It’s been recently revealed that the Nintendo Wii U console’s controllers will come loaded with NFC technology, and it seems the company wants to use it to revolutionise the way gamers purchase DLC. The idea is to take the fuss out of buying downloads by making the purchasing process as simple as possible.
Tech’s endless march looks set to continue in 2012, with stacks of new and improved technologies set to make life easier and more fun. From proper contactless payments coming to mobile phones and improved gaming systems to 3D printing getting the mainstream breakthrough it deserves, here’s our pick of 10 of the best new technologies to get excited about in 2012.
Say what you will about RIM, but its BlackBerry NFC plans aren’t lacking for ambition. In an interview with Electricpig this week, Research In Motion’s UK managing director Stephen Bates revealed its four prong plan for the contact free communication tech – and alongside mobile payments, it’s planning to change the way you touch in to work.
Like an episode of ‘The Sopranos’, bada boom bada bing. Samsung, by way of a press release, announced the launch of bada 2.0 SDK this morning. The application development tool has received a major overhaul and now supports multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC and voice recognition. In addition to the SDK, three new Wave smartphones will launch this later year, bringing the total to ten devices.
With HP Veer out in the wild and the HP TouchPad on the horizon, HP is hard at work on its next generation of webOS tablets and phones and the rumours are starting to leak out. And they revolve around an ever more familiar term – NFC.
Businessweek claims two sources have told it that the next generation of webOS devices will follow in the footsteps of the Google Nexus S and Google Wallet by adding NFC. It claims we could see the new devices before the end of this year…
Good news for Angry Birds obsessives: there’s yet another Angry Birds game in the works and Rovio has been quietly showing it off at the MeeGo conference.
Details on Angry Birds Magic are a wee bit slim right now (aside from a promise that it’ll bring the real world and the Angry Birds world together) but it does include a rather intriguing new feature: NFC level unlocking! See it in action after the break…
Google Wallet, the wireless payment scheme we’ve heard reports about, has just been announced at an event in New York. Is this the revolution that’ll get rid of that piece of leather you carry around in your pocket all day?
UPDATE: Video!
Google looks set to out a mobile payments scheme this week with reporters headed for a big event in New York on Thursday. The Wall Street Journal says Google will out new phones packing NFC chips (which the Google Nexus S already includes) and launch its mobile payment programme in New York, San Francisco and a limited number of other US locations…
