Boot up: NSA email!, iPhone v NFC, patents v podcasters,

Plus the man who made liquid soap slips away, Dell won't do phones, 64-bit coming to Android, Galaxy NX reviewed, and moreMobile payment terminal in Norway, operated through NFC technology. Harder to find in the US. Photograph: user HLundgaard, Wikipedia/Wikipedia Creative Commons licenseWith 40% of the US smartphone market, Apple commands a large lead over other handset makers, according to Nielsen data. Its mobile operating system and app store are influential among application developers."It's definitely troublesome for any developer looking to support NFC that it is not in the iPhone," said Jordan McKee, an analyst with researcher Yankee Group. "It's not going to reach massive scale without Apple adopting NFC."

Though nearly every other major smartphone maker has models with NFC capability, a recent Yankee Group survey found that just 18% of US consumers have such handsets, said McKee.

NFC has been slow to catch on in part because it isn't any easier than a credit-card swipe, and because not enough stores accept the technology. According to Gartner analyst Mark Hung, fewer than 100,000 NFC-enabled readers are in use in the US, which compares with near-ubiquity for traditional credit-card readers.

Meanwhile, early NFC adopters like BlackBerry and Nokia have seen their handset sales decline. An effort by Google to create a digital wallet linked to NFC chips in some Sprint phones has slowed as other carriers favour their own NFC joint venture called Isis, which is only available in two US cities.source<< http://www.theguardian.com