20 Finalists Seek Top Honors in NFC Forum Global Competition 2010

Winners to be Announced at WIMA NFC Developers Summit, Monaco, April 21

WAKEFIELD, Mass., USA — March 24, 2010 — The NFC Forum (http://www.nfc-forum.org), a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, today announced it has selected 20 finalists for its NFC Forum Global Competition 2010. Entries were received from a variety of countries throughout Asia, Europe and North America. The submissions cover a broad span of consumer and business application areas, including mobile couponing, healthcare, building access and security, retail merchandising, online user authentication, nutrition management, gaming, online banking and support for the disabled.

The Competition's Commercial Track recognizes the commercial solution judged "The Best NFC Service of the Year 2010," while a Research Track honors the academic organization that develops "The Most Innovative NFC Research Project of the Year 2010." Three winners in each track will be awarded cash prizes. First-place winners will receive 5000 euros, second-place 1500 euros and third-place 1000 euros. Finalists and winners may look forward to global media coverage, increased awareness among industry leaders and venture capitalists, and opportunities to forge partnerships and share ideas.

The 10 finalists in the Commercial Track are:

• BCNTouch (Spain): Chasing Clothes
• Mautilus (Czech Republic): The 3rd Eye Platform
• MoLo Rewards (USA): MoLo Wallet
• Objecs LLC (USA): Personal RosettaStone
• Adamsoft d.o.o. (Slovenia): Smart Poster System
• Clear2Pay (Belgium): NFC Vouchers - Next-generation Payments at Your Fingertips
• ITN International, Inc. (USA): BCARD Reader - NFC Ecosystem for Events and Tradeshows
  
• NEXPERTS (Austria): Touch & Pay
  
• NTT DOCOMO, Inc. (Japan): Wellness Support - NFC Dynamic Tags Enable New Style Data Communication
• VTT Technical Research Centre (Finland): Worldcom

The 10 finalists in the Research Track are:

• Artesis University College Antwerp (Belgium): NFC Learning Environment
• Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (Germany): "localice" - a Corporate Location-based Infrastructure Built on NFC and Wi-Fi
• Interactive Research & Development (Pakistan): Interactive Chart for Childhood Diseases
• LaBRI, University of Bordeaux I (France): ZeKmop - Zero Knowledge Mobile Phone
• Lancaster University (UK): MyState: Allowing Users to Describe Themselves and Their Environment with NFC and Facebook
• NTTPC Communications, Inc. (Japan): The Digital Contents Distribution System with NFC P2P
• Technische Universität München, Chair for Information Systems (Germany): DropTheBeat - Making Online Music Playlists Touchable
• Technische Universität München, Chair for Information Systems (Germany): Touch 'n Document - a Nutrition Management System on an NFC-tagged TFT Display
• Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Club de Innovacion (Spain): PharmaFabula - NFC Mobile Technology and RFID for Identification of Medicines for the Blind
• Universite Joseph Fourier -- Polytech'Grenoble (France): TouchKey - Home and Building Access Management Platform for NFC Doorlocks

"This year's NFC Forum Global Competition finalists underscore the remarkable versatility and applicability of the technology," said Koichi Tagawa, chairman of the NFC Forum. "These creative solutions introduce new business models, capabilities, and convenience, and we are delighted to showcase them at this year's WIMA event." Each team of finalists will deliver a presentation and live demonstration at the WIMA NFC Developers Summit demo space (http://www.wima-nfc.com) on April 21, 2010. Following these events, the jury, composed of senior and recognized professionals and experts from academia and sponsoring companies, will vote to select the three winners for each track. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony that evening at WIMA. The finalists will continue to showcase their entries in the WIMA demo space on April 22.

Further details about the competition may be found at http://www.nfc-forum.org/competition.