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QR code technology arrived late to North America for numerous reasons, and with Near Field Communication (NFC) fast emerging, it is a valid concern that it may not tip the adoption needle in time to establish itself as a household communication tool.

With the release of the Google Wallet, Google has been building a lot of support for NFC. This may explain why they replaced QR codes with NFC for Google Places. Another reason may be because the stickers they distributed to the retailers were intended to be permanent, in which case NFC makes more sense. They may be a bit ahead of the market on this, but if they are distributing millions of these stickers across North America, it pays to plan ahead. Following their announcement, a vast number of articles surfaced with some variation of “QR codes are dead”. This in my opinion was a bit excessive considering Google Places is the only implementation where they made the changeover.

Getting away from Google, let’s briefly look at the expected rate of NFC adoption. Smartphones have been available on this continent for at least 4 years and they currently hold approximately 33% of the market. Google’s Nexus S is one of the first phones to be available with NFC technology and it was released only this spring. Blackberry will start releasing models this fall, and Apple has yet to confirm whether they will include NFC support in the iPhone 5. It’s not unreasonable to expect NFC gaining mass adoption no sooner than 2-3 years.

Verizon Wireless and financial management company Intuit announced today a partnership that will bring Intuit's mobile card reader to 2,300 Verizon retails stores across the country. The partnership is yet another big move in the mobile card reader industry that has been popularized by Square and includes Verifone, Erply and PayAnywhere among others. Intuit operates QuickBooks, a system used by merchants to manage finances. As such, GoPayment fits well in Intuit's product line. Verizon will be able to put the Go Payment in front of millions of people looking for mobile payment options. It is a win for both companies and a strike to Square, which is putting up a big fight against the large financial companies that are rapidly entering mobile payment industry.

The GoPayment card reader will be "free" to Verizon customers granted activation of a GoPayment account and a mail-in rebate of the $29.97 purchase price. The app itself is free and has no monthly transaction or cancellation fees with a 2.7% rate for each swiped transaction. A paid version of GoPayment is available that lowers the per swipe transaction rate to 1.7% with a $12.95 monthly fee, which will be good for retailers with high volume.

Square sells for $9.95 at the Apple Store but consumers get a $10 credit from the company when they sign up for an account. Square also has a 2.7% fee for swiped transactions

Gamification is a hot space, and Got Badge? is a new entrant.

The phrase “Pic or it didn’t happen” might be something you’ve heard before. Basically it means, you can’t say you’ve done something unless you’ve taken a picture of it. It’s the honor system that Got Badge? works on for claiming badges.

Badges are broken up into categories, ranging from “Lifestyle” to “Geeky” to “Fun”. Got Badge? is super simple, super fun, and kind of addicting really.

According to calculations by Cisco, 50 billion devices will connected to the Internet by 2020. Top technology infrastructure companies like IBM, HP and Ericsson are investing big in the Internet of things. IBM envisions a smarter planet, Ericsson envisions the social web of things.  But when I look at these visions I get the feeling something is missing—the consumer. Well, she's there, but always in a passive role. These visions are more about automation and efficiency. An exemplifying scenario can go something like this one, from Cisco: Imagine your morning meeting was pushed back X minutes, and your car knows there has been an accident on your driving route causing a Y minute detour; this is communicated to your alarm clock which allows you Z extra minutes of sleep and signals to your coffee maker to turn on the appropriate minutes later. Or, from Ericsson: You call your wife on your way home in the car, asking what she wants for dinner. When you arrive home the oven has calculated with precision the time it should turn itself on and at what temperature, depending on the groceries you got from the store. I'm sure these are plausible scenarios, but I don't think the killer apps of IoT will be the connected car or Internet-oven. 

I'm much more interested in big questions like: What will be the iBeer moment of Internet of things? What will be the Farmville of connected devices? These are the seemingly silly applications that always pop up in the wake of new technological possibilities. The simple, cheap, entertaining stuff. Humans are a curious species, and we don't always make rational decisions.

How would you feel about an iPhone app that claimed to be able to tell if that mole on your arm was not looking too healthy? That’s the claim of Skin Scan, an iPhone medical app available now on the Apple App Store. The startups has secured €50,000 Euro in seed funding from Seedmoney.

Mobile payment start-up Square, is set to deploy its credit card readers for smartphones in Wall-Mart Stores at locations in the US, according to reports.

According to online media outlet businessweek.com, before being made available in Wall-Mart stores, Square’s device has been sold via about 200 Apple stores, as well as via Target, RadioShack and Best Buy outlets.

The technology employed by Square for this device works on Apple’s iPhone and iPad as well as Google Android. The card reader is plugged into the headphone jack of the mobile device which allows merchants to swipe customers’ credit or debit cards.

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 12.8% year over year in the third quarter of 2011 (3Q11), as smartphone growth declined in key mature markets. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 393.7 million units in 3Q11 compared to 348.9 million units in the third quarter of 2010. However, the 12.8% growth was higher than IDC's forecast of 9.3% for the quarter and stronger than the 9.8% growth in 2Q11.

It was also the second-lowest growth rate for the overall mobile phone market over the past two years; a reflection of delayed smartphone purchases and conservative consumer spending last quarter.

"The combination of economic uncertainty and anticipation over fourth quarter or late third quarter product releases caused some consumers to delay their smartphone purchases," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Many waited for products such as the iPhone 4S, which was announced after the quarter closed, or Research In Motion's BlackBerry 7 phone series, which were released in the final weeks of the quarter."

Attention smartphone users: the recent launch of the first two satellites for Europe’s Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS) could make things a lot more interesting in about four years.

Galileo will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to one meter range, compared to 10 meters for GPS, the European Space Agency (ESA) states, and it plans to give non-European users access.

Meanwhile, Apple’s new iPhone 4S has a chip that will be able to access Glonass (the Russian version of GPS), Engadget reports. Other manufacturers, including Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments, will also support Glonass — and Galileo as soon as it is operational — with new chipsets and software able to receive and integrate all three main GNSS systems.