Microsoft's new Surface Duo smartphone is available now for preorder, and begins shipping to customers in the U.S. starting September 10. It's a new form factor for Microsoft, bringing together the best of Surface with a new, dual-screen form factor powered by Android. Microsoft calls it a Surface, but it's also very much a phone, even though it's missing features like NFC. Here's why that's the case.
Mobile payments with NFC is coming to Windows 10 Mobile, but not all phones may get the feature. We break down what HCE is and why approval from credit card companies and the right NFC firmware may matter.
Not long ago, we reviewed an attractive little Splashproof Bluetooth Speaker from Lumsing. I loved the speaker's stylish design, sound, and resistance to water. On the other hand, its battery life could have been better. If you're looking for a louder speaker with better battery life, the Lumsing Bluetooth NFC Speaker might just fit the bill. With two speakers and a bass diaphragm,...
Although the much-loved Pinball FX2 sadly never showed up on Windows Phone, Microsoft's mobile phone platform has a long-running pinball series of its own: Pinball League from Tainicom. It started with The Juggler way back in 2011, followed by Dr. Pickaxe the next year. Both games also made it to Windows 8 and RT. After a two year absence, Tainicom is back with their latest pinball...
Windows Phone users looking for contactless payments can now use Softcard to pay at over 200,000 outlets in the US. The service, which is formed out a joint venture between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, lets you easily pay at eligible locations via NFC. Here's the features offered by Softcard according to the store listing: Payments: Add eligible payment cards and get all the...
I've recently taken a deeper step into the connected world. A step that some will describe as being interesting, and that some will describe as being crazy. To be honest, as happy as I am since I have taken this step, I have to admit that I fall on both the interesting and crazy sides myself. Before getting any further, I should mention that the "step" I took was implanting an NFC chip...
When I bought my first desktop in college, I had a fancy 2.1 speaker system along with. I was the cool guy around, and lugged around those to college parties and family get togethers. I haven’t used those in a couple of years now though. There are some fine Bluetooth speakers in the market and while they can’t obviously replace a high quality speaker setup with a subwoofer or something...
With NFC on your smartphone, using it to pay for your morning commute across London may be getting closer to reality. According to a report in the Financial Times, carriers EE and Vodafone have begun talks with Transport for London over beginning trials of a mobile wallet to pay for your travel.
We first took a look at NFC Toolkit in early November. The app allows users to take control of the NFC abilities on their Windows Phone. While NFC support on Windows Phone is currently limited compared to the options available on Android, NFC Toolkit does the best it can to help users maximize the potential. The app has seen two updates since we last covered it, let’s take a look at...
The team behind the NFC Ring, a piece of wearable technology with support for NFC, have released the official Windows Phone app. If you're not familiar with the product, think of it as a ring, but with NFC capabilities. Starting as a Kickstarter project, we became rather excited about the possibilities this technology could unlock with Windows Phone. Should you be looking to pick up a...
NFC is an area that so far Windows Phone and Android are beating Apple at. In fact, the iPhone doesn’t even support NFC. While some NFC features are still limited on Windows Phone, it’s a nice feature to have in a variety of scenarios. Automatically pairing your phone to your speaker is one example that’s always demonstrated, but NFC can do so much more. Here’s an NFC app for Windows...
What is the worst part of departing on your overseas flight? Bag drop-off, of course. Dropping your bags off in one country and hoping they will be with you when you arrive elsewhere can be a real nightmare. Luckily, British Airways and Microsoft have partnered up to create a new Digital Bag Technology. You can even see it in action in the creepy demo video below. The new bag...
CloudZync (www.zync.co.uk) is a British mobile commerce company that has launched an app for Windows Phone. With 280 merchants and stores already signed up, Zync Wallet makes it so you don't need to carry along a wallet in your pocket with numerous cards and cash at hand. Relying on your mobile phone for almost everything in life, mobile payments are slowly catching on with deployment...
At first glance WakeUp Alarm for Windows Phone 8 looks like your average alarm app. You can create up to five active alarms that can repeat daily or once a week. What sets WakeUp Alarm apart from other alarm apps is the use of NFC and QR codes to disable the alarm. You can create a situation where you physically have to get out of bed to silence the alarm. WakeUp Alarm's layout is...
Nokia is continuing to push NFC and remains the driving force at WIMA (www.wima.mc), the foremost NFC conference. The event took place in Monaco this week and the manufacturer has been showing off its product portfolio, NFC-enabled hardware and the overall ecosystem. As well as showing off its stuff, the company has also held an NFC developer workshop. The resources help developers...
NearSpeak is an interesting Near Field Communication (NFC) app for your Windows Phone 8 device that lets you record voice messages and store them on NFC tags. There are a couple of neat aspects to NearSpeak. First, NFC tags typically lack the storage space to hold audio files. To record your voice, NearSpeak uses speech recognition to convert your spoken word into text. When played back...
We’re still trying to get to bed here in Barcelona, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia from releasing new apps to their Collection. The latest is NFC Writer, which is exactly what it sounds like: a clever app to write to blank NFC tags specific functions or tasks. We’ve seen similar apps before, like the excellent NFC Launchit, but for some Nokia users they may prefer the more streamlined...
If your job doesn’t require you to put pants on or venture past the front porch, odds are you won’t be needing to read about business cards. For those of you who still climb the corporate ladder and shave more than twice a month, POPWings is making a Windows Phone app to get a handle on your business cards. PopWings is a company based in France that makes two products: The POPCard and...
For those in the media with Windows Phones or the few of you industry folks who are headed to the massive Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of the month, you’ll want to grab the new official Windows Phone 8 NFC Badge App. The GSMA Press Office just sent out an email for Android and Windows Phone users on how to get the app and enable the pass features. Starting last year,...
If your Windows Phone 8 device has NFC (Near Field Communication) support, you may want to take a look at the Windows Phone game Grow. Grow is a simple game where your success is dependent on how much you use NFC. You have a potted plant that grows the more you use your NFC and as a bonus, you can view the map (little icon in the upper right corner) to find additional Grows for bonus...