Beats Electronics LLC, the leading audio brand co-founded by legendary artist and producer Dr. Dre and Interscope Geffen A&M Chairman Jimmy Iovine, today announced the expansion of the company's global product offering with the introduction of the Beats Pill, a portable wireless speaker with built-in patented Beats Audio, and the Executive premium headphones. Beats currently owns over 56% of the $100+ premium headphone market in North America according to data from NPD, and these two new products will continue to raise the bar across form, function, design and most importantly, sound quality.

"The introduction of the Beats Pill and the Executive is the perfect beginning to a truly autonomous Beats as we transform into a freestanding consumer electronics company this year, " said Beats By Dr. Dre President & COO, Luke Wood. "These products demonstrate our total commitment to design, technological innovation and premium sound experience."

HP today announced four new consumer all-in-one (AiO) PCs, including two additions to the HP ENVY line that feature the latest touch-technology innovation in a small footprint, one-cord solution.

"The clean look of an all-in-one PC and the ease of one-cord set-up are key reasons customers turn to HP," said James Mouton, senior vice president and general manager, Personal Computer Global Business Unit, HP. "The Spectre design is art as well as a powerful entertainment hub. Across our rich line of all-in-ones, we continue to drive value and differentiation that have earned us sales of more than 5 million all-in-ones."

Ultimate sound quality, comfort wear and design are beautifully harmonised in the new MDR-1 range of premium headphones from Sony. The pinnacle of over fifty years of design innovation by Sony, the ground-breaking MDR-1 range is the result of unique creative partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. Available in standard, digital noise cancelling and Bluetooth wireless versions, the new headphones feature a closed-back design for maximum isolation and exceptional bass response.

The headphones have been created with leading music industry figures, whose knowledge of current trends has directly influenced the design of the MDR-1. In a unique collaboration with Sony Music artists, singer songwriter Katy B and dubstep supergroup Magnetic Man joined evaluation sessions with Mastering engineer Naweed Ahmed at Whitfield Mastering, one of London's longest-established and most respected music studios.

With NFC technology you simply touch the speaker with your NFC-enabled smartphone to start streaming music with Bluetooth. Easy to carry anywhere in the house, the SRS-BTM8 can be used with AA/LR6 batteries or a mains adapter.

The SRS-BTM8 portable wireless NFC Bluetooth speaker from Sony lets you enjoy music from your smartphone or tablet in high quality audio, anywhere in the house. What's more, thanks to built-in NFC** (Near Field Communication) technology, you don't even have to worry about pairing your devices if they're NFC-enabled.

Visa Inc. and Intel Corporation today announced a strategic agreement to develop mobile commerce solutions tailored to consumers in developed and developing countries. During a press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the companies outlined plans to collaborate to ensure consumers enjoy a consistent, streamlined, secure mobile commerce experience across Intel Atom-based smartphones and tablets.

"Visa's agreement with Intel paves the way for financial institutions around the globe to offer their account holders mobile payments and financial services using innovative mobile devices and technologies designed by Intel," said John Partridge, President, Visa Inc. during the press conference. "This is another example of how Visa is making mobile payments broadly available across devices and operating systems and is ensuring that mobile commerce applications are aligned with existing technology and security standards established by the global payments industry."

HP's posterboy Ultrabook, the Envy 14 Spectre, was announced last month amidst some fanfare, though it wasn't immediately available. As announced it is now available via HP's online store for US $1,399.99 for the base-configuration, and 1,899.99 for HP's "recommended configuration", which includes a 256 GB SSD, and a Core i7-2770M processor instead of a 128 GB SSD and Core i5-2467M on the base-configuration, among other HP-exclusives. The 14-incher measures 12.88" (W) x 8.7" (D) x 0.79" (H), weighing 1.8 kg, packs a 1366x768 pixel screen; two of its most notable features, apart from its size, include solid-state storage and near-field communication (NFC).

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the trade association responsible for the development, promotion and protection of the Bluetooth specification, today announced the publication of Bluetooth Secure Simple Pairing Using NFC. The new document provides developers with examples of how to implement Bluetooth Secure Simple Pairing (SSP) using NFC to take maximum advantage of both technologies when they are present in the same device. The publication is available for free download.

Bluetooth Secure Simple Pairing Using NFC describes the interaction of Bluetooth technology and NFC during SSP in detail and provides examples of both negotiated and static handover in the most feasible use cases involving both technologies. Developers will find the examples useful guides for their own work, including:

INSIDE Secure, a leader in semiconductor solutions for secure transactions and digital identity, today announced it has entered into an agreement with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) to provide the company with INSIDE's NFC products and technologies. The agreement marks a significant milestone for INSIDE Secure and the future of the NFC industry, helping move this emerging technology towards full-scale market adoption.

The agreement gives Intel access to INSIDE's software, firmware and core hardware technology for development of future Intel products. In addition, INSIDE will provide Intel's Mobile Wireless Group with access to scalable NFC solutions based on INSIDE's MicroRead, SecuRead and Open NFC products.