Yesterday, ETCentric reported that top carriers including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile have teamed to launch a task force in an effort to create a standardized mobile payment solution. Now, retailers are joining forces for a new mobile wallet solution.
Best Buy, Target and Walmart are among the top retailers who have jointly created Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a new mobile wallet solution aimed to rival Square and Google Wallet.
Merchant Customer Exchange promises “a versatile mobile-commerce experience that will combine the convenience of paying at the register with customizable offers,” reports The Verge.
“The mobile payment landscape has rapidly evolved in recent months,” notes the post. “Square entered into a major partnership with Starbucks, all four major U.S. carriers teamed up with ISIS and Google, and Google Wallet was completely overhauled — and that’s just in the last two weeks.”
Specifics have yet to be announced for the offering still in development, but the main advantage to MCX over Square or other mobile payment systems may be that the corporate partners can include special offers within the application.
The retailers have not announced a time frame for MCX’s release, but promise to release additional information within the next few months.
“While there’s a huge number of competing mobile payment services fighting to break out of the pack, the tremendous retail support behind MCX means it has at least as good a shot as any of the other options,” comments The Verge.
The Atlantic praises the new Starbucks-Square deal and the future of a cashless society, suggesting that point of sale methods are outdated and expensive while cashless solutions humanize “the interaction by making the point of contact all about two people’s faces rather than a credit card and a swiper.”
“Frictionless transactions make us forget about money,” which is both a good and bad thing, explains The Atlantic. Increasing purchasing ease is certainly good, but in a nation that already struggles to save money, it is dangerous to make spending money easier.
Another attractive feature is that cash free payments create massive troves of data. This could allow people to receive texts about deals for products that interest them in the area, or simply help economists better understand cash flow.
Wired explains what the future could look like: “You’re walking down the street. It’s hot. The Starbucks a block away sends you a message that your favorite hot-weather order — venti skinny latte on ice — is available to you at a dollar off. You accept the offer, and with a few taps, add an almond biscotti to the tab. Then you stroll into the Starbucks. Everything is ready when you arrive — you simply pick it up, the barista checks out your punim, and you’re out the door.”
Cashless payments could also help people monitor their money better, as users could set up services to budget themselves wirelessly.
The Atlantic does warn that cashless payments could lead to more crime, as hackers can target software.
Facebook has introduced the Open Compute Project, an open-source endeavor aimed to “do for commercial hardware what Linux did for commercial software — change the way it is designed, built, sold and supported,” reports Business Insider.
Rather than purchasing hardware from Dell or HP, Facebook now custom designs hardware for its needs. Facebook then posts the designs on GitHub for anyone to use or modify.
Facebook director of hardware design and supply chain Frank Frankovsky heads the Open Compute Project.
Frankovsky explains how after the team “built its first data center in Prinevill, Oregon, which opened in April, 2011, they saw that it was 38 percent less expensive to operate, gave them a ’24 percent capex savings advantage’ compared to buying gear from typical vendors and that their data centers consumed a lot less electricity, too.”
Frankovsky believes the hardware his team builds helps eliminate waste, as HP and Dell servers typically have “this beautiful plastic bevel on the front that allows them to put logo on the front. That plastic not only impedes the air flow, which causes the fans to work harder to cool the servers, but when you are deploying servers by the 10’s of thousands, that’s a lot of wasted material that is someday going to be decommissioned and put into the waste stream.”
Frankovsky also explains that his servers are easier to repair. He reports that some technicians can repair his servers eight times more quickly than they can a typical server.
Non-practicing entities, or patent trolls, cost American software and hardware companies more than $29 billion in 2011, according to a report from the Boston University School of Law.
Non practicing entities are patent-holding firms or individuals who own patents, but do not use the technology to produce goods. Rather, the patent-holders use their intellectual property to profit when companies use their patented technology.
Spending on patent litigation has risen nearly 436 percent since 2005, and the increase prompted Electronic Times Internet Co. to report “domestic smartphone industry is in a state of emergency due to global ‘patent trolls’ launching a series of attacks.”
“Unlike rival manufacturers such as Apple and Nokia, there is no way to reach cross-license agreements with patent trolls through counter-suits,” continues the report.
The Boston University School of Law suggests solving the problem by providing “greater transparency in the patent system” and by making sure patent damage awards “are proportional to the value of the patented technology.”
About 40 percent of the world’s most popular 100 brands are active on photo-sharing service Instagram, according to a new report from Simply Measured.
Facebook boasts a 98 percent rate among the Interbrand 100, while Twitter has reached a 94 percent adoption rate.
While Instagram trails Facebook and Twitter in adoption, the young service has expanded much faster than its social media predecessors. Instagram has grown from 15 million users in 2011 to 80 million users.
Simply Measured expects Instagram to grow to 100 million users this fall. Facebook and Twitter took four and five years, respectively, to reach 100 million users.
“This aggressive growth has provided a massive marketing opportunity and top brands are taking that seriously,” explains Simply Measured CEO Adam Schoenfeld.
MTV is currently Instagram’s top brand with 813,201 users. Luxury brands do especially well, with Burberry, Gucci, Audi, and Tiffany & Co. all in the top ten.
In a related CNET article, Pinterest — the popular social network that encourages its members to “pin” images and videos — has begun open registration, allowing users to join via Facebook, Twitter or email login without having to wait for an invitation.
“We’re really excited to have the capacity to offer Pinterest to more people,” notes the Pinterest blog, “and if you’re a Pinner with friends who’ve been waiting on the sidelines, we hope you’ll let them know.”
Barnes & Noble has begun data collection on its Nook tablets, analyzing how long people spend reading different types of books to determine the best ways to publish popular works.
The company noted that people read non-fiction in bursts, but tend to read genre novels and series all in one go. This suggests that non-fiction authors have a more difficult time of developing loyal fan bases.
Data collection and the subsequent algorithms to determine how to write popular books “may be a boon to the publishing industry, but it’s not necessarily a good thing for writers or literature in general,” comments Mobiledia.
Gathering empirical evidence for the development of “popular” books may lead companies like Barnes & Noble and Amazon to encourage authors to drop their literary ambitions and instead focus on the formula of popular book development.
Mobiledia argues that more popular books on the market could mean higher literacy rates.
Those with privacy concerns may want to take caution by avoiding e-readers, as companies do analyze every book read. “As much as privacy implications may bother people, they are unlikely to put a dent on the e-publishing industry, since it continues to expand at a rapid clip,” the post concludes. “The practice of examining readers’ habits will likely continue and affect the publishing industry, encouraging authors to use the information to craft more popular books.”
Nuance Communications has announced the availability of its open SDK for “Nina,” a new virtual assistant designed for mobile customer service apps.
“With Nina, companies can quickly add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to their existing iOS and Android mobile apps, greatly enhancing the self-service experience for their customers,” explains the press release.
“Nina combines Nuance speech recognition, Text-to-Speech (TTS), voice biometrics, and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology hosted in the cloud to deliver an interactive user experience that not only understands what is said, but also can identify who is saying it,” adds the release.
The company claims that Nina is the first virtual assistant customer service app to utilize both speech recognition and voice biometrics. Companies can customize Nina to fit their brand image. They can alter the visual appearance and implement optional voices.
“Nina is a watershed innovation for the automated customer service industry, not only because it brings the virtual assistant directly into an app, but because it raises the bar through its level of interactive dialog and language understanding,” suggests Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager of the Nuance Enterprise Division.
The SDK and cloud service is currently available in English versions for the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Additional languages will be available later in 2012.
Starbucks and Square have agreed to a $25 million deal to bring mobile payment solutions to Starbucks.
The deal officially applies to 7,000 Starbucks stores, but TechCrunch suggests it could expand to allow Square to reach international markets, as Starbucks currently boasts 20,000 worldwide locations.
TechCrunch speculates that other mobile payment options, such as Here from PayPal, will continue to push card-free payment on a global scale.
“The consumer is going through a seismic change in which cash is eventually going to be obsolete,” notes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
“Pay with Square lets the company forge relationships directly with consumers rather than with merchants — and that means that whatever happens under the hood — whether it is about NFC or QR, or even if it decides to lift off the credit card platform to a different kind of financial instrument altogether — that customer relationship will remain, something that could be welcomed by a population that doesn’t really care about which technology does what,” explains the post.
Apple co-founder and Fusion-io chief scientist Steve Wozniak recently spoke out against cloud storage, suggesting that dependence on outside storage will lead to significant problems.
“I really worry about everything going to the cloud,” he said during an interview. “I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years.”
Wozniak argues that by agreeing to cloud terms of service, users sign away their ownership of content. When content is on a personal computer, the user owns the information. But by storing data in the cloud, the consumer signs away control, according to Wozniak.
“I want to feel that I own things,” he explained. “A lot of people feel, ‘Oh, everything is really on my computer,’ but I say the more we transfer everything onto the Web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.”
“A major irony of Wozniak’s remarks is that he works for Fusion-io, which is working to improve cloud computing with flash storage and specialized applications,” notes VentureBeat.
Speech recognition provider iSpeech has announced plans to create the first voice-controlled smart households, which would allow users to control their appliances, lights and more with voice recognition software.
The iSpeech Home technology would “give OEMs and manufacturers a canvas where they can implement voice recognition software into TVs, home entertainment systems, lighting, refrigerators and even washers and dryers,” reports Engadget.
The company does not have any official partners yet, but plans to implement the iSpeech Home system within 6-12 months.
“We believe speech is the user interface of the future,” says iSpeech COO Yaron Oren. “Siri has done an amazing job of bringing this vision to life on the iPhone, and we are helping bring it to more applications, more platforms and new markets such as the connected home.”
According to the company’s press release, iSpeech Home supports 26 languages and comprehends voices commands such as: “Watch ESPN,” “Find movies starring Tom Hanks,” “Record American Idol,” “Turn on stereo and play Lady Gaga,” “Set temperature in house to 70 degrees,” “Turn off the lights in the living room” and “Turn on the alarm.”
“Leveraging iSpeech’s cloud, embedded and hybrid, human quality text-to-speech and speech recognition technology, iSpeech Home eliminates the challenge of a complicated user interface typically associated with home automation,” explains the release.
Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov is disappointed in today’s video game landscape, suggesting that there are too many war games, sequels, and games that take place in New York.
Antonov challenges developers to explore science fiction and to create games within fictional landscapes. He believes this requires more creativity and yields a more interesting product. He is also surprised that we are not seeing more expansion into sub-genres.
“There’s a place for thousands of different sub-genres and genres,” notes Antonov. “Imagine the times when you were in the ’40s and there were Westerns in Hollywood cinema: there were so many of them that none will be compared with another one, because there was a genre.”
He believes his new game, “Dishonored,” will help bring artistic integrity back to fictional video game worlds. The world in the game, Dunwall, is molded after London and Edinburgh in the mid-1800s to the 1930s.
“We have gone out of our way to defend the art part of the project, and set a very high standard — unusually high standard, in terms of precision and art production,” explains Antonov. “Part of this was not just doing the drawings, but talking and communicating with the publisher and the game designers and creative directors that that’s really necessary.”
Antonov believes Dunwall will excite players even more than Half-Life 2’s iconic “City 17.”
“We have a pretty good excitement about the project now, but we’ll know once someone has experienced the game, where art meets music meets gameplay meets rhythm — and that creates the thing that has no vocabulary, which is the game experience: these climactic, unforgettable moments that you get in three games in your life and you remember forever,” he says.
As technology advances, the notion of “big data” will become more applicable to everyday life.
People currently use big data to reduce crime, maximize milk production in cows, and reduce rugby injuries, but soon big data will infiltrate nearly every aspect of life.
“The scale of what we’re doing is far beyond anything anybody’s been able to put together before,” says scientist Dr. David Haussler. ” I think you’re going to start to see this sort of big data effort on several fronts — partly because of supercomputing capabilities that we haven’t had until recently and also because of wireless devices that are increasingly being used to transmit data.”
In the entertainment industry, big data is expected to transform the personalization of media.
“Intelligent media distribution powered by Big Data will mean that your TV (and tablet, and phone) will know what you like, when you like to watch it, and what you will want to watch next,” explains VentureBeat.
As big data changes entertainment consumption, viewers will become more engaged and fewer viewers will abandon videos. This translates to better experiences for customers and more lucrative advertising deals for content distributors.
Internet service providers Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast have traditionally protected their users from spies and eavesdroppers. But a new alliance with Hollywood studios may lead to ISPs and media giants monitoring accounts together in an effort to combat piracy.
The Center for Copyright Information effort will implement a “graduated response plan” across all cable companies in the agreement. The ISPs can crack down on offending parties while sharing a standardized amount of blame since the companies will share the policy.
“The fact that they are all agreeing to participate makes it harder for any one company to win the disgruntled customers of those who have been disciplined by another,” reports CNN contributor Douglas Rushkoff. “But now that they’re free from individual blame, there’s also the strong possibility that the ISPs will be doing the data monitoring directly. That’s a much bigger deal.”
If companies begin directly tracking ISPs, they will open up numerous negative possibilities. Internet companies could use the software to track open networks and subsequently charge neighbors who tap into the network.
Also, users will lose their expectation of privacy when using the Internet. Privacy is especially important for users, such as doctors, who need to send sensitive information over their network. If cable companies begin to track user data and messages, people (and businesses) will consider hosting their Internet offshore.
“The risk of losing their ‘net [access] because someone accidentally streamed the wrong thing is a business prerogative significant enough to tunnel all their traffic to a country that provides sensible data privacy laws,” explains Internet security expert Josh Klein. “How much long after that until the rest of the company gets off-shored?”
The MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture group wrote a paper outlining a new type of glasses-free 3D technology. The technology, called Tensor Display, uses layers of LCD displays to create a 3D illusion.
Tensor refers to “compressive displays that can create a wide field of view by splitting a 3D image into 2D slices for processing, in a similar way to a CAT scan,” according to Electronics Weekly.
The display requires a refresh rate of 360 hertz. Current LCD TVs have a 240 hertz refresh rate, suggesting that 360 may not be too far away from reality.
One of the authors of the paper, Douglas Lanman, explained that while many people see holograms as the future of 3D, “The problem, of course, is that holograms don’t move. To make them move, you need to create a hologram in real time, and to do that, you need … little tiny pixels, smaller than anything we can build at large volume at low cost. So the question is, what do we have now? We have LCDs. They’re incredibly mature, and they’re cheap.”
To create different perspectives from different angles, the scientists display different patterns on screens at different depths. Not all aspects of a scene change relative to the viewing angle, so the scientists use algorithms to isolate and change only the aspects that need to change with movement.
“This quality, called ‘multiview 3D,’ simulates the act of looking at an object in a whole new way,” reports the Huffington Post. “If you were to watch an outdoors scene, for example, and looked up at the screen while lying on the floor, you might be able to see up to the sky, even if it’s not visible when the screen is viewed straight-on. The fact that each of your eyes will see objects on the screen from slightly different angles will help create the illusion that you’re looking at something truly three-dimensional.”
“It’s definitely suitable for commercial applications, because each component is commonplace, and it sounds easy to manufacture, so this ought to be something that a consumer-electronics company would license,” explains Gregg Favalora, principal at the engineering consultancy Optics for Hire. “Honestly, this is a really big deal.”
MIT economist Abhishek Nagaraj analyzed the effects of copyright law on Wikipedia, especially “how digitized, public domain works dramatically affect the quality of knowledge,” reports The Atlantic.
Nagaraj’s research used digitized versions of Baseball Digest to analyze how public domain pictures and information can change Wikipedia traffic. Google digitized the journal in 2008.
After the digitization, “Nagaraj found articles on four decades of All-Stars between 1944 and 1984 grew by about 5,200 words per article,” according to The Atlantic.
But Nagaraj’s true findings came not from the length increases of the articles, but from the traffic driven to the Web pages. Copyright laws allowed articles from 1944 to 1984 to be in the public domain, so authors could use images from these articles on Wikipedia.
The image availability caused the number of pictures on articles to rise to 1.15 per article. Players with articles still under copyright law only had .667 pictures per article, despite playing in a more modern era.
“Copyright law affects to some degree what information makes its way onto Wikipedia, but what it more strongly affects is how we use that information once it’s there. In other words, digitizing any knowledge increases an article’s text, but only digitizing public domain images makes articles more frequently updated and visited,” notes the article.
Google’s algorithm favors updated Web pages and images, so perhaps this helps explain the rise in traffic.
