NFCNews was writing last week about a new feature of the BMW incar entertainment system. Short: You can search a hotel, book a room and will be directed via the navigation system to the hotel. After arriving, you can go directly to the room and need not check in at the reception desk. The NFC BMW key will be used to open the room door.
You can reed the whole story here…
Source: www.nfcworld.com
A1, the Austrian market leader in mobile communication, is starting a pilot for NFC payment with McDonald’s and the Austrian supermarket chain Merkur. They are starting with some outlets in vienna and with the beginning of this summer, some more outlets will accept payment by NFC enabled mobiles.
Payments up to 25 Euro will be accepted at the point of sale.
According to A1, there will be about 200.000 NFC enabled devices in Austria by the end of 2012.
You can read the full article here on diepresse.at (in German)
In UK, households can get one of the most advanced smart meter. The new meter has a touch-screen display that shows consumers how much energy they are using. The meters also assure that households will be billed accurately instead of receiving estimated bills. At this time, almost 400k households in Great Britain are equipped with one of these smart meters.
You can learn more about this and the actual status of the upgrade process here.
Source: British Gas
ReportLinker announced the new The Global Wireless M2M Market – 4th Edition report from Berg Insight.
Berg Insight estimates that shipments of cellular M2M devices increased by 35.3 percent to a new record level of 50.8 million units. Adjusted for churn, this resulted in net additions of 29.3 million M2M connections in 2011, taking the worldwide number of cellular M2M subscribers to an estimated 108.0 million. They forecasts that the number of cellular M2M connections will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.2 percent between 2011 and 2016 to reach 359.3 million at the end of the period.
At the end of 2011, the number of M2M subscribers in the EU and the US was around 30 million and 27 million respectively.
Today we found an interesting post on cio.de. They are writing about the rollout of smart meters in Europe and the post contains very interesting information which we will share with you.
According to the Smart meter technology provider Sentec, Italy and the Nordics are currently leading the pack with over 94 percent and 70 percent of homes having smart meters already installed respectively.
You can read the full story by clicking here.
To visualize the current status of the smart meter rollout in Europe, we will show you two very good graphics from Green Tech Media. You can see on the first graphic that Italy is clearly leading in terms of implemented smart meter hot spots. This is not surprising when you see the second graphic, which illustrates that Italy has a very strong regulatory push for smart metering.
Source: Green Tech Media
Source: Green Tech Media
We found a new article on smartplanet.com which we will share with you.
They are writing about a test of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). They are testing NFC on the Long Island Railroad. MTA is experimenting with Nokia smart phones and are planning to provide free smart phones for nearly 100 riders on the Long Island Railroad.
Should the NFC test on the Long Island Rail Road go smoothly, it could mean further innovation for all of the 1.6 billion annual subway trips on the MTA.
You can read the full story here on smartplanet.com.
Seidensticker, a German shirt manufacturer, and Telefonica in Germany worked together on a new M2M product.
Seidensticker is planning to place vending machines in hotels, airports, stations and congress centers powered by O2. The embedded video (in German language only) shows this M2M application.
Click here for the Telefonica Video on Youtube: “Hemd to go”
Market Research.com released the new Near Field Communication (NFC) Market -Global Forecast & Analysis.
One of the main statements is the following: … In 2011, only 5% of the total mobile phones were NFC-enabled; it is estimated that in the coming five years, this number will rise to approximately 46% by 2016. This indicates the rapid adoption of the NFC technology and the increasing mobile application of NFC technology. As more number of NFC products is made available, the market will see the growth in verticals such as retail, ticketing, and smart advertisement application. …
In an other part of the report they expect a growth of the NFC application market in revenue to $ 34,515 million in 2016, at an estimated CAGR of 35% from 2011 to 2016.
Picture: webscannotes.com
Fast Company spoke with Ed McLaughlin who heads up Mastercard’s emerging payments division. He says the next big name to enter Near Field Communication is Apple.
Enjoy the Youtube Video.
Tokyo Electric Power, known as the operator of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, plans to install 17 million smart meters in Japanese housholds until 2019.
This plan will be part of a restructuring scheme after the nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
You can read the whole story here…
