Google Wallet: one year later
The History
Of course, while Wallet is Google’s first big push into mobile payments, it is far from the first. Mobile payments have been “the future” of payments for decades now, long before the days of smartphones equipped with NFC (or Near Field Communication ). Early attempts in the 1990s from companies like DigiCash focused not on phones, but on standalone “smart cards,” which promised better security, no transaction fees and more convenience than traditional credit cards – one day we would use them not to just pay for items at a store, but from our home computers as well. E-cash for an e-economy.
With the rapid rise of cellphones, though, came a push for mobile commerce, or “m-commerce,” an effort that really began to pick up steam in the early 2000s when mobile payments were not just the realm of upstarts, but big players like Nokia (which would continue to push its own efforts throughout the decade). Our phones would be the one device we used for everything: they’d open doors, get us on a bus or subway, and let us pay for anything, anywhere. In many ways, that’s still the goal we’re working towards, and one that’s slowly starting to become a reality.
read moreApple by the Numbers Infographic
The infographic below was designed by Sortable . It shares the latest Apple profits, revenues and cash-in-hand, along with the company’s reach — 30% of smartphone users in the U.S. have an iPhone.
Along with an impressive iPad market share (62%) and an astounding number of employees (over 30,000), don’t forget one of Apple’s most valuable properties — the App Store. You’ll currently find 600,000 apps and counting in the store, and 895 new apps are added every day.
read moreGoogle Wallet Launches
Google officially rolled out its Google Wallet mobile payment system Monday. Is still in its infancy, but the system already shows a lot of promise.
It uses a technology called NFC (Near Field Communication) to securely send your payments digitally.
The only phone in the US that supports NFC is the Google Nexus S, available with t-mobile and Sprint, and there are high hopes that the iPhone 5 will support it too.
Right now, Google Wallet only works with Citi-Mastercards and the Google Prepaid Card. Visa and Google announced a worldwide agreement to support the Visa payWave app, but it will still be up to the financial institutions and banks to add support.
read moreFirefox Shows Off Its Upcoming Browser For Tablets
In a blog post published Tuesday , Mozilla user experience designer Ian Barlow previewed the user interface their Mobile Team is in the process of building for a tablet version of Firefox. Firefox for tablets, which does not yet have a release date, will be optimized to run on Honeycomb Android tablets. The browser will include features from the desktop version of Firefox such as tabs, themes and the Awesomebar, an adaptation of a feature launched with Firefox 3 that enables quick access to bookmarks and browsing history.
read moreThe Future of Mobile Payments [Infographic]
As smartphone vendors and mobile operators shift their strategies to incorporate wireless payment technologies into mobile phones, consumers will soon be able to drop their wallet and carry every piece of important payment information on their handset. NFC is already starting to be built into a range of Android smartphones, RIM and Nokia have committed to the technology and Apple is reportedly adding the contactless technology to its new iOS devices.
read moreOfficial Facebook Places Video
Check out the official teaser video for Facebook places. What I really love about it is that it maps exactly to SapientNitro’s PoV on the space-time continuum for experience mapping; in layman terms what we believe is that every moment should cross space and time. A moment crosses spacewhen multiple people in different locations can live the same moment .. for example, you share a live video feed, lifecast, share status updates, photos, and your friends all over the world can interact with this content in real time.
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