Aix-En-Provence, France, February 12, 2010–INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open-standard contactless chip technologies, and Neowave, a developer of smart objects–intelligent, portable devices that go beyond smart cards–today announced their partnership to create the Weneo NFC, the industry’s first NFC smart object. Integrating INSIDE’s third-generation MicroRead® NFC solution, the multi-application Weneo NFC smart object creates a link to the Internet for NFC devices, tags and mobile phones for a variety of secure transactions.

“Neowave has successfully promoted the new concept of Smart Object in France with first commercial deployments in mass transit and pilots in banking, corporate security, healthcare and other markets,” said Michel Leduc, founder and VP of marketing and communication for Neowave. “INSIDE has been an invaluable partner for us during the development of this product, providing the core NFC technology powering our Weneo NFC smart object, as well as with the engineering tools and expert support we needed. ”

The Neowave Weneo NFC is a standalone NFC device in the form of a USB dongle that acts as both a card reader and card emulator to support a variety of NFC applications, including mass transit and other ticketing applications, payments, loyalty, secure physical and logical access, identity, healthcare, education and more. When plugged into a computer’s USB port, the Weneo NFC enables service operators to communicate securely over the Internet with the customer’s NFC handset, contactless card, ISO memory cards NFC tags, and an internal SIM card making it ideal for online reloading applications. In card emulation mode, the Weneo NFC becomes a multi-application contactless smart card, supporting all the NFC/ISO14443 contactless applications embedded in the built-in single-wire protocol enabled SIM card.

“The Weneo NFC is the first of a new wave of smart objects combining NFC and other technologies to make life easier, and we look forward to working with Neowave to bring this exciting product to market,” said Bertrand Moussel, executive vice president sales, EMEA and LATAM for INSIDE Contactless. “MicroRead speeds integration with a complete package of hardware, software and standards support designed to make it easy for device makers such as Neowave to get their products to market more quickly.”

INSIDE’s MicroRead suite combines third-generation silicon, a full set of interfaces, Open NFC protocol stack, a field-proven reference design and robust standards support into a turnkey contactless reader solution ideal for a broad range of applications in any cell phone, smart phone, PDA or other mobile device. MicroRead’s unique self-powered “battery-off” mode and low-power card detection features provide simplicity and convenience to improve the user experience by enabling transactions to take place successfully even when the host device is turned off or the battery is completely drained.

About Neowave

With Smart Objects as its core business, Neowave revolutionizes dematerialization and online services by simplifying secure Internet and contactless transactions for various communities of users. Weneo smart objects combine the high level of security provided by smart cards with the benefits of USB connectivity and contactless NFC/RFID technologies. Neowave’s products and services address the needs of local governments , enterprises, banking and other communities. Founded in June 2007 in Gardanne, at the heart of the SCS (secure communication solutions) cluster, Neowave was built on the expertise of its founders in smart card technology, embedded software, secure components and high-tech end-user products.

About INSIDE Contactless

INSIDE Contactless is the global leader in open-standard contactless payment and near field communication (NFC) semiconductors and software that power the next generation of payment, transit, identity and access control applications. The company’s intelligent, microprocessor-based platforms offer the flexibility to be embedded in smart cards, mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices, documents, badges and other items to support a wide range of innovative contactless applications and bring new levels of convenience to users. INSIDE has delivered more than 350 million contactless platforms worldwide to customers and partners that include many of the leading payment card and mobile phone manufacturers, systems integrators and financial institutions. With a portfolio of 60 families of patents, including several essential NFC patents, the company has played a leading role in NFC and contactless innovation. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Warsaw, Seoul and Silicon Valley. For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.

Contacts

For INSIDE Contactless

Patrick Corman
Corman Communications, LLC
(650) 326-9648
patrick@cormancom.com
http://www.cormancom.com

INSIDE company contact

Geraldine Sauniere
Marcom Director
+33 (0) 4 42 39 33 01
gsauniere@insidefr.com

NEOWAVE company contact

Name Michel LEDUC
Phone Tel: +33 (0)4 42 50 75 04
michel.leduc@neowave.fr