Isis, the mobile commerce joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, is preparing to launch a massive NFC payments pilot in Salt Lake City this summer, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.

Japan’s Fukumi Corporation has opened the world’s first physical shop for NFC tags, applications, starter kits and printing and encoding services in Yaesu, Tokyo.

Zebra and Checkpoint Systems have entered into a cooperative relationship and licensing agreement. While the exact terms of the transaction were not disclosed, the relationship does bring together Zebra’s active location solutions with Checkpoint division OATSystems’ passive RFID, auto-ID and sensor capabilities.

The Asia Pacific region is one of the largest users of smart cards, so much that it now leads the world in using the cards to pay for travel, reports iTWire.