Eric Schmidt: NFC Will See 500 Startups In Coming Years
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, said in a recent interview on stage at Web 2.0 Summit that NFC technology will see 500 startups working with it in the coming years. While doing so, he gave a strong hint that Google will be very interested in the findings of this space. NFC, or near field communication, is a short range wireless communication technology that enables the exchange of data between objects at around 10 cm in distance. While it seems this is new technology, now that Google has begun to talk about it openly as well as RIMM, it has actually been around for quite a while. Nokia has been testing out with this technology for quite some time, but all big companies to date still lack any high scale consumer applications for the technology.
Swedish NFC Payments System Developer Accumulate Lands $2m Funding
Swedish university students are to begin using a near field communication payments system (NFC) developed by payments processor Payex and secure mobile solutions specialist Accumulate.
For this, PayEx along with existing investors have invested US$2m of venture capital in Accumulate. The money will be used to further develop Accumulate's mobile payments and mobile security business.
20,000 students are expected to be enrolled on the system by the end of this year, with a total of 100,000 students at a number of universities going live over the next six months, beginning with Uppsala University and Linköping University.
