Singapore on the cusp of becoming an NFC-enabled nation; thousands of merchants involved

Previously, we’ve written that 2012 could be a big year for Near-field Communication Technology. Today, Singapore has taken a big step towards making it happen.

Gemalto, a global digital security company that is leading an NFC consortium in Singapore, has announced that it is finally ready to launch a slew of NFC-enabled mobile payment services.

The consortium, which consists of Citibank, DBS, EZ-Link, and all three mobile operators in Singapore — M1, SingTel, and StarHub,  is supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

If you’re hazy on what NFC is, it is essentially a technology that, among other uses, turns smartphones into mobile wallets. It essentially eliminates the need to bring out physical wallets and credit cards. Read more

Aggregate all digital bills into one place with GreenPost

With electronic bills slowly entering mainstream usage, GreenPost hopes to aggregate all your digital bills into one place for convenient viewing. Users would need to register for an account on the website (or through their iPhone, iPad, and Android app) and link the respective service providers — like your phone company for instance — with GreenPost. After that, the bills will appear on the GreenPost website or app. Read more

65Bits Episode 148: Somewhere between Joo Koon and Joo Chiat

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Faster Starhub broadband, [2] iPhone prices in Singapore, [3] Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad, [4] CrunchPad Federal Lawsuit Filed; Some Additional Thoughts and [5] Google backs world’s fastest internet cable. Do click and check out their latest podcast here.

65Bits Episode 140: Justin and Fari’s opinion does not represent Tech65

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Singapore’s M1 to Start Selling the iPhone, [2] Kindle in S’pore soon?, [3] Problem with Kindle international, [4] First Photos of Barnes & Noble’s Double Screen E-Reader, [5] Google challenges e-readers by taking e-books directly to browser, [6] Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data, [7] Warning: Do not change your Twitter username, email address or reset password, [8] What problems does Google Wave solve?, [9] PSA: Beware of Google Wave scam sites, [10] Apple relents: in-app purchase for free apps allows demo-to-paid and the Byte of the week: Dim Dim. Do click and check out their latest podcast here.

65Bits Episode 135: Time machine

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Apple updates iTunes and iPods, [2] iTunes 9, [3] iPod Classic, [4] iPod Nano, [5] iPhone 3.1, [6] iPod Touch, [7] Palm Pixi, [8] Motorola Cliq, [9] Nokia twist, [10] M1 launches Mifi and the Byte of the week: Facebook Lite. Do click and check out their latest podcast here.

65Bits Episode 134: What the *beep*

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Tech21 iBand is the MUST Protection for Your iPhone, iPod Touch with d30 Technology, [2] M1 buys Qala for $14.9m, [3] Free 1mbps wireless@sg from September 1st, [4] Google Sells Company Merchandise Online, [5] Creative announces first touchscreen player and [6] HTC Hero First Look (HD Video). There is no byte of the week. Do click and check out their podcast.