The In2Pay system is being tested in-house by two credit card firms, to determine if it can be used for sales transactions at NFC-enabled readers already installed at stores around the United States.

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Wireless Dynamics has announced a device called the iCarte that will add both RFID and NFC capabilities to the iPhone. The device adds functionality to the iPhone via the dock connector, to which it connects without adding too much bulk or without being too much of an eyesore. In fact, it looks like the iCarte’s designers went out of their way to make sure the add-on looks like it’s a natural extension of the iPhone itself, rather than an apparent third-party accessory.

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A Utah supermarket retailer uses The Giving Cart system to gain insight into consumer behavior, as well as provide shoppers with coupons, prizes and promotional material as they traverse the store’s aisles. That’s is a new shopper marketing way.
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Oberthur Technologies was the only two-category winner in this year’s Sesames Awards, repeating its successes from 2007 when it also gathered in two honors. The awards, which represent innovations in the smart card and ID industry, were presented during the opening of the CARTES and IDentification show in Paris. More >>

Transport for London looking to replace the Oyster smartcard with integrated ticketing systems including mobile phones. More >>

Contactless reader provider SCM Microsystems has introduced @MAXX prime, a new family of portable USB devices that enable secure electronic transactions, data storage and access. The entire range of the SCM @MAXX devices are expected to include secure smart card functionality alongside flash storage to provide mobile authentication for a variety of electronic applications, including financial services, transportation, e-payment, logical and physical access, digital signature and public key infrastructure. More >>

Libercard, ViVOtech and Inteligensa have developed the first transit and retail combination contactless payment implementation in Latin America. With the new technology, Brazilians in Fortaleza can use a single contactless payment card to ride local transit and make retail purchases and reload the card at several hundred retail stores in the city that use ViVOtech contactless payment devices implemented with Inteligensa integration expertise. More >>

Here is a brilliant and funny post on the main barrier to NFC penetration by the founder of Vivotech : More >>

A pair of filings for US patents made by Apple would make users’ lives easier by letting them pair wireless devices just by bringing them together as well as filling out missing address book data simply by making a request through e-mail. More >>