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Sony and Watchdata have teamed up in the latest effort to further the use of contactless payments. The consumer electronics giant has signed an agreement with Singapore-based smart card company Watchdata to integrate near field communication (NFC) and Sony’s FeliCa technology into Watchdata’s SIMpass solutions next year. As part of the agreement, Sony and Watchdata will “provide NFC functions to …

From bigger screens and better cameras to multicore processing and NFC, 2012 has been a momentous year for fancy new phone technology. But how practical is any of this cutting-edge gear? Read on as we dive into the gee-whizzery this year’s smartphones brought to the table and whether they were huge flops or represent fabulous mobile innovations. Stylus or no, …