Electronics.ca Publications reports that the market for smart cards will reach $7.3 billion globally in 2017. The report entitled “Smart Card Technologies and Global Markets,” revealed that the smart card values reached $4.7 billion in 2011. That figure is projected to reach $5.1 billion in 2012, with a compound five-year annual growth rate (CAGR) of […]

The FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence (BCOE) has decided to start tracking tattoos as a biometric identifier, reports MSNBC. The information will be added to the center, which already creates and improves biometric databases. In order to gather its information, the center reached out to academia, industry and law enforcement seeking currently existing databases of […]

TRAVIK, aka Sixpack, the would-be joint venture between Dutch telecos KPN and Vodafone Netherlands, and banks ING, Rabobank and ABN Amro, has announced that it will officially disband. According to Bell ID, the joint venture called it off due to the growing availability of trusted service manager (TSM) products and services, which has rendered its […]

Isis, the mobile payments joint venture from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, will likely launch its service this August on Android and BlackBerry smart phones with embedded NFC, as well as on iPhones with NFC sleeve attachments, an inside source has told CNET. Although it has been known for some time that Isis will debut in […]

Beginning this fall, J.C. Penney will start to test the use of RFID tags on store merchandise, according to dallasnews.com. All merchandise will be tagged with the technology, said Ron Johnson, chief executive office, J.C. Penney. The American department store operates more than 1,107 department stores in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Johnson […]

At a July hearing on facial recognition technology, Minn. Sen. Al Franken expressed his concerns about the technology and its possible abuse by the government and law enforcement agencies. Franken, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, feels that facial recognition technology poses “acute privacy concerns that […]

Croatian mobile operator Hrvatski Telekom has begun an internal pilot of NFC-enabled mobile payments. The pilot, which will continue until the end of October 2012, involves some two hundred employees of Hrvatski Telekom making tap and go payments at selected points of sale using their NFC-enabled mobile phones. According to HT, this marks the first […]

IBM has published a Redguide publication called “BIO-key Biometrica Service Provider for IBM Security Access Manager for Enterprise Single Sign-On” that details how IBM clients can have advanced authentication and identification solutions with BIO-key’s biometric technology. BIO-key aims to simplify companies’ access of systems and applications through a fingerprint, biometric-enabled sign-on to IBM Security Access […]

RF Ideas announced the expansion of its pcProx product line with the addition of pcProx Plus reader now available with serial interface. This reader includes all the features and benefits that come with the standard pcProx Plus device, while adding the serial connection interface. With RF IDeas’ patented technology, pcProx Plus is the only reader […]

Korean IT service provider LG CNS has signed a memorandum of understanding with telecos KT and LG U+ to launch an access control system that uses NFC-enabled phones in place of traditional work ID badges. The new service, targeted toward public institutions and corporations, enables employers to issue access credentials over the air to the […]