Swiss watch maker Swatch teamed with Visa and its Visa Europe subsidiary to enable NFC-based contactless payments on its forthcoming Bellamy smart watch. Swatch said the "pay-by-the-wrist" watch would initially be available to consumers in Switzerland, the U.S. and Brazil from early 2016, when the Swatch Bellamy is due to launch. The payments service can then be used anywhere that contactless NFC-based Visa payments are accepted. In a statement announcing the collaboration, Swatch said the Bellamy smart watch would "open a new era of connected commerce" and would tap into the growing acceptance of contactless payments around the world.

Some months ago a company called Mattel came up with a Barbie doll that could interact with children and talk right back to them, just like the voice assistants, Siri, Google Voice and Cortana, that are fast becoming part of life. Cute? Not really. Soon after it was launched, it was found that the doll could understand a fair bit of context and respond accordingly such as making suggestions to kids or encouraging them to do something. This was greeted with a more than a little alarm by adults who worried at what the sweet looking doll could influence children to …

Home surveillance manufacturer Nest has dismissed reports of secret surveillance by its internet-connected Nest Cam. Earlier this week, ABI Research reported that the Nest Cam keeps drawing a healthy amount of current, even when it is switched off. The researchers suggested that the camera is still working and likely observing, as it draws 343mA while off, and up to 370mA or 418mA while on. ABI’s Jim Mielke said that the high power consumption suggests that the webcam does not power down, and instead continues to record the surroundings. “Typically a shutdown or standby mode would reduce current by as much as 10 …

The European Commission is considering a comprehensive plan to support the growing connectivity between machines, but may settle for a more targeted initiative as part of its Digital Single Market strategy, EurActiv has learned. Commission officials acknowledge that the executive has been relatively silent since it published a study on the Internet of Things last year. Thibaut Kleiner, head of unit for Network Technologies, said the Commission is considering now whether a specific piece of legislation is needed to address this fast-growing sector, or whether it would be sufficient to add elements to legislative plans already in the pipeline, like the Digital …

It’s easy enough for technology writers to get breathless when writing about the Internet of Things. The headlines almost write themselves – a gee-whiz technology that takes “dumb” everyday objects, puts a chip into them, and makes them “smart.” And when everything is connected to and communicating with everything else, our lives will be immeasurably easier, infinitely more efficient and productive … yadda yadda yadda. Except, maybe, the Internet of Things is starting to show its flaws, not just in giving us things and connectivity that we don't really need, but also in creating security gaps that never would have …

The road from Barcelona airport to the city’s Gran Via conference space and adjacent hotels is not a rocky one. Even at busy times, it takes less than 20 minutes to arrive. It means that Barcelona passes the first test when it comes to being a tech hub: it is smart when it comes to transportation. In recent years, global cities such as Barcelona have all tried to emulate the oft-mentioned Silicon Valley model to become another tech hub that will encourage companies and talented people to create a cluster of tech companies.

The Internet of Things is still at an early adoption stage, but it's already changing the way that we live our lives. 2008 was the year there were more devices online than people. By the year 2019, it's estimated that 1.9 billion devices that connect homes to the Internet will be in place. That's 1.9 billion opportunities for hackers to get into your home. Steve Weisman, a professor at Bentley University in Boston and the proprietor of Scamicide.com, explains the Internet of Things as any device that's connected to the Internet. "Your fridge can tell you when it needs repairs," he says. "You can …

After a beauty product is sold, the company loses its connection with the customer. It is impossible for the company to find out if the product caused an allergic reaction to the user or did it provide the expected results? Can beauty products connected to the internet be the answer? L’Oreal (OTC:LRLCY) seems to be exploring this idea. At a cosmetic conference in Paris, Feeligreen, a start-up, exhibited a newly developed skin care device based on the Internet of Things, that tracks usage and sends data back to the manufacturer to feed into product development and marketing. According to an article published …

Cisco have lots on their plates but the expansion of the so-called Internet of Things will only add to their headaches. That’s becoming clear with many reports that the software behind IoT devices often isn’t up to enterprise security standards. The latest is a research paper presented by European security researchers at last week’s DefCamp conference in Romania that found serious problems in Web interfaces of IoT devices. Using a framework they created to analyze firmware, the researchers found serious vulnerabilities in at least 24 per cent of the Web interfaces they were able to emulate, including 225 high impact vulnerabilities by …

We have so much wonderful technology at our fingertips, from smartphones to wearables to new iterations we in the general public probably haven’t even dreamed of yet. But which tech will shape the future the most? According to a recent IBM study: Cloud. The IBM C-Suite Study is based on interviews with 5,247 C-level executives from 70 countries — a fair sample size, to say the very least — and the tech results are telling.