OMNIKEY Joins the NFC Forum
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Walluf, Germany - Aug 04th, 2006 - OMNIKEY, one of the world's leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, has joined the NFC Forum to help to expand the connectivity of NFC credentials and devices to personal computers.
The Near Field Communication (NFC) Forum is a non-profit industry association formed to advance the use of NFC short-range wireless interaction in consumer electronics, mobile devices and PCs. Interoperability between all NFC devices, that are based on 13.56 MHz technology, and easy consumer interaction with those devices are the major goals of the Forum.
Already today, OMNIKEY delivers contactless PC-linked readers based on the PC/SC framework that read and write to 13.56 MHz credentials. Thus, the reader/writer functionality as defined by the NFC-Forum is already supported. By joining the Forum, OMNIKEY will be able to leverage on its in-depth know-how of smart card reader integration into PCs and to extend its offering to support all NFC tokens with any NFC operating mode.
NFC technology evolved from a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies. It combines the functions of a contactless reader, a contactless card and peer-to-peer communication. Operating at 13.56 MHz, NFC technology is defined in the ISO 18092 and ISO 21481, ECMA (340, 352 and 356) and ETSI TS 102 190 standards. NFC is also compatible with the broadly-established contactless smart card infrastructure based on the ISO 14443 A standard (Philips MIFARE® technology) as well as Sony's FeliCa(TM) contactless card.
"Our membership of the NFC Forum can be the starting point to gain momentum in NFC acceptance at end-user level," comments Kurt Schmid, CEO of OMNIKEY. "The integration of NFC enabled devices into personal computers will be easy thanks to our unique experience with PC-linked devices. People are already used to working with a 13.56 MHz contactless card and an OMNIKEY reader to securely access their PC. The same will be possible with NFC technology."
CardMan® readers supporting all NFC modes (reader/writer, card emulation and peer-to-peer in active and passive mode) will be available in the second half of 2006. Both ready-to-use peripherals as well as OEM modules will be offered by OMNIKEY.
About OMNIKEY
OMNIKEY, one of the world's leading manufacturers of innovative smart card readers, offers the most diversified product portfolio available on the market today. OMNIKEY's smart card readers for PCs can be utilized by any application including logical access control, digital signature, WLAN authentication, secure banking and online transactions, loyalty programs, and healthcare solutions.
OMNIKEY, headquartered in Walluf, near Wiesbaden (Germany), is part of ASSA ABLOY Identification Technologies (ITG). OMNIKEY´s North American headquarters reside in Irvine, California with technical support in Atlanta, Georgia. The Asia Pacific operation is located in Hong Kong. Design, production management, and quality control of OMNIKEY's products are carried out in the company's two R&D centers in Linz, Austria and Erfurt, Germany. OMNIKEY readers are distributed worldwide through a global network of partners, including value added resellers, system integrators, and OEMs. For further information please visit www.omnikey.com.
About the NFC Forum
The Near Field Communication (NFC) Forum is a non-profit industry association formed to advance the use of NFC short-range wireless interaction in consumer electronics, mobile devices and PCs. The NFC Forum will promote implementation and standardization of NFC technology to ensure interoperability between devices and services.
Consumers are seeking easier ways to interact with their immediate environment and to enable easy communication between their electronic devices. Delivering convenient wireless connectivity, NFC's intuitive operation will change the way we interact with technology, ensuring that we can make the most of our environment and reap the full benefits of total connectivity.
The vision of the NFC Forum is to enable users to access content and services in an intuitive way by simply touching smart objects and connecting devices just by holding them next to each other. To bring this vision to life, the NFC Forum invites all interested parties - companies from mobile communications, consumer electronics, chip manufacturing, computing, media and entertainment, telecom and payment services sectors - to join the NFC Forum and help further our goals.
As a group, the NFC Forum's Sponsor Members represent the leading players in key industries in all the major regions of the world. The Sponsor Members are: MasterCard International, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Microsoft Corp., Nokia Corporation, NEC, Renesas Technology, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sony Corporation, Texas Instruments and Visa International.
For further information, please contact:
Antje K. Schäfer
OMNIKEY
Am Klingenweg 6 a
65396 Walluf - Germany
Tel: +49 6123/7913-15
Fax: +49 6123/7913-28
antje.schaefer@omnikey.com
Pier Costa
WISE MEDIA S.p.A.
Via Lepetit 4
20124 Milano - Italy
Tel: +39 / 02 / 8903 4111
Fax: +39 / 02 / 67388322
pier@wisemedia.it
