Blog

Oct 16, 2016 Lots of hotels, offices, and apartment buildings are now using NFC-based access control systems. As a result, plenty of people ask about the practicality of cloning their access card to produce a spare or emulating their card via an NFC-capable smartphone. In this article we’ll look into why, while theoretically possible, doing so is often not practical. Types of access control systems In order to discuss how NFC access control systems can be defeated, we must start with looking at how they work in the first place.

Mar 21, 2015 Toronto was recently named the best city to live in according to the Economist. This was a huge sense of pride for me and other Torontonians that call this city home. Alas, if you’re commuting in Toronto, try taking the streetcar and you’ll feel like you’ve traveled back in time to the 1930s. You won’t have the privilege to get on board unless you have the exact coin change, a TTC token, a paper transfer, or a TTC pass.

Mar 16, 2015 When customers or investors once asked us why we never entered the NFC payment space we respectfully replied with “if Google can’t make money in mobile payments, we certainly can’t.” This often ended that line of questioning quite painlessly. Although Google Wallet has some adoption, it never gained the widespread usage Google had hoped. As a symbolic white flag, Host Card Emulation (HCE) was introduced in Android KitKat in 2013 allowing third party developers to create similar apps.

Mar 2, 2015 So it’s 2015, and by many predictions and forecasts this would be the precipice of NFC ubiquity. Of course Apple is still weighing in on this fate, but assuming Apple plays nice and allows NFC to be used for more than payments we’re certainly on that path. Just having NFC hardware shipped with iPhones is a huge step forward, and this is why 2015 will be the year of NFC for TapTrack and other NFC companies, just not for the everyday consumer just yet.

Jan 8, 2015 NFC Event Badges at CES2015 These first two days at CES have been an amazing experience. I’ve met so many interesting people, seen some great innovative products and benefited from the amazing networking opportunities. I’ve also been terribly disappointed with the NFC event badges at CES. To be clear, I don’t mean the badges themselves but more so the infrastructure that supports their NFC capabilities. After first seeing ITN’s product at the NFC Solutions Summit in 2014, I’m not shocked at the cumbersomeness of the the solution.

Dec 28, 2014 2014 was a big year for the Near Field Communication (NFC) industry. The once chilly ecosystem is now warmed by the radiance of the ApplePay sun. Now that Apple has adopted the technology, the term NFC is no longer a four letter word in technology circles. I no longer need to start my elevator pitch to investors, clients or prospects with a preamble about what NFC is and how it works.