Group items tagged

When people receive food or pharmaceuticals, the smart tag will display the temperature record. This method will be less expensive and more accurate than placing alarm sensors in shipping containers, ThinFilm said. ThinFilm's technology, which has been under development since the 1990s, is a printable memory device that stores the ones and zeros of digital information by changing the orientation of polymer chains when a voltage is applied. Last year, ThinFilm partnered with Xerox company PARC to combine its ferroelectric memory with PARC's printed transistors. Adding computing logic allows the device to not only read, write, and process data, but also to store more data.

The computing and storage are very limited on this sort of device and will work for less than a year but it is low power and, because it's printed on plastic, low cost. Data can be stored many times and is not lost with loss of power. By partnering with companies that have made a battery, display, and sensor for its memory system, ThinFilm has created smart tags which can be used for many different applications, said CEO Davor Sutija.

The company sees integrated printable electronics replacing silicon processors and enabling the Internet of things. For example, the company has deals to supply smart tags that add interactivity to toys and games. It has also had discussions with auto companies to use tags to gather data on vehicle brakes and notify drivers when they need service. In 2013 or 2014, the company plans to add a wireless networking module to its smart tag. That will allow everyday objects to communicate with the near-field communications in cell phones, said Sutija.

Imagine a world where by simply texting a word, like "Sandwich" will result in a quick and seamless transaction so you could  go about your day.  Think about how much easier our lives would be if we didn't have to wait in line, handle cash or be turned away from food or beverage if we don't have our wallets in hand

What if texting wasn't just meant for communication, but also designed for transaction?

Today, most people take more precautions about carrying their mobile devices than carrying their wallets or purses.

Mobile payments company Square has made an interesting move today, which should put competitors Verifone and Intuit on notice. The startup is dropping the per transaction charge for any business using its mobile payments device and service. Square previously charged 2.75% of each transaction amount plus a flat $0.15 per transaction fee. Today, Square is completely dropping the per transaction charge.

So why is the mobile payments company dropping the transaction fee? Square’s COO Keith Rabois says that along with simplifying the payments experience for businesses, it is also taking on the hidden fees and teaser rate structure that have plagued the credit card industry. “The vision of Square is to simply create zero friction and complexity around payments, which is difficult to do in financial services,” he explains. Rabois says that the per transaction fees on top of a variable rate charge can be misleading for businesses because the hidden costs add up especially if a business processes a large amount of transactions. Now, Square will simply charge a flat 2.75% of all transactions, regardless of size. “In the end accepting payments should be as easy as using a microwave,” says Rabois.

Fresh off a $27.5 million funding round, Square is gaining a lot of a lot of buzz and just debuted a new billboard in Times Square. Jack Dorsey’s startup is expected to process $40 million in transactions in Q1 of 2011 and is currently signing up 100,000 merchants per month. That’s compared to 30,000 monthly signups last Fall.

4. Offers, Offers and More Offers With the daily deals craze dying down post-Groupon IPO, mobile offers are springing up. Google Offers, Google's response to Groupon's daily deals, continues to expand and personalize its deals. It recently stepped into the mobile commerce space with an Android app. Amazon entered the daily deals space with Amazon Local. Mobile commerce isn't a part of the story, but with Amazon's hefty investment in Living Social and an infrastructure far more mature than Groupon's, Amazon may be waiting for just the right moment before really making its move. Meanwhile, daily deals superhero Groupon moved further into the location-based mobile commerce space through a partnership with Loopt. Soon after the Loopt announcement, Groupon launched Groupon Now, which inserts real-time, location-based offers into the daily deals game. Such offers are usually only available for a few hours, do not include the typical Groupon tipping point and are meant for impulsive mobile users.

5. Shop Till You Sit: Tablet Commerce Tablets are all the rage this year. A recent study by eMarketer.com predicts that one in three online consumers will use a tablet at least once a month by the year 2014. Appel iPads are positioned to dominate the tablet market until 2015. So what are people doing on their tablets? Shopping, naturally. And thus the boom of tablet commerce. Amazon.com, the top revenue-producing Internet retailer, naturally leads the pack with a strong tablet-optimized site. Couch commerce, the act of sitting on one's couch and shopping from a smartphone and tablet, saw a strong increase this year - especially after Thanksgiving dinner and on Black Friday. Amazon launched its Kindle Fire tablet on September 28. ReadWriteWeb Writer Jon Mitchell calls it a store with a screen, quite literally suggesting that its sole purpose is to be a media consumption device. As the Kindle Fire continues to gain consumer mindshare and more developers flock to the Amazon Appstore (don't call it the App Store, OK?), we expect more tablet commerce growth in this area. Shopping catalogs designed specifically for tablets will add to the tablet commerce experience. Google launched a shopping catalog app for tablets back in August. Google Catalogs, as they're called, are like "window shopping with your iPad and Android tablet." The only potential problem for retailers? Now they won't have catalog readers' home addresses on hand.

7. Don't Forget The Dongle Dongles refer to a device that is connect to a computer to allow access to wireless or protected software. In the case of mobile commerce, a dongle would be a mobile credit card swiper that attaches to the mobile device. Square, Verisign and Intuit lead the way in dongle innovation. But with Google Wallet and NFCs (near field communications) on the move, do dongles have a future? Square's Card Case digital wallet is a dongle. It lets you pay by saying your name and only your name - if the merchant you visit is in the Square directory. With its dongle reader, Square aims to make mobile payments mainstream. Intuit's recent mobile payments innovation introduce the dongle-to-debit-card. The company wants to make it easier for small- and medium-sized businesses to accept transactions on the go. While Square is the leader in the dongle world, Intuit offers QuickBooks, tax refunds, bank partnerships, health check-ins and other management systems. Dongle providers such as Verifone, Intuit, Erply, ROAMPay, TRUSTe and PayAnywhere will continue to push their products as the space evolves.

Jack Dorsey’s Square was unveiled last December as an innovative way to let people quickly and easily accept physical credit card payments from their mobile phone.

Square is ideal for taking money at political fundraisers for several reasons.

A local flower cart in San Francisco is using Square to take payments from customers. Denim, a jeans store in New York is using Square to take payments from shoppers. We even used Square at this year’s Crunchies to raise money for the UCSF Foundation.

Richard Branson is no stranger to investing in mobile media: among his more notable moves have been establishing Virgin Mobile (NYSE: VM) years ago, and more recently moving into iPad publishing with Project magazine. Today comes news of his latest foray into the wireless world: an investment in the mobile payments startup Square.

Square raised $100 million at the end of June in a round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. At the time, that valued the company at $1 billion.

Square built a business initially on an iPhone-based mobile payments service that is now avaialbe for both iOS and Android devices. It provides a square-shaped dongle to merchants, who can plug the device into a phone to make instant card transactions. Some 800,000 merchants in the U.S. are now using the dongles, and there are around $2 billion in payments processed annually through the platform. At the standard 2.75 percent commission that Square charges merchants, that works out to annuals revenues of $55 million from those transactions going to Square.

The mobile wallet is becoming a reality. Apple [AAPL] has already begun plotting to turn your iPhone into an iWallet which uses iTunes as your virtual bank.

The company this week begins rolling out its EasyPay payment system in US retail stores. Available inside Apple's own Apple Store for iOS app, EasyPay lets users purchase accessories at Apple retail stores just by scanning in the barcode and completing the transaction on their iOS device.

Payment is taken using your Apple ID. Users need to enter their ID and then payment is taken using the credit card associated with their iTunes account.

New technologies, apps and add-ons let smartphones both receive and make payments, and the next generation of phones in the coming years will go further than ever to letting your mobile replace your wallet.

Cash transactions are getting rarer with debit and credit cards being accepted nearly anywhere, but you still run into places that stubbornly remain cash-only, whether it's a lunch wagon, a little independent café, or even an artist selling paintings at a market.

Lately, several solutions have popped up for small businesses - or anyone, really - to accept card payments by attaching a card reader to their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, or other smartphone.

The race to replace your wallet with mobile payment options is on.

Consumer demand for smartphones, combined with near-field communication, or NFC, technology that enables everyday purchases, is fueling the shift from credit card swipes to mobile payments. With smartphone sales expected to increase 50% this year, mobile payment services are in a mad dash to capture market share, and the growing competitive space has sparked strategic partnerships among big names.

Meet the contendersMobile payment sales in the U.S. are expected to increase at a 68% compounded annualized growth rate over the next five years. It's no wonder that big players like American Express (NYSE: AXP  ) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) want in on the action.

Back in 2007, the Chief Executive of Visa Europe claimed that we could all be living in a cashless society by 2012. With that milestone fast approaching, it’s safe to assume that notes/bills and coins won’t be going the way of the dodo that quickly, but a new forecast has emerged from another giant from the finance world.

PayPal has produced a new report which will be released shortly – Money: The Digital Tipping Point – in which it predicts not only that consumers won’t need cash to go shopping, but they won’t need a wallet at all. And when can we expect this vision to be realized? 2016, it seems.

We’ve written quite extensively about mobile payment technology in recent times. Back in September we spoke with Ben Milne, founder of peer-to-peer Web and mobile payment platform Dwolla, who discussed the future of m-commerce. And prior to that, The Next Web’s Brad McCarty looked at how NFC will get its piece of the $4 quadrillion payments pie. There’s little question mobile payments will play a big part in the future of commerce. But will it completely outmanoeuvre paper, coins AND plastic by 2016?

Security vendor Juniper Networks has warned users of Google’s mobile OS Android that there has been a 400 percent increase in Android malware between June 2010 and January 2011. In its “Malicious Mobile Threats Report 2011“, the company has said that Android as the dominant growing force in the mobile device market, was the biggest target of malware and exploit developers in 2010.

Symbian mobiles continue to remain the most prone to threats.

With a veritable “Cambrian explosion” of low- and high-end Android devices in Asia, venture firm DCM recently made a big bet that there will be some winning startups in the next few years by launching a $100 million early-stage Android fund with Japan’s GREE and mobile operator KDDI.

“We all recognize that Android is going to really take off in China and Japan over the next 12 months and we wanted to make sure we intersected with the best and brightest whether it’s apps guys or people working with chips,” he said. Chao says he sees Android as the fourth wave in a series of shifts affecting the gaming industry in Asia over the last several years. While there aren’t any truly reliable statistics, Chao says there might be about 15 million Android devices shipped in China by the end of this year. Higher-end Android devices like Sony Ericsson’s Xperia line of phones are starting to find a foothold in Japan.

“All of the majors are jumping on the bandwagon and the Android smartphones tend to do really well in Japan,” he said. “They’ll have traditional Japanese phone functions like FeliCA, which is a local payment method, and the ability to play GREE games.”

re creating smartphone loyalty, determining which OS and device a consumer may buy. At least that’s what a recent Gartner report will have you believe. The sales report ranks Android, Symbian, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone sales in the first quarter of 2011, noting the impact of mobile apps on the market share of new sales. It seems the mobile device market is only gaining in strength, Google (GOOG) taking 36 percent market share, leading with 36.3 million unites sold. Symbian comes in second, with 27.4 percent market share at 27.6 million units, leaving Apple (AAPL) at 16.8 percent market share with 16.9 in sales. RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry comes in fourth, with 13 million and a 12.9 percent take of the market.

“Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platform’s cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform,” notes principle research analyst Roberta Cozza. “This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem owners Apple and Google. As well as putting their devices in the context of a broader ecosystem, manufacturers must start to see their smartphones as part of a computing continuum.”

Apps have certainly created an expansive ecosystem for mobile industry, but just like the mighty dinosaur, this era may one day become extinct. The death of mobile apps has been predicted by MIT writer Christopher Mims, pegging web apps as the future. It’s their potential ubiquity across platforms that extends access to web users, instead of drawing lines in the sand around mobile browsing versus the web you access on a PC laptop. Mims calls for a browser-based utopia where offline access and standards like HTML5 harmonize our desperate web experiences, but notes that offline access is far from perfect. Things still boil down to business, where Google’s marketplace has lower operating costs than Apple’s, with a broadening reach.

GPS devices have become ubiquitous: Millions of drivers rely on them for directions.

The government hopes to construct a new air traffic control system based on GPS navigation rather than the use of radar.

They've also become an important tool in agriculture.

Earth is expected to be home to over nine billion people by 2050. That’s a lot of people for Mother Nature to manage.

Space issues aside, the biggest concern on an over-populated planet is whether or not there will be enough resources to go around. Last week, British investor and Co-founder of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO) Jeremy Grantham offered what Business Insider called a “startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.”

the purpose of this piece isn’t to tread well-worn ground about the planet’s perils. So forget about fossil fuels, drinking water, crops, ice-caps, trees and animals for now. What we’ll be looking at is all those elements that go into helping you do what you’re doing right now. Whether you’re reading this on your laptop, smartphone, tablet…or any other digital device, the natural environment has had a huge part to play in this experience.

Qualcomm boss Paul Jacobs has outlined his vision of the future at the company's Innovation event: a world where mobile devices supplant PCs, with his company's chips at the heart of the ecosystem.

"The fundamental trend that we all know is that mobile is now the dominant computing platform," Jacobs told attendees. "That's not the future - that's now. The install base of smartphones has already surpassed PCs."

That's a sea change which shouldn't be overlooked, Jacobs argued. "There were limitations to how computing happened in the past - now we do it when we're moving around," he explained. "Mobile is everywhere with you - you take it wherever you go. It's about doing things when you have the time."

“Wireless sensor networks are the enabling technology for key applications in defense, health care, home and industrial automation and energy management. Technology leaders have recognized this fact and are providing high end application solutions for their customers based on advanced WSN technology. The Millennial Net Energy Management System which includes LEM energy sub meters, wireless pneumatic thermostats and numerous other devices allow for monitoring and control of commercial, public and light industrial buildings of several hundred thousand square feet with unprecedented scalability and reliability, leading to substantial energy savings and ROIs of around 1 year,” said Dieter Schill, President and CEO of Millennial Net.

This gateway connects the networked devices to existing Building Management System via BACnet or communicates with hosted internet-based application for monitoring and control. The devices are designed to work with legacy HVAC systems, fixtures, and appliances, making it unnecessary to upgrade HVAC equipment to save energy. Energy savings are achieved by improved compliance and energy policy enforcement.

David McCullough has connected up into Pachube’s public platform, to share, store and visualise weather sensor data, using the Opengear ACM5000 smart device server

Pachube is a global data brokerage platform for the Internet of Things, managing millions of datapoints per day from thousands of individuals, organisations and companies around the world. By sharing data feeds from and between physical Things, such as environmental sensors, smart meters, building management and process control systems, Pachube provides a globally distributed data ecosystem and application development platform.

The Opengear ACM5000’s Linux system under the hood made integrating Pachube API support quick and easy using the free Opengear Custom Development Kit. The ACM5000’s legacy as an industrial-grade, rugged device that is proven and reliable in harsh environments, and wide array of network and data ports, make it an ideal solution to provide network connectivity and data telemetry for things such as weather stations.

How could Google, the high priest of the cloud and the parent of Android, analytics and AdWords/AdSense, not be a standard-setter for platform creation?

Amazon's strategy seems to be to embrace "open" Android and use it to make a platform that's proprietary to Amazon, that's a heck of a story to watch unfold in the months ahead. Even more so, knowing that Amazon has serious platform mojo.

Case in point, what company other than Apple could have executed something even remotely as rich and well-integrated as the simultaneous release of iOS 5, iCloud and iPhone 4S, the latter of which sold four million units in its first weekend of availability?

Mobile device usage has spread across the globe. In terms of mobile penetration, the United States is actually on the lower end of the worldwide spectrum, with only 77% cellular device ownership. That seems counterintuitive to the way the U.S. views itself as the heart of mobile acceptance and innovation. It is China and other Asia-Pacific countries that really lead in mobile adoption. Research firm Forrester released a study last week showing global mobile usage trends. In almost every mobile usage aspect, metropolitan China and other Pacific Rim countries lead the way. That includes mobile social usage, work usage and multiple device ownership. Mobile is near an inflection point, changing the way people interact with information around the globe.