Cell Phones and a Cashless Society

At First Data, we’re working hard to help make Near-Field Communications (NFC)-enabled mobile commerce a reality. Many companies across the payments industry share the vision of an NFC future for commerce, and activity in this space seems to be accelerating. Why are we so excited about NFC? Because an NFC platform on a mobile handset opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Combining the power of the mobile network and the mobile handset with the ability to exchange information at short range in the physical world creates endless possibilities. What could you do with your mobile phone? Think about touching your phone to a point-of-sale terminal to buy a cup of coffee with your debit card. Touch your mobile phone to your babysitter’s mobile phone to pay her, instead of fumbling for cash. You could use your mobile phone at the front desk of a hotel at check-in to download your room key and then touch your phone to the hotel room door to unlock it. Or imagine touching your mobile phone to a reader at your doctor’s office to have the information from your latest visit downloaded to the medical file on your phone. - Perspective: Accelerating Mobile Commerce with Trusted Service Management, First Data, October 13, 2009

Nokia Commits to an NFC Future, But Retailers are Set to Rebel

June 17, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - The Finnish phone giant has become the first major manufacturer to commit to building NFC into its devices, with the announcement that all its new smartphones will come with the technology built-in from 2011. Just as one problem seems to have been solved, however, a new battlefield is now emerging in the retail payments space.

UK retailers have this week followed their US counterparts in appealing for government support to get their card processing fees reduced. Debit cards currently cost four times as much to process as cash transactions, they say, and that means the move to replacing cash with contactless cards and NFC phones will leave them out of pocket.

Hopefully, it won't take as long for this issue to be resolved as it has taken for a manufacturer to commit to making NFC phones. But, then again, we won't be counting on it. Banks and retailers in both the US and Europe have a history of long drawn out fights when it comes to reaching agreement over the fees which should be charged for processing new payments technologies.

The Best Android Phones

June 20, 2010

Yahoo! Finance - What is the best Android phone? There may only be one or two iPhones available at a time -- but there are more than a dozen different Google (NASDAQ: GOOG - News) Android designs that are competing for the title "Best Android Smartphone On The Planet" -- or "Best Android Smartphone So Far."

We rate the best Androids available today and our top picks should be a quick and easy shopping guide for those looking for a great device.

©HTC

1. Sprint EVO 4G

At the moment, the HTC-built Sprint (NYSE: S - News) EVO 4G is the Android phone to beat. A gazillion top-line features including a beautiful 4.3-inch screen, an 8-megapixel camera, 720p HD video output and, of course, access to Sprint's super-fast 4G network (when it comes to your neighborhood). A physically large phone like its Windows Mobile twin (T-Mobile's HD2), the EVO 4G is an absolutely amazing piece of handheld technology.

©HTC

2. HTC Droid Incredible

This is HTC's super smartphone made for Verizon's EV-DO 3G network. The Incredible sports a great 3.7-inch screen and shares a lot with its big brother, the EVO 4G -- like a 1GHz Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM - News) Snapdragon processor, an 8-megapixel camera and HTC's Sense home screen look and feel. A downside is the phone's limited battery life, but there are higher-capacity battery packs available from third-party companies.

©Google

3. Google Nexus One

This is the phone that Google decided to lend its corporate name to. The Nexus One was the first phone to be updated to the latest version of the Android OS 2.2 (of course). It boasts a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and has a 5-megapixel camera. Also manufactured by HTC, the Google Nexus One is only sold on Google's Web site for use on T-Mobile's 3G network. A Sprint version is rumored to be coming soon. Google has suggested that Verizon (NYSE: VZ - News) subscribers should check-out the similar Droid Incredible.

©Verizon

4. Verizon Droid

Made by Motorola (NYSE: MOT - News) for Verizon this phone is a winner. A slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a terrific 3.7-inch screen, 16GB of built-in memory, turn-by-turn GPS travel instructions, loads of video extras and a fast processor make this a desirable option. (Verizon's cellular network doesn't hurt either.) Even though its design is a few months old, the phone comes across as a cutting-edge, thoroughly modern Android device.

©Garmin-Asus

5. Garminfone

Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN - News) has been promising a cutting-edge direction-finder/smartphone for awhile now. This joint effort with the computer gurus at Asus finally hits all the right notes. The Garminfone is a super GPS navigation device built into a state-of-the-art Android smartphone. In our tests we found the Garminfone to be the best smartphone navigation system today -- with the added plus of being able to have someone you know lend his/her voice to the travel commands. Very cool.

See the full list of The Best Andriod Phones

New iPhone Keeps Apple Top of Class

June 22, 2010

Wall Street Journal - Just three years ago, Apple wasn’t in the mobile-phone business at all. Since then, its game-changing iPhone has become the most influential smartphone in the world. Now, on June 24, the company will roll out the fourth generation of the device, called the iPhone 4.

While attractive, capable new smartphones emerge regularly from competitors, a new iPhone deserves special attention for two reasons. First, the device lies at the center of a huge ecosystem of 225,000 apps, plus popular related gadgets like Apple’s iPod Touch connected media player and iPad tablet, which collectively are approaching 100 million units sold. Second, the iPhone’s multitouch, gesture-based interface; elegant Web browser; sophisticated music and video playback; and other features have been emulated on many competing devices, so what Apple does affects the whole industry.

I’ve been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.
It has some downsides and limitations—most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I’ll get into that below. But, overall, Apple (AAPL) has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.

The iPhone 4 is a dramatic redesign. It manages to pack a radically sharper screen; a second, front-facing camera; a larger battery; a better rear camera with flash; and a faster processor into a body that is 24% thinner, a bit narrower, and retains the same length and weight as its predecessor’s. In fact, Apple claims that the iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smartphone and sports the world’s highest-resolution smartphone screen.

With the front-facing camera, and clever new software called FaceTime, Apple has brought simple, high-quality video calling to mobile phones, albeit, for now, only over Wi-Fi and only among iPhone 4 owners. In multiple tests, this feature worked very well for me and is a classic example of the value of having one company do integrated hardware and software.

In addition, the iPhone now includes an updated operating system—which also can be installed free on the prior model—that introduces catch-up software features such as limited multitasking (the ability to run apps simultaneously); folders for grouping related apps; and, for email, a unified inbox for multiple accounts and the ability to present messages as threaded conversations. This software is called iOS4.

The iPhone 4 will cost the same as the iPhone 3GS: $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and $299 for 32 gigabytes, with a two-year contract from AT&T (T). The 3GS model will drop to $99 with a two-year contract and 8 gigabytes of memory ....

Apple claims longer battery life for most functions—seven hours of talk time, for instance, versus five hours on the earlier model. I didn’t perform a precise battery test, but, even in heavy use, the iPhone 4’s battery never reached the red zone on a single day of my tests ...

$3 Microscope Plugs into Cell Phones

Inexpensive, lightweight device provides basic medical diagnostics and images.

May 12, 2010

Technology Review - A small digital microscope that costs just a few dollars can plug into a cell phone and perform basic medical diagnostics that would ordinarily require expensive lab equipment. The microscope, which uses no lenses, saves on cost and weight by using algorithms to get more information from images.

The device can generate blood counts and identify disease cells and bacteria from simple images sent through a USB cord to a cell phone that uses software to processes the data. The latest version of the microscope integrates an interference-based contrast method to provide better images in addition to diagnostic information.

Simple scope: This microscope, which weighs just 46 grams, has no lenses. A sample is loaded into the open drawer; light from an LED passes through the sample and is picked up by an imaging chip that sends image data through the USB cord to a cell phone or laptop.

The researchers developing the device hope it will bring better medical diagnostics to parts of the world where cell phones are prevalent but access to expensive clinical diagnostic equipment is not. Even basic cell phones now have significant processing power that can be used to analyze images of blood smears and other samples on the spot, enabling a patient to get on the right tuberculosis drug faster and enabling health-care providers to identify drug-resistant strains faster.

What sets the new microscope apart from other efforts at integrating optical diagnostics with cell phones is the effort to make it as simple and cheap as possible. That means eliminating expensive lenses, and using software to get medical information from blurry images ...