iBeacon

SXSW GO updated with iBeacon notifications and other new features

The official mobile app of South by Southwest (SXSW), a set of film, interactive and music festivals and conferences that take place annually in mid-March in Austin, Texas, has been refreshed with a few new features.

Among them is an enhanced experience allowing your device to receive iBeacon notifications to see what's going on around you and who else is there. This year's show will feature the world’s largest deployment of iBeacons.

Facebook launches new Place Tips feature in your News Feed, rolls out Facebook Bluetooth Beacons

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new feature in the hope of fending off threat posed by Foursquare and Yelp, both of which rule the crowd-sourced location discovery market.

Place Tips, as it's called, injects useful information about the place you're right at, including your friends’ recommendations and “fun, useful and relevant info,” right inside your News Feed.

But don't your worry, you can turn it off at anytime!

Apple and Disney upgrading in-store iBeacon/NFC ahead of iPhone 6 launch

Here's another piece of evidence to help complete the Apple mobile payments puzzle: according to a new report by 9to5Mac, Apple and Disney stores in the United States have been upgrading in-store iBeacon transmitters and NFC sensors ahead of the company's big reveal on Tuesday.

The upgraded sensors, which include the new Gimbal Series 20 Proximity Beacons, will allow the companies to track customers inside their stores with an even greater degree of precision.

As it's been widely reported, both the iPhone 6 and iWatch are rumored to be outfitted with a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip to support mobile payments. It's “one of the hallmark features” of the iPhone 6, according to Wired. The Apple wearable device has “a role in mobile payments,” too, as per The Wall Street Journal.