NFC, biometrics and RFID are the three winning technologies of SIMagine 2008, the worldwide mobile communication and Java Card developers contest. The Awards ceremony was held at the Mobile World Congress.
The 2008 SIMagine worldwide contest has been very selective: out of 200 projects presented by start-ups and universities, 8 finalists have been selected. Invited to demo their applications at the Mobile World Congress, last February in Barcelona, all the finalists received a prize from Gemalto, the initiator of SIMagine, the main sponsors Samsung Semiconductor Europe and Sun Microsystems and from Gemalto’s operator partners Maxis, MTN, Telefonica and TIM for this edition. The three most prestigious awards went to NFC, biometrics and RFID based solutions.
SIODATA Technologies, a Chinese start-up, has won the Golden Prize for its NFC and Java Card based couponing application: NFC Coupon. In short, this innovative solution consists of a comprehensive couponing system, based on mobile handset used as a coupon reader. Using Qr-code, paper coupons are converted into Java Card virtual coupons that can be used with NFC-enabled devices. The system allows managing virtual coupons and market analysis from a backend smart card Web server. SIODATA is familiar with SIM card industry. This 10 employee start-up develops SIM test tools and counts in its customer portfolio China Mobile and China Unicom. SIODATA won a Bronze Award at the previous SIMagine contest. The Golden Prize winner plan to make a further step towards a closer cooperation with Gemalto on the deployment of the solution.
The Silver Prize went to Precise Biometrics, an established Swedish start-up, for its Precise BioMatch solution, a SIM card containing fingerprint recognition functionality. The solution uses an external sensor to send the fingerprints by any wireless ways: NFC, Bluetooth, GPRS, MMS, etc. No integrated reader is required in the mobile handset. This secure authorization solution complements the Precise Biometrics’ already broad line of product and solutions. The start-up expects from the SIMagine prize that it will bring a larger visibility to its solutions.
And the Bronze Prize went to Free Access, an Italian start-up for its Taggy Tones application, which uses RFID tags to store digital content and so to facilitate buying, distributing, giving as gifts or exchanging ringtones and other contents. Using a colorful card containing an RFID tag, named the TaggyTones card, the solution allow to transfer music or other content directly to the phone via a NFC connection. Free Access looks forward to gaining visibility and credibility on the mobile markets thanks to this award.
