that finished in the mid 1980s. Love the 1960s jazz record series they put out with Quincy Jones

U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patenting – NYTimes.com

Luxury

New luxury trends emerge in China: News from Warc.com – maturing market?

Great new fashion innovations for 2012 | FT.cominteresting ideas that seem to owe a lot to streetwear brands. Experiments in materials by Thakoon, DVF and Proenza Schouler are a chip off the old block from the work that Massimo Osti pioneered at CP Company, Stone Island the collborations with Sugergra and Levi’s. The multi-garment garment is straight from Acronym’s play book

Luxury Gets More Convenient – WSJ – counter-intuitive. Koreans buying Gucci in the 7-Eleven

Online

Google Stop Indexing Blogger (Blogspot) Posts – need to get this sorted sharpish, at least they can’t be accused of being biased!

Retailing

Chinese Online Shoppers Have High Standards – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Software

Microsoft Launches Office 365, Bringing Millions Into the Cloud | Fast Company – it looks like Ray Ozzie’s work was done at Microsoft

Technology

Op-Ed: Optical Media Not Dead Yet – dead in technology circles a relative thing. Sony only stopped selling cassette Walkmans in Japan on Friday

Web of no web

Microsoft Buying Canesta to Bolster Gesture Technology – NYTimes.com – minority report here we come

Wireless

China Mobile: Not in the Comm Biz – WSJ – in the information services business apparently. Some good telecoms numbers here

Project to Test Home & Electric Vehicle Network Standards for CO2 Reduction | NTT DOCOMO Global – really interesting project extending smart home thinking to a smart life