WIMA competition winners revealed
12 April, 2013
category:
The seventh annual WIMA conference held in Monaco, France released its competition winners. The competition is designed to bring the latest NFC innovations in applications, solutions and hardware. The competition was open to all exhibitors and researchers attending the event.
Best Start-Up:
Jorge Marcos, Sistelnetworks, vWand NFC stylus
The vWand is designed to bring NFC to non-supporting devices don’t have NFC devices. SistelNetworks has developed a network of devices and apps based on proximity communications for NFC mobile devices on Android, iOS and Windows Mobile systems.
The vWand must be linked via Bluetooth to a smart phone or tablet, but does not require a special configuration to do so. Once connected, the user can write and read NFC tags using the NFC side of the device, and upon reading the tag, vWand sends the information to the tablet or smart phone.
Best Retail Solution:
Tim Baker, Think&Go NFC, NFC shopping
NFC-shopping combines efficient management of information from e-commerce with the physical shop environment that most shoppers prefer.
Think&Go supports a number of services including Tap-to-Basket, which eables consumers to shop in person and receives items via drive-in or delivered to their home, personalized product information, couponing, targeting related products at the point of purchase, integration with social networks and opt-in customer profiling.
Best Testing Solution:
Hajo Sandschneider, COMPRION, Test automation using NFC Forum DTA
COMPRION’s test solution has effectively automated the NFC Forum device test application.
Using the Device Test Application (DTA) specified by NFC Forum— an application residing on the Implementation Under Test (IUT)— creates a data exchange system that enables configuration in batches of test cases on a centralized server. In addition to cutting overall test time, this method eliminates a great deal of error-prone manual work.
Best NFC Hardware:
Remco Willemse, Payter BV, Interactive Smartpostering system for advertising and information services
Smart Postering converts posters into interactive advertising, promotion and sales medium. Smart Postering can be tailored to add interactive content and prompts with the ad in real-time.
Payter’s Smart Postering system has its own Content Management System that can be accessed via Web-based secured access and enables the user to customize usage reports for each poster.
Best Marketing Solution:
Tim Baker, Think&Go NFC, Dynamic NFC-Screen
The Dynamic NFC-Screen enables users to communicate “through” a video display using an NFC-enabled phone. Consumers can acquire product information, collect coupons and navigate through advertising or production media by placing an NFC phone near the display surface.
The screen houses a matrix of NFC Tags — the number of which depends of the size of the screen— and is driven by the same computer that broadcasts the video content. Any combination of the multiple active NFC tags can be called up on the video display, playing the chosen content dynamically in real-time.
Best Research Track:
Wolfgang Müller, Seibersdorf Laboratories, NFC-based UV radiation measure for sunburn prevention
Seibersdorf’s solution houses the UV sensor in a slim, cost-effective and passive smart NFC transponder in the form of a smart card. All other measurement actions are then carried out by the corresponding app on the user’s smart phone.
By creating a personal user profile, which logs skin type and level of sun tan lotion (protection factor) used, the user can be informed by the app immediately after the UV-measurement how long they can stay in the sun before being subject to sun burn.
Best NFC Event Management Solution:
Alexia Leclerc, TazTag, TazEvent solution
Audience Award: Tim Baker, Think&Go NFC
Best in show: Wolfgang Müller, Seibersdorf Laboratories