NFC

A company out of Wisconsin has announced that it will begin offering microchip implants to all of its employees beginning next month. We probably all knew this day was coming, but now Three Square Market (otherwise known as 32Market) has decided that it will be the one to usher us into the future. If you're thinking of the implications this has for Big Brother and the surveillance state after reading that headline up above, you certainly aren't alone.

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This week Apple's Kevin Lynch stood on stage at WWDC 2017 and spoke about the next big update to the Apple Watch. This new update will bring Siri to the Apple Watch, at last. It'll be like having a digital assistant available all the time - from your wrist. This update also brings a stream of information from Siri - using machine learning to make the best guess at what you'll want next.

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While Android Pay has been available in the US for several years now, our northern neighbors in Canada can now finally make use of the mobile payments system. Google officially began rolling out Android Pay in the country earlier this week, including support for a number of banks, shops, and restaurants. The good news is that it will work at almost of the tap-to-pay terminals across Canada, but there are a few big name banks to take note of that haven't offered support yet.

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Despite years of promises, wireless charging has yet to really took root in the consumer’s mind. It is still not an in-demand feature in smartphones the way waterproofing or, to some degree, microSD card slots, have become. In a chicken or egg situation, wireless charging pads, especially in public places, aren’t as common as well, making it inconvenient to rely on wireless technology? But what if topping off your smartphone means simply just placing it nearby another? That is the interesting, and partly scary, scenario that Sony’s latest patent paints, where one device can recharge itself by sucking out power from another. Wirelessly, of course.

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There’s no doubt payment at the register is changing, but how ordinary payments will look in the future is still anyone’s guess. Smartphones are currently the most popular method for making mobile payments, but smartwatches and wristbands can also be used. Visa previously showed off an NFC-based payment ring at the Olympics last year, and now it is back with another product, this one in the form of sunglasses.

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The second Huawei Watch (or Huawei Watch 2, as it's called), appeared this week at Mobile World Congress 2017. We had the opportunity to get up close and personal with several versions of the watch - colors and buttons and all - to see what the company has in mind for the second big wave of Android Wear watch hardware this year. Can Huawei pair what they call "Classic Watch Styles" with smartwatch abilities successfully?

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If you use Estimote's location beacons, then you're about to get a major new feature with the addition of low-energy mesh networking. Mesh networking is being added today by way of software update, and once that update has been applied, your beacons will be able to pass data between one another. Among other things, this means that you can now have beacons in more remote locations, as they no longer need to rely on a strong WiFi signal to work.

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Apple Pay officially launched in Spain this week, making it the latest European nation to accept Apple's contactless mobile payments service. It also comes shortly after similar debuts in Japan, New Zealand, and Russia. Using compatible iPhone models or an Apple Watch, Apple Pay will allow users to make fast and easy payments at 27 Spanish retailers simply by holding their device over an NFC terminal.

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The Estimote Mirror is a new product in a line of Bluetooth beacons that react to smartphones around them. This device uses similar technology to that of the rest of the Estimote Beacon line, but here makes a display - a TV screen, poster-sized billboard display, anything with am HDMI-input - show content based on a user being within proximity. This device may well bring about the age of Minority Report shopping at last.

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Google has announced new Android Pay support for a multitude of banks and services, adding one of the largest in the US to its roster today. Android Pay now supports credit and debit cards from Chase, with Google pointing out that Chase customers can still enjoy the benefits they get with those cards while using them with Android Pay.

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Last month, Android Pay broke into Asia by launching in Singapore, and today the service is turning its sights south and launching in Australia. Android Pay will be launching with support from 28 banks across the country, but of the largest four banks in the region, only the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group is supporting the roll out from the beginning.

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Today Estimote has announced a rather significant update to its wireless Proximity Beacons. The Google Eddystone-compatible beacons, which aim to give users contextual experiences on smartphones and bridge the gap between the real world and mobile devices, have been updated to include programmable NFC chips. NFC seems to be a huge addition that will help Estimote's beacons stand out from the crowd.

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