CSR Announces Fast-Pitch Winners for 2011 Locations & Beyond Summit

Tagwhat, DoubleDutch and Localmind win prestigious People’s Choice and Investor’s Choice awards based on voting from Summit attendees and investors

Locations and Beyond Summit

CAMBRIDGE, England & SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CSR plc (LSE:CSR) (NASDAQ:CSRE) today announced the winners of its popular Fast-Pitch competition from last week’s Locations and Beyond Summit, held in San Francisco, California, in which six finalist companies – chosen from a large list of applicants – presented innovative new location-aware offerings. The winners are as follows, in three categories: The People’s Choice award, chosen and voted upon by Summit attendees, went to Tagwhat; the runner-up for People’s Choice was DoubleDutch. This year, an additional prize was added: the Investor’s Choice Award, chosen by a panel of investors attending the Summit including Dan Levine of Accel Partners, John Malloy of Blue Run Ventures, and Rakesh Sood of DOCOMO Capital; this award went to Localmind.

“We received a record number of Fast Pitch nominations this year, reflecting the breadth and diversity of innovative new location-enabled applications and services”

The Fast-Pitch presentations are among the most popular sessions at Locations and Beyond Summits, as they showcase novel and creative use-cases of location technology. Several months prior to the Summit, participants applied to be Fast-Pitch finalists; a panel of judges sifted through applications to decide upon the finalists, based upon the level of innovation, functionality, ease of use, and potential impact on the market of the application.

“We received a record number of Fast Pitch nominations this year, reflecting the breadth and diversity of innovative new location-enabled applications and services,” said Kanwar Chadha, chief marketing officer for CSR. “This year’s Fast-Pitch presentations were among the most interesting in the history of the Summit, and illuminated how far the industry has come even in just the past year in terms of delivering truly useful and immersive information to users by adding location context to data in a cloud-connected world.”

About the Fast-Pitch Winners

Tagwhat offers a multimedia location guide that reveals videos, photos, narratives, and audio about the world around people wherever they go, based on their pre-selected, customized interests such as art, food, music, movies, heritage, sports and books, enabling them to see the world through a custom lens.

Localmind is a real-time, location-based Q&A platform that leverages social check-in services, enabling users to ask questions of users checked-in anywhere around the world, such as inquiring if a bar is crowded, what the specials are in a restaurant, or finding out if the local coffee shop WiFi is functioning.

DoubleDutch demonstrated its HYVE Sales mobile social customer relationship management (CRM) tool designed to save salespeople time, increase engagement, and generate real-time analytics from the field. HYVE Sales is the first CRM to be built from the ground up for mobile devices around touch navigation, and includes numerous “mobile-specific” features like location based check-ins, camera integration, and geo-fenced customer sites. HYVE boosts productivity by enabling salespeople to stay connected, log their activity, and get work done - all via their mobile device.

About the Other Fast-Pitch Finalists

Grabio brings location-awareness and transparency to online classifieds by connecting buyers and sellers within their local communities. Grabio features a personal assistant, Wish List, that searches in real-time for items that users wish to purchase, and sends them notifications, simplifying and streamlining the process of buying and selling goods.

Sonar is a mobile application that uncovers the hidden connections that users share with other people nearby, tapping the many connections people miss every day - friends, friends of friends, fellow alumni, and likeminded strangers. The free tool identifies users’ location and identifies people in the room with whom they have most in common. Users can check in on Foursquare using Sonar and scroll through profiles of people in the same location who share the most connections through Facebook and Twitter.

Quipster, offered by Mobilitz Inc., is a location-based social network that lets users share what’s going on around town with their friends and community through contextual icons, called “Quips,” which provide immediate context for what people are doing, as well as their location. Users can also share check-ins on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, as well as see all the live Quips of everyone in their town or city, filtered by category of interest, enabling them to discover people who share similar interests and build their own communities.

About the Locations and Beyond Summit

For the last five years, the Locations and Beyond Summit has brought together location ecosystem leaders, innovators and developers to help set the agenda for the future of location-enhanced services and technologies. This year’s invitation-only event focused on the ubiquitous and intelligent integration of location technology and its impact upon consumers, enterprises and the location ecosystem.

About CSR

CSR is a global provider of innovative silicon and software solutions for the location-aware, media-rich, cloud-connected world. Our platforms are optimised for the automotive navigation and infotainment, digital cameras and imaging, connected home infotainment and wireless audio markets. We provide solutions to complex problems in the audio-visual, connectivity and location technology domains across a broad range of markets, with a technology portfolio that includes GPS/GNSS systems, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM, NFC, aptX and CVC audio codecs, JPEG, MPEG, H.264 imaging, IPS printing, microcontrollers, DSPs and broadband receivers. CSR's technology solutions and market platforms enable its customers to deliver a superior user experience and are adopted by leaders in the auto, computer, home and mobile markets. More information can be found at www.csr.com. Keep up to date with CSR on our blog, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/CSR_plc.

WIMA Announces First NFC Applications, Products and Services Congress in U.S.

Image via CrunchBase

November 09, 2011 08:00 AM Eastern Time 

Industry Leaders to Provide Perspectives on Imminent NFC Market Explosion During Two-Day San Francisco Event

MONACO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WIMA, the leading global conference and exhibition dedicated to Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, announced today that its first U.S. event will be held November 30 through December 1, 2011 in San Francisco. For the first time, global NFC industry leaders and influencers will meet in the U.S. to raise awareness of NFC technology, applications, products, and services.

WIMA NFC USA will bring together start-up companies, developers, solution providers, product manufacturers, carriers and merchants, to network, partner, and learn about the diversity of NFC applications for a multitude of services. Keynotes and presentations will be presented by experts from leading companies including:

• Jeff Miles, Vice President Mobile Transactions Worldwide, NXP Semiconductors, Official Sponsor
• Corey Wilson, Sales & Business Development, NFC UPM RFID, Platinum Sponsor
• Charles Walton, Chief Operating Officer, INSIDE Secure, Gold Sponsor
• Jeremy Belostock, Head of NFC, Nokia, Gold Sponsor
• Hamid Zaidi, Founder, Tagfair, Gold Sponsor
• Dr. Mikko Kerttula, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, 6Starz, Silver Sponsor
• Dr. Tam Hulusi, Sr. Vice President, Strategic Innovation and Intellectual Property, HID Global, Silver Sponsor
• Werner Koele, Marketing & Business Development Manager, Infineon Technologies, Silver Sponsor
• Glenn Needham, Director, Near Field Solutions Ltd., Silver Sponsor

Other participating organizations include: MasterCard Worldwide, ViVOtech, NFC Forum, GSMA, PayPal, C-Sam Inc., Sony Electronics Inc., Identive Group, Inc., Market Platform Dynamics, BayPay Forum, GlobalPlatform, ALINC Consulting Inc., GetJar, ITN International, Poken, Proxama, MIT Enterprise Forum, Consult Hyperion, HOTech, Narian Technologies, Poken, Think&Go NFC, Hansaprint, WhileOnTheMove Ltd., Cardolution Handels GmbH, City of Oulu - SmartUrbanSpaces, Aditux, Tagstand, Wireless Sensor Technologies, and yes-wallet.com Ltd.

The congress will address NFC use, including benefits for merchants in both payment and non-payment scenarios as NFC phones deploy in volume over the next 12 months. Moderated sessions will cover NFC applications and services for gaming, social media, event management, marketing, healthcare, mobile services, retail, payment, access control, ticketing, security, and other applications. WIMA NFC USA also features a demo area where more than 25 companies will showcase NFC applications, products, and services that span industries.

The WIMA NFC USA Best Sponsor Application Contest will allow attendees and the media to vote for their favorite applications and present the Audience Award. Event attendees will be able to try innovative NFC solutions at various locations around the event. The event also offers a go-to-market session on elements to consider when planning for an NFC product launch. All sessions are being held at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF, 1675 Owens Street in San Francisco.

Event registration is available at www.wima.mc/2011usa.

About WIMA

WIMA is the global event dedicated to NFC technology and earning a vote of confidence from hundreds of companies who have attended its events in Monaco. WIMA brings together industry leaders, start-up companies, application developers, service providers, standards organizations, government bodies, and research institutes across the NFC industry and spanning market sectors. WIMA is a catalyst, facilitating networking and information sharing, enabling partnering and business to take place within the NFC industry. For more information, visit: www.wima.mc/2011usa/content/Welcome/welcomeUK.php

INSIDE Secure Highlights Security Pervasiveness at CARTES 2011

November 09, 2011 05:00 AM Eastern Time 

Showcases Comprehensive Solutions for Wide Range of Security Applications

CARTES & IDentification 2011

AIX EN PROVENCE, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--INSIDE Secure, a leader in semiconductor solutions for secure transactions and digital identity, today announced that it will showcase its family of secure solutions at CARTES and IDentification 2011 for applications that range from payment and smart card readers to anti-counterfeiting, e-health and NFC handset integration. The INSIDE booth will display a broad array of secure solutions and demonstrate INSIDE’s continuing market leadership.

“From our strong leadership position, INSIDE has tightly aligned its business and secure product solutions with our customers’ needs, so that we can easily support their evolving security strategies as they design and develop products to meet the demands of their markets.”

Visitors to CARTES & IDentification 2011 in Paris, Nov. 15-17, can view INSIDE Secure solutions at any time during the exhibition at the INSIDE booth 4L022, located in Hall 4 of the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center. Technical and product experts from INSIDE will also be available for discussions in meeting room 4J159.

During CARTES 2011, INSIDE solutions on display will include:

• Complete turnkey solutions for dual interface, contactless, and contact smart card readers;

• E-health solutions using INSIDE card and reader technologies, secure CC EAL5+ certified microcontrollers and interfaces;

• Contactless very high bit rate microcontrollers optimized for transport applications with high security and accelerated data transfer between cards and readers for high volumes of data;

• INSIDE’s SecuRead® product, which combines a MicroRead® NFC controller with a EAL5+ Secure Element, Java card OS and Open NFC Stack to simplify integration with mobile handsets;

• Anti-counterfeiting solutions based on the INSIDE VaultIC 150 product that use low-cost tags and a secure application on NFC-enabled mobile phones to identify, track and trace counterfeit products; and

• Turnkey PKI solutions ranging from low-cost USB eToken-based solutions to security systems with firmware and EAL4+ hardware.

“Security has become a pervasive requirement across markets and applications,” said Charles Walton, chief operating officer at INSIDE Secure. “From our strong leadership position, INSIDE has tightly aligned its business and secure product solutions with our customers’ needs, so that we can easily support their evolving security strategies as they design and develop products to meet the demands of their markets.”

INSIDE executives also will be involved in conference presentations. Bernard Vian, executive vice president of the Secure Products business line for INSIDE Secure, will present a session on “Making NFC Access Ubiquitous: A Cloud-based Authentication Framework,” on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. as part of the C10: Security in a Cloud Ecosystem conference session. Then, David Richetto of INSIDE will make his presentation, “How NFC and Advanced Security Technology Help Fight Counterfeiting” on Thursday, Nov. 17, from 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. as part of the C12: M2M Applications & Internet of Things conference session.

With more than 20,000 visitors, 450 exhibitors, and 1300 delegates from over 140 countries, CARTES & IDentification 2011 is the number one professional event in the world for digital security, smart technologies, and payment and mobility markets. This year’s hot topic is mobile payment, which will be featured in the new Mobile Payment Pavilion.

About INSIDE Secure

INSIDE Secure is a leading designer, developer and supplier of semiconductors, embedded software and platforms for secure transactions and digital security. INSIDE mobile NFC, secure payment and digital security products provide security for a wide range of information processing, storage and transmission applications. The company’s customers are found in a wide range of markets including mobile payment, identification documents, access control, transit, electronic device manufacturing, pay television and mobile service operators. For more information visit www.insidesecure.com.