nfc News - Page 11 of 12 - CNX Software

November 8, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The Linux NFC Subsystem – ELCE 2011

Lauro Ramos Venancio, Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia and Samuel Ortiz, Intel give a presentation about the NFC subsystem in Linux at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Abstract: NFC (Near Field Communication) is a wireless protocol mostly designed for fast information reading and writing from nearby devices and tags. It also allows NFC devices to establish a transport layer link and exchange larger chunks of data. While Android ships with its own multi platform NFC stack writing HCI frames to a raw character device and supporting one single device, Linux is currently missing any kind of generic and clean NFC support, from both kernel and user space (cnxsoft: Since end of last month, this is not the case as Linux 3.1 supports NFC). Therefore, a new socket family for NFC, along with a kernel netlink API for high level NFC commands passing is being developed. An NFC user space daemon abstracts […]

October 25, 2011October 25, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux 3.1 Release

Linux Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.1 yesterday: As promised, the kernel summit has started, and Linux-3.1 is out. The (small) shortlog of changes since -rc10 are appended, we have mostly some sparc and networking changes, along with some radeon and intel iommu fixes (mostly for largepages and integrated graphics issues). Most people probably will not notice the changes. One big change from -rc10 is that there are tar-balls and patches, so if you aren’t a git user (why?) you can download it now in a traditional format. On of the things to note is that the files are now signed by my gpg key, and it’s the *uncompressed* version that the signature is for. And of course, this means that the merge window for 3.2 is open. I’ll do some merging during the KS, but probably most when I get back home – but you can still […]

October 19, 2011October 19, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Google and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 Smartphone

Samsung and Google jointly announced the very first Android 4.0 (ICS) smartphone in Hong Kong. They did not get too original to name the device. Remember the Nexus S and Galaxy S series? Well, the smartphone is named Galaxy Nexus. The phone features a dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP4460 processor, a 4.65″ super AMOLED plus display (1280×720), LTE/HSPA+ network support, 1080p video recoding, NFC, barometer and more. It will be sold in the US, Europe and Asia (including Japan and China) in November. After Samsung showcased the smartphone, Google presented the new Android 4.0 (ICS). 3 Design principles: Beautiful: Enchant me Easy: Simplify my life Powerful and Smart Here are the main points I gatherer of Android 4 presentation: The new UI uses the Roboto font. They removed the physical buttons on the smartphone. Everything is now done with gestures. It looks like Honeycomb for smartphone with stacks and widgets. Widgets […]

October 7, 2011July 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011

Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELC-E 2011) will take place on October 26 – 28, 2011 at Clarion Congress Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The event will be co-located with LinuxCon Europe 2011 and GStreamer Conference. The day before the official opening of the conference, two tutorials will be offered on Tuesday 25th of October:b Outside the Box: An Introduction to Embedded Linux and Hardware Interfacing Using the Snowball Board – 9:00 – 17:00 – Trainer: Chris Simmonds – Cost: 350 USD. Embedded Android Workshop – 9:00 – 17:00 – Trainer: Karim Yaghmour- Cost: 300 USD. ELCE consists of 3 days of presentations, tutorials and sessions. There will be over 50 sessions during those 3 days. I’ll highlight a few sessions that I find particularly interesting. October 26 10:45 – 11:45 – Linaro’s Android Platform by Zach Pfeffer, Linaro Android Platform team leader. Linaro uses components from the Android Open Source […]

October 5, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NFC Smart Meter Demo by NXP and Landis-Gyr

NXP and Landis+Gyr are showcasing smart meters equipped with NFC technology at the Metering Europe 2011 event in Amsterdam this week. The companies are demonstrating how utility companies will be able to use NFC smart meters to: Save money by removing the need to include an LCD display in a smart meter. Meter readers will instead use an NFC-enabled phone to take a reading from the meter and then use their handset to collect and view current and historical energy consumption. Use an embedded secure element in the smart meter to increase customer privacy while at the same time providing the necessary level of access to installation and service technicians. Enable authorised maintenance technicians to download metering information to handsets or tablets as well as upload firmware updates to the meter via NFC. Use secure device pairing to deliver home area network (HAN) capabilities. Provide secure and convenient pre-payment of […]

September 30, 2011July 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NFC Forum Releases Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol (SNEP) Specification

The NFC Forum announced the release of the 16th specification of Near Field communication (NFC) dealing with the Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol (SNEP). NDEF stands for NFC Data Exchange Format. This data format has been described in an earlier specification released in 2006. SNEP is an extension of NDEF and defines protocol suitable for peer-to peer communication between two NFC-enabled devices. Previously, NDEF was applicable only to NFC tags in reader/writer mode. Now, SNEP enables the use of the openly standardized NDEF in peer-to-peer mode, making seamless interchange of data a reality. Application developers no longer need to concern themselves with how their NDEF data gets transferred between NFC-enabled devices. By providing this capability, the SNEP specification makes the difference between reader-writer and peer-to-peer operation modes disappear. SNEP Use Cases Here are two examples of potential applications for NFC technology developed with the new SNEP specification: Simplified transfer of contact […]

September 16, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Windows 8 NFC (Near Field Communication) Demo

A few months back, I would have never thought I would post about Microsoft and Windows in an embedded software blog, except for the rare mention of Windows CE or Windows Embedded products. But it now seems Windows 8 will actually focus on products that were previously almost exclusively ARM based such as tablets and smartphones. I have already posted about Windows 8 Tablet and Smartphones demo at the build conference and today I’ll discuss a little bit about NFC support in Windows 8. Windows 8 will support NFC (Near Field Communication) with NXP PN544 NFC controller chip. NXP PN544 is also the NFC solution used in the Windows 8 tablets, made by Samsung, which are being distributed to attendees of Microsoft’s Build Windows conference 2011. The NFC use cases available with Windows 8 include: Windows 8 device pairing (e.g. Bluetooth headsets and speakers) Data sharing (e.g. digital business cards) […]

September 1, 2011September 1, 2011 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NFC (Near Field Communication) Infographic

NFC rumors has designed a massive NFC Infographic to show (some of) the many different usages of NFC and the impacts NFC may have such as: NFC Services in hotels, taxis, ticket offices… NFC gadgets: routers, wireless speakers, headphones… NFC Marketing: tags, business cards, smart posters… 1/5 of smartphones will be NFC-enabled by 2014 NFC may have a positive environmental impact as it decreases the number of paper receipts. NFC Business Case: Exponential growth expected in the next few years NFC in tablets NFC and social network NFC would allow unbanked consumers in developing countries to use electronic payment more easily. etc.. See the infographic below. Click for a larger image. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com