MasterCard engages the senses with mobile payment tech

By Ryan Kim
From http://gigaom.com/

MasterCard is working on a number of fronts to bring mobile payments to the market, partnering with Google on Google Wallet and throwing support behind Isis, the carrier-led NFC joint venture. But it’s got some interesting ideas of its own on how to spur mobile payments, shopping and interaction with a mobile phone.

The credit card company showed off a handful of projects Thursday that highlighted how it can leverage mobile phones to encourage shopping using a variety of technologies, from QR codes and NFC to audio signals motion control. The projects are all part of a larger platform, called QkR for now, that is being incubated in MasterCard Labs and is close to being deployed in the coming months.

When consumers use a QkR app that contains their credit card credentials, they’ll be able to scan QR codes right off a home shopping network-like show. After scanning the code when they see an item they’d like to buy, the app will let them check out and buy the product immediately. MasterCard also showed off an NFC table coaster that allows people to buy products without getting up and scanning the QR code. Instead, the NFC reader recognizes what product is being shown on TV and initiates a transaction when a user taps their phone on the coaster.

Another implementation involves audio scanning. Similar to the work that IntoNow and Shazam and others are doing, MasterCard can embed high and low frequency signals into TV commercials. When a user opens up their app and presses a button to listen, the app will recognize the signal and pull up relevant content based on the commercial. So a MasterCard commercial featuring the New York Yankees will pull Yankees gear for sale. The system uses high-frequency signals, which can work in loud settings and also can utilize low frequencies, which is how most scanning technologies work.

In a restaurant setting, users can scan a QR code or tap an NFC sticker to pull up discounts and coupons. And when they get to their table, they can do the same thing to pull up a menu, where they can order remotely and have their dishes delivered to their table. MasterCard said it’s talking to a lot of restaurants about this technology, which many businesses feel could be useful in improving efficiency. Users can also pay for their bills right from the app, which can also be a nice way to get in and out quickly.

And finally, MasterCard showed off how QkR can work in conjunction with the Xbox Kinect motion control system. Users can wave their hands to engage the system and conduct a transaction for a product by just moving their hands to get through a check-out process. I’m not sure how many people need to conduct a transaction using gestures, but MasterCard is showing how you can utilize other technologies to facilitate purchases. And it’s further playing off the idea that people will be able to make more purchases right from their couch.

Again, none of this is on the market, but an announcement could be coming in the next few weeks, I’m told. Since MasterCard is already a payments company, it makes sense for it to build apps and services that can speed people to the point of purchasing something. By using existing and emerging technologies and leveraging the mobile phone, MasterCard is trying to remove the barriers that might prevent or hinder people from buying things.

This is going to ultimately change the way we interact with the world. Our TV shows will likely be dotted with prompts to audio scan with an app. Stores will all come with NFC stations where people can check-in, get discounts and see what’s on sale. Restaurants may start to do away with waiters coming to take our order and instead let customers get their food order going by using their phones.

MasterCard can win if it becomes the conduit for all these transactions and encourages people to open up their digital wallets more often. But overall, the MasterCard technology shows that there are still a lot of ways in which we can tap smartphones and other technology to get transactions going.

How Scalado is secretly making our phone cameras better

by: | Devindra Hardawar
from: http://venturebeat.com/


For more than ten years, Swedish phone camera software company Scalado has been spearheading imaging innovations — but few people outside of the mobile industry realize how much of an impact the company has had.

Scalado’s technology, which includes advanced software for taking, viewing, and editing pictures on your phone, has been placed in over 900 million mobile devices so far, the company announced last month. Its software landed on over 350 million devices last year, and is set to be included on 500 million more in 2011.
Soon enough, Scalado’s software will be featured on a billion devices — something few software companies can boast. Scalado is a prime example of how a small international company — it only has around 110 employees — can become a major force in the global app economy.

The company’s early innovations include Random Access JPEG, a patented technology that made it easy for 2002-era phones to deal with photos; CAPS, a software development kit that made managing multi-megapixel pictures more CPU and memory efficient; and SpeedTags, technology that made JPEG optimization on mobile phones near-instant. Many of Scalado’s more recent technologies, including zero shutter lag shooting (pictures get taken as soon as you hit the shutter button), burst shot, and high-definition range shooting, are built upon SpeedTags and are included in the company’s Camera SDK.

Scalado has been able to get its technology on nearly a billion devices because it works across pretty much any platform, including iOS, Android and Symbian. The company’s partners and customers include Motorola, Nokia, Sony/Ericsson, HTC and Qualcomm. And now with tablets on the rise, Scalado’s tech has yet another group of devices to invade. The company recently showed off an iPad demo album for viewing 10,000 photos.

Raj Talluri, Qualcomm’s vice president of product management, praised Scalado during our MobileBeat 2011 conference earlier this month:

We built the hardware inside our developer platform, Snapdragon, to take pictures at high speeds and compress them into the perfect shot. Scalado then built their application to complements our hardware. The app allows the user to choose a face from those high speed-taken photos and layers it smoothly on your end picture. It’s a total solution for mobile picture taking.

The feature Talluri’s referring to is called Rewind, and as you can see in the video below it could be useful for touching up photos without actually retaking them. Scalado also recently showed off Multi-Angle (see video below), a feature that allows you to sweep your phone around an object to create a semi-3D image that’s viewable on 2D screens. Recipients of Multi-Angle photos can pan around the image simply by tilting their phone.

Scalado will continue to play a big part in the future of mobile imaging. Another recent video from the company demonstrates futuristic editing capabilities like the ability to fill in missing elements from a photos (for a full 360 degrees), even more robust 3D capturing, and the ability to take “intelligent pictures”, or photos that you can explore like a typical Web page.

38 Years Since The First Mobile Phone

The mobile phone has changed the lives of many people over the past 15 years, when it began to be used globally. But, few know that the first prototype was built 38 years ago in New York.
More specifically, the first phone call ​​by a person walking on the streets was made ​​in 1973, in the year when the U.S. Army announced its withdrawal from Vietnam.


On April 3, Martin Cooper, who was then 44 years, used the first prototype mobile phone on the streets of New York. As expected, the reaction of those who saw him with the device in hand was one of total bewilderment, confusion and “gape “.  Cooper is now 82 and he told the Daily Mail publication about how Americans reacted:

“ As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call.
I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter – probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life.” 




But it had to pass a while until Mr. Cooper’s vision could have been applied at a global scale. Those where the years when only the rich ones could have phones inside their luxurious cars.
The first mobile phone that Martin Cooper created was weighing approximately 2.5 lbs., something that would now be regarded as a “brick”. Ten years have passed until Motorola managed to commercialize and distribute Dyna-TAC.


DynaTAC 8000X had the following characteristics:

• weighed around 1lb
• the lifespan of the battery in standby was up to 8 hours and 30 minutes of talking time
• took 10 hours for a full charge
• the price was around 3500$
• had a length of 13.5 inchs- had 9 buttons: recall, clear, send, store, function, end, power, lock, volume
• had a basic display and could store up to 30 numbers

Starbucks Starts Accepting Mobile Payments Nationwide

by Jennifer Van Grove
from http://mashable.com/

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Nearly 6,800 company-operated Starbucks stores in the U.S. will begin accepting mobile payments Wednesday. Customers using the Starbucks Card Mobile app on their iPhone, iPod touch or BlackBerry will now be able to use those devices as tender.

The nationwide rollout marks the official launch of the Starbucks Card Mobile payment program, which has been piloted at Target stores and select San Francisco, Seattle and New York Starbucks locations.

Starbucks Card Mobile [iTunes link] lets users add their Starbucks Cards, track rewards and reload cards as needed via PayPal or credit card. To pay with their phone, app users simply select “touch to pay” and hold up the barcode on their mobile device screen to the 2-D scanner at the register.

An Android application is also said to be in the works, but the company has yet to disclose a release date.


Starbucks is using its own custom-built technology to enable the 2-D mobile barcode scans. The coffee retailer opted for barcode scanning over near field communication technology — which Google () is exploring — because of its limited availability. The coffee retailer was reluctant to wait for a NFC ecosystem to develop when its customers have expressed interest in mobile payments now, according to Chuck Davidson, the category manager of innovation on the Starbucks Card team. “Once there are more users, we will adapt,” he says.

In testing, Starbucks assessed the mobile payment option by measuring application speed, transaction speed and total customer wait time, says Brady Brewer, vice president of Starbucks Card and brand loyalty. In all instances, Starbucks Card Mobile was the fastest way for customers to pay.

Starbucks is investing in mobile payments, an investment Davidson describes as modest in relation to expectations, because customers have requested the option and have shown a propensity to not only pay with Starbucks Cards — one in five transactions are made using a Starbucks Card — but frequently use their smartphones while waiting in line.

The company also believes that its customers carry their mobile phones more often than a wallet or purse, and sees Starbucks Card Mobile and the mobile payment program as an opportunity to reach these consumers and build stronger relationships.

Starbucks seems confident that its customers will appreciate the new, faster way to pay. Both Davidson and Brewer believe that adoption will spread as customers tell their friends about the new mobile payment option.
Image courtesy of gumption, Flickr

BlindType vows to autocorrect all wrongs with your iPhone or Android virtual keyboard (video)

By Vlad Savov
From: http://www.engadget.com/

718diggsdiggRemember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets too fat to be able to dial a number? Well, he wouldn't have had that problem had BlindType been around. This soft keyboard is described by its makers as being extremely resilient to inaccurate input and looking at the demo video after the break, you kinda have to agree -- it seems to have a pretty kickass predictive algorithm. Aside from that, the keyboard also dynamically adjusts to wherever and however you choose to type, meaning its size and orientation track along to your input, which goes some way to justifying the somewhat odd name (it's meant for blind operation, not blind people). Text can be inserted without the keyboard even being on screen, while spaces are added by swiping to the right. BlindType should be coming to Android and iOS devices some time in the near future.

[Thanks, Fadl]

Update: We asked BlindType's makers whether implementing their software will require replacing Apple's default button slate and they've confirmed that it would. They're making and submitting it for iOS use, nonetheless, "to put pressure on Apple to finally allow this kind of thing."

BlindType

Samsung shows unbreakable AMOLED display

From: http://www.electronista.com/

Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) is developing an AMOLED display that is crush-proof and can be bent while showing video without ill effects. The prototype display is sized at 2.8 inches and has a resolution of 166ppi. It weighs just 0.29g and is 20 micrometers thin. Samsung believes it can bring the AMOLED display on a universal board to market by 2012.

Such displays would be useful in smartphones, bringing new levels of thinnes and ruggedness and allow for new form factors. SMD plans to introduce a TFT on the plastic panel and to replace the existing vinyl protection sheet with polyimide film to prevent residue when light is emitted. [via OLED-Display]

Cell-Phone Carriers like AT&T and Verizon Killing Unlimited Data Plans

Vassily

From: http://www.infernodevelopment.com/

AT&T killed its unlimited data plans recently due to large volumes of data, most probably from the Apple iPad. From $30/month for unlimited plan to $25/month for 2 GB of data bandwidth transfer per month for the Apple iPad. $20/month for iPhone limited to 2GB as well. For some it may seem like 2GB is enough, but it really depends on how often you use your data services. How often are you using your email?

Apparently, this bandwidth payment deal started around June 7th.

Engadget reports that Verizon will be switching to this limited data system soon as well (that they've hinted at for a while). No word or confirmation on pricing or whether it even will happen but Verizon will probably not miss out on this opportunity to make extra cash, especially if their biggest competitor is doing it.

This is where I'm glad I still use T-Mobile--I hope they won't follow these other company leads.

If consumers want to actually make a difference, they need to use their purchasing power to force these companies to get rid of these rip off offers. For example, all airline companies now charge $25 for the FIRST bag; Southwest doesn't, so it makes sense for consumers to start using Southwest. Similarly, we need to switch cell-phone carriers to unlimited plans to make those limited plan ideas crawl back under the rocks from whence they came.

The only way capitalism can work perfectly is through informed consumers who will punish those companies that find loopholes and ways to charge more money. Informed consumers like yourselves need to take a stand and switch to the competition no matter what. Another example, almost every cell phone company makes 2-year contracts; well then we should try to switch to providers who don't have any contracts (if they exist).

Unfortunately, most consumers are use to taking whatever is thrown at them and biting the bullet. Imagine the charge amounts when you accidentally download too many attachments (which sometimes automatically get downloaded if they are images). They already double the monthly charge when you accidentally go over your minutes.

RIM cracks 50 million BlackBerry sales

Research in Motion today passed a symbolic barrier today by selling its 50 millionth BlackBerry device. While not tracking down the exact model, the achievement comes just a month after the 10-year anniversary of the first BlackBerries arriving from the Canadian company. The number is helped by the explosion of sales outside of North America and outside of its more familiar business market, with phones like the Curve, Pearl and Storm mostly targeting home use.

The very earliest models were considered pagers and could only handle the BlackBerry's signature "push" e-mail and basic data services, though most models from the 5000 series upwards were some of the first smartphone-class devices.

RIM nonetheless reaches the milestone with competition from rivals which have taken less time to accelerate their own sales. Although it has since regained a more definitive lead, the BlackBerry maker briefly lost to Apple during the summer as the iPhone 3G's international launch and a pre-crisis economy helped increase its numbers. The BlackBerry Storm was built with combating the iPhone in mind but has managed a relatively cool 1 million units in two months for Verizon versus Apple's 1.9 million iPhones for AT&T in three months.

Additionally, while RIM courts about 21 million current BlackBerry e-mail users, most of its known introductions for 2009 are relatively modest updates and are rumored to include HSPA-based versions of the Curve 8900 and Storm as well as CDMA versions of previously GSM-only phones like the Pearl Flip.