nfc News - Page 9 of 12 - CNX Software

April 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mediatek MT8639 Wi-Fi Display SoC to Support 802.11ac, NFC

Wi-Fi display technologies such as Miracast and Airplay allow you to conveniently mirror your mobile device on your TV without the needs to connect any cables, and for over about a year we’ve seen Miracast, Airplay, DLNA, and EZcast dongles on the market. In theory, this is all great, but in practice, this is all too often disappointing because of lag, sometimes the video quality is very poor, and sometimes it won’t connect. Mediatek is now working on MT8639 supporting 802.11ac which will hopefully offer a more consistent and enjoyable user experience, if your mobile device also supports 802.11ac. Here are the main features of the chip: ARM Cortex A7 @ 1 GHz Wi-Fi Dual band 2.4Ghz and 5 GHz 802.11 b/g/n/ and 802.11ac Wifi-Direct, Wi-Fi SoftAP, and Wi-Fi Bridge support Optional NFC support Wi-Fi Display – DLNA, Airplay, Miracast, “Windows” mirror Video Output – HDMI 1.4 / MHL 2.0 […]

March 14, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Mediatek Hotknot is a Low Cost Alternative to NFC for Chinese Phones

NFC first started to be found in phones running Android 2.3 in 2010, and most flagship smartphones integrate NFC. But in China, at least, the story is different with about 10 percent of smartphones enabled with NFC, according to Mediatek. That’s partly why the company has designed Hotknot proximity technology, which is in theory capable of anything NFC does, but comes at a lower cost. Contrary to NFC, Hotknot it does not require RF transceiver and antenna, but instead relies on a new type of capacitor touch driver IC designed for touch screens combined with data from a gravity sensor (G-sensor) to ensures the actual contact, and a proximity sensor (P-sensor) to detects the presence of nearby objects. It’s not clear when the first smartphone with the technology will hit the “e-store”, but HaoJung Li, product marketing manager of MediaTek’s wireless communications business unit, told EETimes, that every MediaTek customer, […]

February 14, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

STMicro To Launch $24 M24SR Discovery Kit for NFC Applications at Embedded World 2014

STMicro will unveil an a new development board called M24SR Discovery Kit absed on the company’s M24SR dynamic NFC tags to help designers easily add NFC connectivity to different kind of electrical devices such as fitness bands, loudspeakers, washing machines, water meters, and more. There are two models for MS24SR Discovery kits: Standard and Premium editions. The Premium editions adds a headset and a Bluetooth module to pair it with a smartphone via NFC. Here are the key features of MS24SR-Discovery board: MCU – STM32F103RGT6 64LQFP 32-bit microcontroller, with 1Mbytes of Flash memory NFC – M24SR64-Y Dynamic NFC/RFID tag Antenna – 31 mm x 30 mm, 13.56 MHz double layer inductive antenna etched on the PCB (ANT14) Display – LCD Color Screen (320 x 200 pixels) Misc – Different color LEDs, Joystick for menu selection Debug – JTAG connector for microcontroller firmware upgrade and debug Power – +5V via USB microB […]

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux Kernel 3.13 Release

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.13 yesterday: The release got delayed by a week due to travels, but I suspect that’s just as well. We had a few fixes come in, and while it wasn’t a lot, I think we’re better off for it. At least I hope so – I’ll be very disappointed if any of them cause more problems than they fix.. Anyway, the patch from rc8 is fairly small, with mainly some small arch updates (arm, mips, powerpc, s390, sparc, x86 all had some minor changes, some of them due to a networking fix for the bpf jit). And drivers (mainly gpu and networking). And some generic networking fixes. The appended shortlog gives more details. Anyway, with this, the merge window for 3.14 is obviously open. Kernel 3.12 brought new features to BTRFS and XFS file systems, PC’s GPU drivers improvements, better memory handling, […]

November 25, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

GalaGreat GalaRing NFC Smart Ring Unlocks Doors, Smartphones, and Exchanges Data

Once upon a time, last August more exactly :), the NFC Ring launched on Kickstarter, and funding was an amazing success. Thanks to NFC technology, the ring is battery-less, and communicates with other NFC enabled devices so that you can unlock your door, unlock your smartphone, share information such as contact details, website links, pictures, etc… The rings will most probably be shipped to Kickstarter wizards backers next month or in January. However, a very similar product called GalaGreat GalaRing G1 has appeared on websites such as GeekBuying and Expansys for about $30. [Update: It’s now available on DealExtreme for $28.47] There are 2 NFC chips from NXP in the ring which is also said to be water- and dust-proof (IP68). The ring is available in small (Ø 17mm), medium (Ø 20), and large (Ø 22mm) sizes. As mentioned above the device is battery-less, so you won’t have to worry […]

November 4, 2013November 4, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

One2Touch Softpad C1 and S1 are NFC Keyboards for Android Devices

It’s pretty easy to find Bluetooth keyboards if you want to a keyboard to type more easily and faster on your phone. They have two small inconveniences however: they need to be paired, and need to be recharged. The first one is not really a problem, but the second can be. If your phone supports NFC, you can now get One2Touch Softpad C1 or S2 wireless keyboard using NFC technology. These do not require pairing, nor charging (but uses CR2025 batteries). Softpad S1 is similar to C1, expect there’s space in the middle of the keyboard to insert your phone. S1 has recently been (quickly) reviewed by Android Central. To make the keyboard work with your Android smartphone, you’ll need to download the drivers from Google Play, and you’re ready to go. You can watch the video below for some of the use cases with Softpad C1. I could not […]

November 2, 2013November 3, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google Announces LG Nexus 5 Smartphone with Android 4.4 KitKat

Google has partnered with LG and Nestle to bring to market the latest Nexus 5 smartphone featuring Android 4.4 “Kitkat”, the latest, and brand new, release of Android. Let’s first have a look at the device, and then we’ll go through the new features and improvement brought by Android 4.4. LG Nexus 5 Nexus 5 has the following technical specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 @ 2.26GHz with Adreno 330 GPU @ 450MHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16 to 32 GB flash, but no microSD slot Display – 4.95″ touchscreen display with 1920×1080 resolution, Gorilla Glass 3 Connectivity – Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi (2.4G/5G), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and GPS Celullar Networks – 2G/3G/4G LTE. GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, and LTE in North America, and GSM, WCDMA, and LTE for the rest of the world. Camera – 8MP rear camera with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and 1.3MP front camera […]

July 18, 2013August 2, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Enter Wearable Tech Innovation World Cup 2013 for Cash Prizes and Free Development Kits

The Wearable Technologies Innovation World Cup is a yearly competition open worldwide, with prizes worth a total of $200,000, “designed to inspire and stimulate excellent next generation solutions with the potential to become real marketable products for Wearable Technologies on the subjects Sports & Fitness, Healthcare & Wellness, Security & Prevention, Gaming & Lifestyle”. This year, the contest is open between June 1, 2013 and November 30, 2013, and the good news is that even if you don’t win a cash prize, you can still purchase relevant devkit at a discount, or even get them for free. There are 3 companies involved who participate in the program from which you can get development kits: ST Microelectronics: STEVAL-IDB001V1(100% discount for the first 100 registrants) – STEVAL-IDB001V1 is a demonstration board based on STBLC01 low power Bluetooth low energy (BLE) controller and powered by STM32L MCU. Regular price: $159. STEVAL-MKI119V1 (No discount) – […]