BARCELONA, February 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today introduced new capabilities for its Alcatel-Lucent Venture product solution, touchatag, formerly known as tikitag. These new enhancements include 2D barcode support, extended API, and new business solutions. This will assist application developers, businesses and consumers in creating contactless applications for touchatag that link real world objects to information and applications on the internet, PC, Mac or mobile phone.
touchatag is an online Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) service. This service makes it possible for the creation of applications that enable the launch of online applications with a simple touch of an RFID enabled device, such as a mobile phone. Items tagged with an RFID chip provide users with one touch, fast and easy access to on-line information, registration, ticketing and payment.
"The new name reflects our expanded portfolio and strongly supports the value of our service while differentiating our brand from others in the marketplace." said Anthony Belpaire, Alcatel-Lucent General Manager of the touchatag Venture. "Supporting our focus on open innovation and application enablement, touchatag provides application developers, businesses, and consumers with an open API and an application development toolkit. These tools allow creative people to blend the flexibility of the Internet with their creativity to deliver new user experiences and services. Our users are our inspiration, and our new capabilities and features are based on their feedback."
The touchatag suite of offerings includes five new business solutions (http://business.touchatag.com). They are:
- electronic value transactions, such as loyalty programs or facilitation of financial transactions, - event experiences, whereby touchatag is used to streamline interest recording and link attendees to key information of interest online, - interactive advertising, - smart toys and media, and - mobile workforce solutions for one touch service registration and information access while on the move.
For the "Do-it-Yourself" consumers, touchatag has added a number of enhancements. The new 2D barcode tag creation capability enables an RFID tag to be read by a mobile phone camera with a 2D barcode reader. With this capability, the touchatag online service then selects the right application to initiate, given the tag reader ID and the context. For example, a user can be seamlessly linked to a person's social network by reading a 2D barcode tag on a photo on a business card. Additionally, consumers can use a Firefox plug-in to quickly link a RFID tag to a website directly from their browser.
New touchatag enhancements provide application developers with a full API suite enabling them to easily build and extend contactless applications. This rich applications environment will foster a creative place where people can build on the touchatag service. At the core of the service, is the touchatag Application Correlation Server (ACS), which manages the link between an RFID tag and a corresponding action to be initiated. When an RFID enabled device touches the RFID tag, it automatically connects with the touchatag ACS. The ACS then directs the internet-enabled device to access the appropriate online content and applications. From smart toys to loyalty programs, the variety of contactless applications that can be created is limitless. touchatag application developers are provided with an easy to use interface and website to share and promote their projects at http://developer.touchatag.com.
The City of Manor, Texas, USA has taken advantage of touchatag's unique benefits:
"We use touchatag with most of our internal communications. It's much easier to scan a tag that links to information stored on our intranet than it would be to print out binders full of documents that would then have to be distributed," said Dustin Haisler, City of Manor, Chief Information Officer. "touchatag has been so well-received that we plan to expand it's use in order to help residents manage their city accounts, for example, utility bills. We feel touchatag provides users with improved access to their information and will help us offer them faster, more accurate customer service."
To find out more about touchatag please go to our website: http://www.touchatag.com.
touchatag will be demonstrated during Mobile World Congress at the Showstoppers@Mobile World Congress on February 15th Hotel Majestic Barcelona Spain at 5:00pm. It will also be a featured User Experience on the Alcatel-Lucent stand #8A147.
About Alcatel-Lucent Ventures
Alcatel-Lucent Ventures is a business incubator within Bell Labs. It identifies game-changing ideas within the Alcatel-Lucent community and commercializes these ideas into new products and services for network operators, enterprises and end-users. Ventures extend from the concept stage to commercial readiness, driven by fast-moving teams of motivated entrepreneurs who combine their own ingenuity with nimble business processes to create product solutions that address customer needs. With competency centers in Antwerp, Belgium and New Jersey, USA, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures has successfully commercialized eight products and has a portfolio of ventures in development. Along the way, it has garnered significant attention from the industry and racked up an impressive track-record of awards, including multiple CTIA Emerging Technology awards along with NXTComm EOS and Product of the Year.
About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions that to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris.
For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
