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Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

PayPal pitches its wider vision for mobile payments - Tech News and Analysis - 0 views

gigaom.com/...der-vision-for-mobile-payments

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • PayPal has been a powerhouse in online payments but it hasn’t really cracked the much bigger market for payments for goods in the real world. Now, the company is starting to show off how it can put all of its components and recent acquisitions together to form a broad tool for mobile payments.
  • PayPal hosted a partner event for retailers yesterday and began explaining how they’ll be able to implement its tools for in-store payments. The big reveal will happen next month at PayPal’s developer conference in San Francisco, but the company showed a glimpse of how it’s marshaling its resources. It’s important for PayPal to step up with a compelling offering because the mobile payments market is getting crowded with options like Square, Google Wallet and upcoming services like Isis from the cellular carriers and digital wallets from credit card companies.
  • Scott Thompson, president of PayPal, said in a blog post the company is looking to be a one-stop shop for merchants to help them address every part of the shopping lifecycle. OK, that’s a bit of jargon, but it means PayPal is going to help push out targeted advertising, help with in-store discovery and improve transactions with a handful of options.
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  • In a video provided by PayPal, it shows how users will be able to walk into a store and check in to a location to unlock discounts and coupons. When a consumer goes to check out, he’ll be able to pay by entering his phone number. That leverages eBay’s purchase of Zong and its carrier billing capabilities, though it’s not clear how much easier or more convenient that is for consumers who pay with a credit card swipe. But it does open up the option to use carrier billing for physical goods in-store, which is good for people without a card, though the question of how large the transactions fees will be is important. Right now, carrier billing fees are still much higher than credit card fees, which might deter some merchants.
  • Users will also be able to scan items in-store and pay for them with PayPal without having to get in line. Customers can just flash their phone to an employee who will confirm the purchase. This is very much like AisleBuyer and it sounds like PayPal is looking to bring this to restaurant bills as well, something Thompson hinted at in his blog post. This is a cool step that makes sense for people who want to get in and out quickly.
  • Customers will be able to apparently pay ahead for coffee ahead of time and pick it up. Users will also be able to choose how they pay for something after the purchase with PayPal Credit, which seems to leverage eBay’s BillMeLater. All of this appears to work through PayPal’s mobile application and doesn’t seem to require any new investments by merchants. That’s a big concern for mobile payments built on near field communication, which requires many businesses to upgrade their point-of-sale terminals to handle contactless payments.
  • The new mobile payment tools don’t appear to include NFC payments. PayPal recently introduced person-to-person payments using NFC on Android devices, but the company told me at the time it was just focusing NFC on P2P payments. It sounds like PayPal is trying to work around the hardware constraints of NFC payments at point of sale.
  • Other shopping features on display included the ability to get push notifications for discounts that can be shared, which appears to build off eBay’s acquisition of WHERE. Consumers will also be able to scan an item in store and find inventory at other locations, something eBay got from its RedLaser and Milo pick-ups.
  • It’s unclear how soon all of this will come together and how many merchants will sign on. But providing a complete service for retailers and businesses to not only push out offers and discounts but also complete the transactions makes sense. Merchants can close the loop on transactions and understand how their marketing is doing. This is essentially what Google is trying to do with Google Wallet and Offers though it’s focusing primarily on facilitating targeted marketing, rather than taking a cut of transactions.
  • PayPal’s payment initiative is part of eBay’s broader commerce platform called X.commerce, which it’s building off the acquisition of Magento.
  • But there’s also a lot of questions to be answered. For instance, will consumers find this more convenient than a card swipe? Will PayPal make it any easier for people to set-up and manage accounts? Do all of these parts work well together in one solution? And how aggressive will PayPal be in selling this to merchants and consumers? I’ll be interested to hear more and I think PayPal can be a big contender if it gets its execution right. This is going to be a big market but it will require not only great tools but a lot of smart selling to consumers and merchants.
D'coda Dcoda

3 Mobile Apps Every Business Owner Should Try [21May11] - 0 views

www.openforum.com/...very-business-owner-should-try

1UE_NS

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 21 May 11 - No Cached
  • When choosing from over one million mobile apps across multiple platforms, which ones are really worth it? What about Web-based applications that aren’t apps but are highly effective when used on your mobile device? Well, there isn’t an app that can figure out which apps are right for you but there is a non-app alternative—humans—that can do that.
  • Here are three business-related apps that every small business owner should consider trying. PayPal PayPal offers small business owners the ability to sell goods and services, send payments, receive payments and transfer money securely.
  • Quickoffice It can be very annoying when you are on the road and someone sends a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet for you to review. You click the download link on your phone only to realize that you can’t open the attachment.
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  • Zaarly Zaarly is a “proximity based, real-time buyer powered market” that operates from your mobile device. It basically gives you the opportunity to broadcast your need for something, the amount you are willing to pay and the time within you need it.
D'coda Dcoda

Your favorite gadgets are threatening the planet's future [18Jun11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...threatening-the-planets-future

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • Indium
  • Tantalum
  • Besides the direct environmental impact of mining the Earth, there is a more immediate threat. You’ve no doubt heard about conflict diamonds or ‘blood diamonds‘, which are diamonds mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, invading army’s war efforts or a warlord’s activity. Well, your mobile phone contains a similarly valuable commodity that’s been at the center of controversy in recent times
  • Tantalum is one of the best superconductors on Earth, and it’s used to coat capacitors to obtain more power from less energy. This basically means that laptops and mobile phones don’t need batteries that are larger than the device itself – so this is one of the chief reasons why you can slip your iPhone in your pocket rather than carting it around in a wheelbarrow. In central African countries such as The Democratic Republic of Congo,the mining of the mineral coltan – from which tantalum is extracted – it has often been argued fuels wars and encourages child slavery. And these arguments are well-founded.
  • However, the majority of tantalum production shifted to Australia, and Western Australia became the world’s largest source of mined tantalum concentrates. The mine closed in late 2008, and has only recently reopened.
  • In 2010, major concerns were raised as to the availability of tantalum and the effect this would have on the supply chain. “The impact, the real concern, is actually obtaining the metal,” said Dennis Zogbi, CEO of Paumanok Publications, which researches the component industry and the tantalum markets. If the stockpile of tantalum ever runs out, this could be disastrous for the electronics industry.
  • Tantalum minerals are also mined in Canada, China, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, and mass reserves were found in Venezuela in 2009, and in Columbia a year later.
  • Bloomberg reported a couple of weeks ago that the first conflict-free tantalum has recently been certified by The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition and Global e- Sustainability Coalition (EICC/GeSI), an initiative backed by companies such as Apple and Intel.
  • Ethical electronics
  • Then there’s Indium, a rare chemical element you may or may not have heard of. Zinc ores are the primary source of indium, which – when isolated – is then used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and touchscreens.
  • Despite the best efforts of environmentalists, governments, businesses and consumers, there could be another ‘small’ obstacle to contend with if we’re to protect the Earth’s natural resources. And that is China
  • Last year, 85% of all indium was devoted to making indium tin oxide for use in LCD products, and the demand is predicted to grow at 15% a year over the next few years
  • A UN report published last month found that there are virtually no recycling initiatives in place for indium, and Thomas Graedel, one of the report’s eight authors, warned that a failure to re-use metals such as Indium doesn’t bode well for the future
  • “If we do not have these materials readily available at reasonable prices, a lot of modern technology simply cannot happen. We don’t think immediate shortages are likely but we are absolutely unable to make predictions based on the very limited geological exploration currently conducted.
  • The case for recycling
  • Your old mobile phone has circuit boards, batteries and an LCD screen – these all contain harmful materials that, when dumped in landfill sites, eventually break down and leak into the environment.
  • Over time, the likes of lead, cadmium and mercury pollution can be hazardous to the environment and to our health. It was for this reason that, in 2006, California became the first US state to make it mandatory for all mobile phone retailers to establish a collection and recycling program for mobile phones. The law also prevents residents from disposing of old mobile phones.
  • It’s very difficult to reclaim tantalum once it has been transposed onto an electronic component. For this reason, it’s important that you choose how you dispose of old devices carefully. Some organizations will promise to ‘safely’ recycle your handset, but this is very vague and may not mean the components are being reused. Given the amount of effort and strife that may have gone into producing it, you should ensure that it is actually reused. But this is something governments and industries need to help consumers achiev
  • The UN report analyzed the recycling rates of 60 metals, and 34 of these have recycling rates of less than 1%. Among the least-recycled metals were tellurium and gallium – which are used in solar cells – and lithium, a key element in your phone and laptop batteries.
  • China is a leading producer of indium, whilst Canada and Bolivia are also large producers. And Cornwall, England, was also found to hold significant indium deposits earlier this year too, something which could prove massively beneficial to the UK economy
  • As reported recently in National Geographic, China supplies 97% of the world’s so-called rare earth elements, elements we all rely on for all our high-tech gadgetry, including mobile phones and laptops. And in 2010, China gave a hint of what the future may hold for the rest of us, when it stopped shipments of rare earth elements to Japan for a month following a diplomatic dispute. This had a big impact on the price of rare earths on global markets. China is expected to reduce its rare earth exports to help protect the country’s own rapidly growing industries. Indeed, it’s worth noting that almost two-thirds of rare earth metals produced in China are already consumed ‘in-house’, so to speak.
  • If China does decide to cut back on its exports, global prices will sky rocket. Dysprosium, for example, is used in hard-drives and it now sells for over $200 a pound (roughly half a kilo), but the disturbing thing is that the price was only about $7 eight years ago
  • It’s thought that the global demand for many rare earth metals could exceed the supply as soon as the end of this year.
  • So how serious is this? Well, China has almost half of the planet’s rare earth reserves. The US holds about 13%, whilst Russia, Australia and Canada also has some stockpiles, so we’re not quite at the critical stage yet. But the writing is very much on the wall for many industries, not just electronics.
Dan R.D.

Start-up YFind Wants To Make Buildings Location Intelligent [25Jul11] - 0 views

www.penn-olson.com/...yfind-location-based-startup

6GEO

shared by Dan R.D. on 25 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Newly formed Singapore-based start-up YFind is the latest location-based start-up in the country. It has nothing to do with check-in or badges. Rather the team has a vision to make buildings “location intelligent.”
  • YFind’s mobile app uses WiFi signals to detect the position of a mobile device. So what’s that good for? Melvin Yuan, one of the co-founders of YFind explained via email:
  • If you’re a customer, this means you can now easily find amenities like the nearest toilets and the right ATMs. If you’re a retailer or mall operator, it means you will be able to engage your customers more effectively – telling them what’s available around them, immediate and relevant promotions, and what else is happening in the mall at any point in time. It’s real-time, contextual customer engagement at its finest.
Dan R.D.

4 Reasons Every Online Brand Should Explore Gamification Strategies [23Sep11] - 0 views

mashable.com/...gamification-strategies

gamification branding

shared by Dan R.D. on 24 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • So what’s making gamification so popular today? Consider these four factors.
  • 1. Consumers Want It
  • consumers are looking for new ways to entertain themselves — 40% of U.S. online adults have expressed this interest in a recent survey. What’s more, consumers want game elements everywhere. 60% of consumers play a video game online in a typical week. Consumers (especially Gen Yers) are increasingly accessing games online and on mobile devices.
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  • 2. Social Media Enhances It
  • 4. Early Starters Have Proven It
  • 3. Gamification Vendors Enable It
  • Badgeville, BigDoor and Bunchball all offer SaaS platforms with mechanics, accessible consumer tracking and data, and the ability to easily iterate a gamification strategy as needed.
  • When consumers can share achievements like badges and trophies with their social networks, it enhances the innate human motivations that games have used for generations to keep people engaged (i.e. the desire for status, access, power, etc.)
  • Recent gamification efforts from brands like Chiquita, HP and Sephora have succeeded, increasing confidence that, if applied correctly, the right gamification strategy can work.
  • How exactly does gamification help increase engagement?
  • Involvement: Gamification can foster participation by increasing site returns, new visitors and registrations through reward systems and incentivized word-of-mouth efforts.
  • Interaction: Marketers need visitors to spend time with their content and brand in order to foster engagement.
  • Intimacy: Consumers are able to connect with a brand more intimately when they’re interacting in real-time versus visiting a static brand website.
  • Influence: Word-of-mouth marketing has taken off recently, and companies have realized it can have a significant effect on brand visibility.
Dan R.D.

The Agile Model comes to Management, Learning, and Human Resources [17Sep11] - 0 views

www.bersin.com/...post.aspx

agility learning management business work 1UE_NS

shared by Dan R.D. on 27 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • This agile model (which is now well known in Silicon Valley and in the software engineering world) has transformed software.  It has many benefits:  it reduces the long cycle times that create risk; it enables engineers to take advantage of the fact that requirements change quickly; and it honors the fact that people perform best when they work on small projects they can finish quickly.
  • Agile is also built on the understanding that people learn in small chunks - so while it may in fact take a year or two to build a highly complex website, no person needs to try to understand the entire engineering program in advance.  And as the image on the right shows, daily work becomes a part of a bigger project in a continuous, dynamic process.
  • Look at where Agile fits in Management and HR:
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  • Traditional annual performance appraisals use an older "waterfall" method - continuous feedback and recognition is an "agile" approach.
  • Traditional formal training and certification is a "waterfall" model -  rapid e-learning and informal learning is an "agile" approach.
  • Top down cascading goals are a "waterfall" approach - rapidly updated "objectives and key results" (sometimes called OKR - widely used at Google) is an "agile" model.
  • Traditional annual rewards and bonuses are a "waterfall" model - continuous recognition and social recognition systems are an "agile" model.
  • The annual employee engagement survey is a "waterfall" model - continuous online idea factories and open blogs are an "agile" model for employee engagement.
  • The annual development planning process is a "waterfall" model - an ongoing coaching relationship is an "agile" model for leadership.
  • The traditional recruiting process is a "waterfall" model - this is being replaced by a continuous process of social recruiting and referral-based recruiting which can be rolled out in a few hours.
  • Consider what has happened to the corporate training industry.  While formal education and training has not disappeared, today people want to learn "on the job" through informal and social networks on a real-time basis.  This is a form of "agile learning"
Dan R.D.

Smashing The Clock [11Dec06] - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...b4013001.htm

work time location distance teleworking 1UE_NS

shared by Dan R.D. on 27 Sep 11 - Cached
  • At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.
  • Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM ), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs.
  • Another thing about this experiment: It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages.
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  • But arguably no big business has smashed the clock quite so resolutely as Best Buy. The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done.
  • So bullish are Anderson and his team on the idea that they have formed a subsidiary called CultureRx, set up to help other companies go clockless. CultureRx expects to sign up at least one large client in the coming months.
  • It seems to be working. Since the program's implementation, average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically, CultureRx says. Meanwhile, Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE.
  • "It wasn't hugs and smiles," she says of Ressler's and Thompson's campaign. "Managers in the old mental model were totally irritated." In the e-learning division, many of Wells's older co-workers (read 40-year-olds; the average age at Best Buy is 36) expressed resentment over the change, insisting that work relationships are better face-to-face, not screen-to-screen. "We have people in our group who are like, `I'm not going to do it,'" says Wells, who likes to sleep in and doesn't own an alarm clock. "I'm like, `that's fine, but I'm outta here.'" In enemy circles, Ressler and Thompson are known to this day as "those two" and "the subversives."
  • `How are you going to measure this so you know you're getting the same productivity out of people?'"
  • Achen could see that not only was his team's productivity up, but engagement scores, or measuring job satisfaction and retention, were the highest in the dot-com division's history.
  • "For years I had been focused on the wrong currency," says Thompson. "I was always looking to see if people were here. I should have been looking at what they were getting done."
  • Achen says he would never go back. Orders processed by people who are not working in the office are up 13% to 18% over those who are. ROWE'ers are posting higher metrics for quality, too. Achen says he believes that's due to the new office paradox: Given the constant distractions, it sometimes feels impossible to get any work done at work.
  • But it's worth remembering that most big companies fail to grow at the rate of inflation. That's true in part because the bigger the company gets, the harder it is to get the best out of each and every employee. ROWE is one of Best Buy's answers to avoiding that fate. "The old way of managing and looking at work isn't going to work anymore," says Ressler. "We want to revolutionize the way work gets done." Admit it, you're rooting for them, too.
Dan R.D.

Facebook debuts new features to be the newspaper of your dreams [20Sep11] - 0 views

gigaom.com/...cebook-news-feed-update-ticker

1UE_NS

shared by Dan R.D. on 20 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Facebook is now getting even more personal, announcing that starting late Tuesday it will begin calibrating how it presents its News Feed feature
  • The company says the new News Feed is made to “act more like your own personal newspaper”
  • presenting the most interesting news that has been published since the last time a user signed in
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  • Accompanying each top news piece will be in-line controls that allow you to unmark an update as a top story; doing so will mean that Facebook will stop prioritizing similar posts in the future.
  • Facebook will also roll out two new updates set to roll out Tuesday evening: Slightly larger photos in the News Feed, and a new feature called Ticker that shows the latest updates from all a user’s friends in real time.
  • The Ticker is meant to allow people to join in on their friends’ updates as they are posted, to facilitate more of a conversational feel within the site.
Dan R.D.

Could Siri be the invisible interface of the future? - Mobile Technology News [25Oct11] - 0 views

gigaom.com/...isible-interface-of-the-future

Ai siri apple iphone 5RFID_IOT context

shared by Dan R.D. on 25 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Although Siri is limited in what it can do, what it does do, it does well. And based on my experiences with Siri so far, I think it illustrates what I think of as the “invisible interfaces” of future connected devices. Admittedly, that sound like a bold claim, but the reality is this: Thanks to the “Internet of Things,” more devices are gaining connectivity that makes them smarter and more useful. At the same time, computing interfaces haven’t changed all that much in the past several decades. They’re going to have to, however, as we can’t have a multitude of different interfaces across a myriad of connected devices in this new world.
  • The key for potential success here is in Siri’s uncanny ability to understand not just natural language input, but also context. This is great for smartphones where we have so much personal data such as contact names, addresses, phone numbers and digital music tracks. Even better is when Siri works with multiple apps or services on our handsets; tying them together through a simple command. “Remind me to take out the trash when I get home,” for example, leverages both the Reminders application and the integrated GPS radio of an iPhone.
  • “Close the windows and turn on the air conditioning if the outside temperature rises above 85 degrees,” could be a real-world example in just a few years time.
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  • I’m so convinced that the Siri of today is just touching the tip of the iceberg for such a future, that I expanded on this topic in detail this week in a lengthy GigaOM Pro report (subscription required). I’d say “read the report out loud” for you, but Siri isn’t quite that good. Yet.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

PayPal Will Be Expanding Mobile Payments Test To 51 Bay Area Home Depot Stores | TechCr... - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...-51-bay-area-home-depot-stores

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 19 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • PayPal recently revealed that it was testing an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. Initially, the pilot was only for 5 stores. Today, on eBay’s earnings call eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe revealed that PayPal will be extending the pilot to 51 Home Depot stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Basically, via the pilot customers (for now, this only applies to PayPal employees) are able to pay for items via their PayPal account at Home Depot’s point of sale systems. They can either use a pin code via their mobile phone or a specialized PayPal credit card that can be swiped, the payment amount will be deducted from their PayPal account.
  • The bigger vision of brick and mortar partnerships are set to include location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device and offering more payments flexibility to customers after they’ve checked out. Users will also have the ability to access realtime store inventory, receive in-store offers, and real-time location-based advertising from stores. PayPal will also help retailers use location and transaction data to improve the experience for consumers.
  • As PayPal’s Anuj Nayar told us recently,  the Home Depot test program was individually established between PayPal and the big-box retailer, but in the future, PayPal is partnering with point-of-sale software companies to help expand the in-store program to other brick and mortar retailers.
  • The assumption is that the results of the smaller test at Home Depot, which only launched a few weeks ago, must have been positive, so Home Depot is expanding the pilot program. We’re told that PayPal will be partnering with at least 20 other known top-tier retailers for the in-store payments test, which will be unveiled later this year.
  • When asked about the impact of PayPal point of sale integrations will have this year, Donahoe says the last year was about the planning process, this year will be getting the in-store integrations rolled out and next year will be about sale. “The goal is to get a product that will be expanded to every vertical around the world so we can build a business around the point of sale product.”
  • Donahoe said he tried actually the in-store integration this morning at a Home Depot in San Jose (he says he left his wallet and mobile phone in the car), and just was able to enter his mobile number and pin and was able to pay. The receipt was emailed to him.
Dan R.D.

SecureIDNews | Easier, better identitiy on the horizon - 0 views

www.secureidnews.com/...etter-identitiy-on-the-horizon

Trends 2012 Mobile Policy Identity Security NFC 5RFID_IOT IoT

shared by Dan R.D. on 18 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • The first of these changes is BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) computing. BYOD is a much better term than “consumerization” and really portrays the meaning that many of us are buying smart phones, tablets or laptops to use them on a work network. The tension this creates is predictable.
  • In 2012 and beyond, we’re going to see more and more different devices coming into the workplace.
  • If you use PayPass, Tap & Go, or other contactless credit cards, that’s NFC. In fact, NFC hardware already is appearing in smart phones and tablets. There are relatively few devices with NFC today, but there will be more in 2012.
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  • The next of these changes is increased security on mobile devices.
  • Just a few weeks ago, Forrester Research said, “It’s time to repeal Prohibition” about Macs in the workplace, but the real changes are going to come from the smartphones and tablets.
  • Together, three trends lead to an Internet of Things, where smart phones use NFC to make statements about the physical world. For example, there has already been an art exhibition that lets visitors vote for their favorite display by tapping with their smartphone. But more importantly, there’s an Internet of Secure Things coming. You will be able to use your smartphone to badge in to work, unlock your PC, start your car or motorcycle (the prototype of that is already working), as well as merely pay for things.
  • Together, three trends lead to an Internet of Things, where smart phones use NFC to make statements about the physical world. For example, there has already been an art exhibition that lets visitors vote for their favorite display by tapping with their smartphone. But more importantly, there’s an Internet of Secure Things coming. You will be able to use your smartphone to badge in to work, unlock your PC, start your car or motorcycle (the prototype of that is already working), as well as merely pay for things. It isn’t going to all happen in 2012, but we are likely to look back at 2012 as the year when it took off.
  • It isn’t going to all happen in 2012, but we are likely to look back at 2012 as the year when it took off.
D'coda Dcoda

Microphone Turns Any Surface into Touch Interface - Technology Review - 0 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27458

touch interface

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 05 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Through gesture recognition techniques we detect different kind of fingers-touch and associate them with different sounds. In the video we used two different audio synthesis techniques: - physic modelling, which consists in generating the sound by simulating physical laws; - concatenative synthesis (audio mosaicing), in which the sound of the contact microphone is associated with its closest frame present in a sound database. To put it another way, the system is transforming the vibrations transmitted from touch through a rigid body into waveforms that a computer can, in real time, recognize and either transmute into audible sound or use as a triggering mechanism for other sounds. It's an ingenious approach, especially because Zamborlin has made the system clever enough to recognize the sound of particular gestures, so that the interface can accomplish more than just triggering actions when it "hears" a tap.
  • will touch interfaces of the future rely on sounds as well as capacitance? Perhaps sound would be a cheaper, more-durable option for certain kinds of interfaces, making touch interactions all the more ubiquitous.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Business : Digital payments popularity rising - 0 views

www.khaleejtimes.com/...inside.asp

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 04 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • DUBAI — Digital contactless payment has become more popular among UAE travellers as they prefer to make payments and seek information in a visual format on a device, according to a latest global industry study.
  • Around 32 per cent of UAE respondents find using their phone rather than cash or credit cards to pay for things “extremely appealing” as against 24 per cent globally, revealed a major global industry study “From chaos to collaboration: How transformative technologies will herald a new era in travel”.
  • Commissioned by Amadeus, a travel technology partner and transaction processor for the global travel and tourism industry, the new report outlines the way new technologies and social change will transform travel by 2020. The study challenges the industry to overcome the uncertainty and stress of modern-day travel through the application of new innovations.
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  • High mobile penetration in the UAE is cited as a key reason for travellers’ readiness to use mobile applications and devices at payment points. Statistics show that the UAE is expected to lead with 100 per cent mobile broadband penetration in 2012 while the mobile market penetration has already crossed 200 per cent.
  • “Traveller needs are definitely seeing a dramatic change in the UAE with customers preferring advanced mobile applications and devices to conduct transactions. This reflects evolving changes in consumer lifestyle and travel requirements. The travel sector is also beginning to realise that the world is changing and travellers will increasingly expect intelligent information exchange,” said Humayun Baig, Amadeus’ regional market manager in charge of the UAE, Oman and Bahrain. Based on extensive research and input from key industry experts, the study explores six key areas in which future technology and innovation could be deployed
  • According to the study, developed by leading global foresight and futures consultancy The Futures Company, factors such as augmented reality, gamification, intelligent passenger records, long range biometrics and the rise of the wellbeing agenda will drive change in the next decade and beyond, heralding a new era of industry and global travel collaboration.
  • Amadeus’s global report highlighted that travellers in the UAE prefer making payments via mobile rather than using cash or credit card. More than 90 per cent of the UAE respondents found mobile payments “somewhat appealing” as opposed to 78 per cent of the respondents among the other countries surveyed.
  • The study also revealed that 94 per cent of the UAE respondents preferred using visual applications that reflect the physical world on the mobile device. Augmented reality, which is a virtual view on the real world, is experienced in applications such as games, location apps and business cards. Other findings in the study reveal that 56 per cent of UAE respondents cited having a strict boundary between work and personal life, while 66 per cent of Emirati respondents stressed the importance of being reachable and available at all times, much more than the total response rate of 48 per cent.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Wireless Dynamics releases RFID read/writer SD card - 0 views

www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • RFID tag information can be communicated in real-time to the enterprise database through Wi-Fi, CDMA, GSM or Bluetooth connections associated with PDAs and Smartphones. The SDiD Card allows for safe and secure product and client information storage, updates and processing.
  • The SDiD Card also supports Near Field Communication (NFC) technology allowing consumers to use their devices to access product and entertainment information, compare prices and perform transactions. Consumers can make contactless payments, redeem coupons and points and receive instant promotions and rewards. NFC is a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies developed by Philips and Sony. NFC enables short-range radio frequency (RF) communication between personal electronic devices. The NFC based SDiD Card allows PDA and Smartphone users to access product information or entertainment content such as pictures, music and video clips by waving their mobile devices in front of a smart poster or kiosk. Users can also exchange such information with other users through NFC or mobile connection of their devices.
  • Wireless Dynamics offers two SDiD Card versions, the SDiD 1010 and the SDiD 1020. The SDiD 1010 is a NFC-based SD Card supports ISO14443A standard, NFCIP-1, Philips MIFARE tag and Sony's FeliCa tag. It is ideal for contactless payment, advertising and promotional applications.
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  • The SDiD 1020 RFID based SD Card supports ISO 15693, ISO 14443A standards, Philips I-Code SLI and Texas Instruments Tag-it HF. The SDiD 1020 can be customized for industrial, enterprise and government applications.
  • Both the SDiD 1010 and 1020 Cards operate in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimeters. The SDiD Card supports PDAs and Smartphones with SD Card slots and an SDIO interface based on Microsoft Pocket PC OS 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, and Palm OS 4.1.
  • Wireless Dynamics Inc. is introducing the SDiD Card, the first RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Reader/Writer SD (Secure Digital) Card in the industry. Users can now utilise their Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and Smartphones as portable RFID terminals. Applications include reading and writing RFID tags for the health-care, pharmaceutical, retail logistics, and other industries.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

American Express To Release An API For Digital Wallet Platform Serve; Focuses On Data A... - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...es-on-data-and-personalization

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Over the past year, American Express has been making several key payments partnerships with technology companies and launched its take on the digital wallet, Serve. Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. The company has also landed a number of lucrative carrier partner deals for Serve. Separate from Serve, American Express’ recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. We sat down recently with Harshul Sanghi, American Express’ new VP of Enterprise Growth Group to chat about Serve, the digital wallet and how the company plans to dominate the payments space.
  • Sanghi, who was formerly the Managing Director of North American venture activities for Motorola, joined AmEx in September. His focus is on further developing the Serve brand and forming these partnerships that help expand the card member base into new segments.
  • Sanghi explains that while every payments company (including even Google) and credit card company is releasing their own version of the digital wallet, it’s whats in the wallet that’s truly important. “The wallet that has the most brand partnerships is what customers are going to gravitate too,” he says. And this wallet needs to tie in seamlessly with loyalty programs, and virtual currencies, which is why AmEx bought virtual currency monetization platform Sometrics a few weeks ago. And the wallet needs to store offers and deals as well so that consumers don’t have to carry around coupons or discounts to a store.
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  • While commercial partnerships are definitely key to the broad appeal of Serve, part of Sanghi’s master plan in furthering Serve’s presence is a connection with developers. “It is difficult for mobile payments startups to scale without partnerships with some of the major financial partners,” he explains. “There are a lot of regulation in terms of moving money, and fraud management and we want to be the partner mobile payments startups think of in this space.” Sanghi says that in first half of next year, American Express will open up the Serve platform to developer community.
  • Another area where American Express is focusing its efforts when it comes to Serve is on data. “Data is going to be a differentiating factor in the payments space,” Sanghi explains. A personalized experience is going to be key in providing the digital wallet that consumers flock to, he says. And it’s not just purchasing data that American Express is looking to mine.
  • Intent data, structured data and unstructured data will all play a part of delivering a personalized payments experience. That means analyzing things such as Tweets, Twitter sentiment, your social graph, Facebook updates and more to deliver targeted offers. “The magic is going to be in marrying structured data and unstructured data for results in real-time,” Sanghi says.
  • With 100 million card members, American Express’ data opportunities are massive. But privacy is a key concern in this data mining, says Sanghi, and the company has to be sure they aren’t abusing these issues, especially as it relates to financial information. For example, the company’s Facebook partnership, in which AmEx cardholders can link their cards to their Facebook accounts to receive deals, is an opt-in experience.
  • Across the board, American Express is going to be announcing many more commercial partnerships including those with gaming and telecommunications companies. Serve will also soon enter new geographies, says Sanghi, which will also be a key part of the platform’s growth in the next year.
  • Of course, American Express has competition in the digital wallets space, and companies like PayPal and even Google are also looking to compete. And fellow credit card companies such as Visa have major ambitions to dominate the digital wallet. Regardless, all of these companies need to fine-tune their offerings so that the benefit to consumers is clear. The battle to become the de facto digital wallet is just starting, and which payments provider that will create the technology that keeps consumers engaged has yet to be determined.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Closing The Redemption Loop In Local Commerce | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...redemption-loop-local-commerce

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • When it comes to local commerce, the ultimate prize everyone is going after right now is how to close the redemption loop. The redemption loop starts when a consumer sees an ad or an offer for a local merchant, and is completed when the consumer makes a purchase and that purchase can be tracked back to the offer. If you know who is actually redeeming offers and how much they are spending, you can be much smarter about tweaking and targeting those offers
  • Groupon, LivingSocial, and other daily deal sites have created enormous value by pushing the redemption loop the furthest. When someone buys a daily deal, for instance, that translates into cash for the merchant. But for the vast majority of their deals Groupon and LivingSocial do not track whether or not they are ever redeemed, much less the amount each consumer actually spends at the store or restaurant once they show up.
  • And that is why mobile is so appealing. If you can send deal notifications to people’s phones based on their exact location and nearby deals, you have the beginnings of narrowcasting. Later on, companies will figure out how to layer on ways to target by income, gender, and other factors as well.
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  • Google is trying to link Google Offers to its Google Wallet, which requires an NFC chip in your phone and an NFC reader at the merchant’s checkout. It has the advantage of working with MasterCard, Citi, and other large payment processors. But it also depends on a brand new technology that will take a long time to become widely available.
  • Mobile and local commerce go hand in hand. In a few cities, Groupon is testing out Groupon Now and LivingSocial is offering Instant Deals. In both cases, the deals appear on mobile apps and can be redeemed instantly, rather than having to wait a day for the deal to go live, as is the case with their regular daily deals. The downside of these deals is that Groupon and LivingSocial cannot take advantage of their existing deal inventory and they have to actually provision participating merchants with iPhones and iPads so that they can accept the deals and Groupon/LivingSocial can track them. Yelp is doing something similar where you have to show a redemption code to the merchant from your phone.
  • Foursquare and Facebook are taking a different approach through their separate partnerships with American Express. Since AmEx is the payment system, it records deal redemptions along with the actual payments. Merchants and consumers don’t have to do anything different from what they normally do. Pay with a credit card and your deal is redeemed. Except it only works if you have an AmEx card and the discount is credited to your account later.
  • The key to closing the redemption loop is definitely payments. Investor Chris Sacca recently told Kevin Rose in a video interview the best reason why Twitter should buy Square is because Twitter has the broadest reach to distribute offers and deals, and Square has a built-in way to track redemption. This was just an off the cuff remark in a friendly chat (Twitter isn’t even in this business yet), but it makes sense.
  • We are moving from a world of online ads that produce impressions and clicks to online and mobile offers that produce real sales. If the deal companies can figure out a way to actually measure those sales, it could open up local commerce in a massive way that makes what they’ve done so far look like child’s play.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Finextra: PayPal aims to become your digital ID; unveils new bank, vendor, currency par... - 0 views

www.finextra.com/...fullstory.aspx

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • PayPal has taken the wraps off its single sign-on digital identity service for online shopping, PayPal Access. The move comes as the San Jose-based payments operator unveils a series of new partnerships with a host of banking technology suppliers at the BAI Retail delivery show in Chicago.
  • PayPal Access is designed to simplify the checkout process by enabling the company's 100 million account holders to sign in at participating retailers' sites with just their PayPal user name and password.
  • The initiative is a key element of X.Commerce, a new division of PayPal parent company eBay, that aims to provide a common set of APIs for building consumer-facing online merchant services.
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  • Commenting on PayPal Access, Damon Hougland, general manager of identity & informatics, X.commerce, says: "Results from early adopters show that consumers are more willing to engage with merchants because they can use their PayPal account to check out instead of having to deal with the hassle of entering name, address and payment information. This has huge implications for mobile commerce and merchant sales among new and existing customers."
  • Separately, PayPal is introducing a series of new relationships with banking technology suppliers as it bids to make it easier for banks to incorporate its services into their offerings. This morning it announced a partnership with NCR and S1 that enables people to make real-time person-to-person payments from cash machines.
  • Other vendors lined up for the PayPal treatment include mobile outfit mFoundry, account opening specialist MeridienLink, community banking vendor BanVue, and airmiles operator ezRezSoftware. The latter partnership envisages the creation of an application that would enable consumers to convert their airmiles points into cash for spending on the Web.
  • Dan Schatt, general manager of financial innovations at PayPal, explains: "With this partnership, airline and other reward programme members will have access to the entire 'catalogue' of merchandise the Internet offers by using their rewards anywhere PayPal is accepted."
  • Set for take-off in 2012, United Airlines' frequent flyer programme, will be the first rewards scheme to allow PayPal account holders to use miles as a currency.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Global Payments First to Bring VeriFone PAYware Mobile for iPhone to Canada - 0 views

www.verifone.com/...bile-for-iphone-to-canada.aspx

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • SAN JOSE – September 15, 2010 – VeriFone Systems, Inc. (NYSE: PAY), today announced that Global Payments Inc.,(NYSE: GPN), leader in electronic payment processing services, will distribute and support VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile secure card payment system in Canada. Global Payments is the first payment processor to offer Canadian customers VeriFone’s unique card processing solution for the iPhone mobile digital device.
  • Global Payments will begin immediately to make the PAYware Mobile card encryption sleeve available to merchants. VeriFone’s sleek and durable card reader slips over iPhone 3G and 3GS to accommodate secure card swipes and allow individuals and businesses with new or existing merchant accounts to qualify for lower-cost “card present” transaction fees.
  • “VeriFone has created a market-leading mobile payment solution that will expand electronic card acceptance to a broad range of merchants and small businesses for which a payment-enabled, multipurpose smartphone is the best option for electronic payment transactions,” said Jeff J. McGuire, Vice President, Product Development and Marketing for Global Payments Canada. “We’re delighted to be first to introduce this first-class payment solution for iPhone into the Canadian market.”
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  • “We look forward to working with Global Payments to introduce PAYware Mobile in Canada,” said VeriFone Executive Vice President Jeff Dumbrell. “Merchants and other small businesses are eager to use VeriFone’s solution to adapt their iPhones for card payment acceptance anywhere, anytime.”
  • The VeriFone system currently incorporates a secure mag-stripe card encryption reader for iPhone and a PA-DSS validated App; an EMV version of the card encryption reader is anticipated soon. An English language version of the PAYware Mobile app for Canada is available for immediate download, with a French version planned for later this year.
  • The PAYware Mobile card encryption sleeve incorporates VeriFone’s end-to-end encryption technology and ensures secure payment processing. It incorporates a stylus for signature capture and a mini-USB port for charging the iPhone while the ergonomic reader is attached.
  • Users also gain access to the PAYware Connect gateway, a fully customizable and reliable gateway service that's ideal for small businesses. Details of all iPhone payment transactions are available in real-time within the Merchant Portal on the payment gateway, which also enables businesses to consolidate payment reporting from multiple PAYware Mobile-equipped iPhones.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Google Wallet goes live with NFC payments - Tech News and Analysis - 0 views

gigaom.com/...et-goes-live-with-nfc-payments

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Google is finally opening up its near field communication payment system, Google Wallet, today to the public, allowing Nexus S users on Sprint to try out contactless payments through their smartphone. It’s a little later than originally expected and again, with only one handset that supports it, Google Wallet is just the first step in a long process.
  • But it’s a significant one that begins a much broader effort by Google to change both the way people pay for goods in the real world and interact with merchants and retailers. Toward that end, Google announced today that it has struck deals with American Express, Visa and Discover so their cards will also be integrated into future versions of Google Wallet. Initially, Google Wallet launched with MasterCard as its first partner. But now, banks that issue cards through Visa and Discover will soon be able to load up their accounts directly on to Google Wallet.
  • For Google, the wallet initiative signals a new opportunity to market deals and discounts to consumers and allows merchants a new way to reach consumers and strengthen their relationships with them through discounts and loyalty programs. And it enables them to close the loop on transactions, so they can see how effective their marketing is.
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  • That’s what Google is really interested in: Taking a slice of the revenue that comes from increased Google Offers that can be redeemed through Google Wallet. It’s also one reason why the search giant is not taking a cut of the transactions. Instead, Google is trying to exploit the big opportunity in local advertising, taking NFC along for the ride. As an early incentive, Google is throwing in a $10 credit for users to try out Google Wallet this year.
  • Google Wallet in tandem with Google Offers is going to be a big venture in a market that will be hotly contested. Isis, a rival NFC payment system led by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile is also preparing to launch early next year. I recently wrote about PayPal unveiling the first glimpse of its offline payment solution, which won’t leverage NFC. Square, a hot start-up, is also capitalizing on the opportunity with mobile card readers, an iPad cash register system and a digital wallet for consumers. The credit card companies themselves are also pushing their own digital wallet programs. This is going to be a crowded market and all these companies, along with a host of smaller competitors, are going to trying to make good on this opportunity in mobile payments.
  • Google Wallet, if you recall from the big unveil in May, is a joint venture with MasterCard, Citi, Sprint and First Data. Users can connect their MasterCard Citibank cards to Google Wallet or load up funds on to a prepaid card in Google Wallet from other credit debit cards.
  • Users can make payments at any terminal equipped with MasterCard’s contactless PayPass technology. Google has struck a bunch of partnerships with retailers and restaurants, who will support Google Wallet and incorporate their own loyalty programs into it. In some of these cases, retailers need to work to enable or upgrade their point of sale systems to handle Google Wallet integration. Partners include Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Walgreens, Subway, American Eagle Outfitters, Peet’s and others.
  • There’s still many questions around Google Wallet. Google said it’s talking to other carriers and manufacturers about supporting Google Wallet and including NFC integration, but right now, there are no other Google Wallet handsets to announce. It’s also unclear when other bank cards will be supported directly in Google Wallet though Google said it is talking to banks about adding that functionality. But Google has pitched its wallet as an open platform that anyone can participate in, so the system will no doubt evolve over time.
  • Google still has a long ways to go to pitch consumers on the benefits of paying by phone. As we’ve noted, many consumers are happy paying with a card. Merchants also need to see a reason to step up and make an investment in next generation hardware that can support contactless payments. This is going to take a lot of selling and a good narrative for both parties. Google hasn’t embraced big marketing campaigns in the past though it has enlisted the help of actor Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame to help tease Google Wallet. It’s going to need a lot more of that mojo to make sure Google Wallet can realize the company’s ambitions.
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