Samsung has announced that they will be launching a new Olympic phone in conjunction with Visa and the London 2012 Olympic Games in the first business quarter of next year, describing the upcoming device as ‘iconic’.
Sandra Alzetta, Visa Europe Head of Innovation and New Product Development confirmed the new phone following the company’s first European security summit in Frankfurt.
Phone specifications, design and features information aren’t fully out there yet, but what we do know is that the phone will include NFC capabilities, meaning it will be able to transmit signals wirelessly at close range, as well as contain exclusive London 2012 Olympic content for its worldwide release.
NFC technology is used for scanning a phone or card close to a detector to transfer information, usually for fast electronic money transactions. The inclusion of NFC technology in the phone has rendered Visa’s involvement with the phone unsurprising, as the company has been pushing to make the Olympics in 2012 a completely ‘contactless’ experience for those attending.
On top of the ‘iconic’ Olympic phone, Visa is also working to bring upgrades to existing phones too, with research on bringing the NFC feature to microSD cards, allowing microSD compatible phones to be NFC capable too. As for where to use NFC, the service could be avaliable at around 160,000 terminals in Europe, as well as 70,000 retail and dining locations in the UK.
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