Posts Tagged ‘Mobile’
According to analysts of the mobile phone industry, within three years at least 20% of smartphones will be used for making direct payment using contactless scanning technology replacing debit and credit cards.
The plastic in your wallet will soon be obsolete as the function of making payments will be replaced by smartphones. In fact the fundamental technology already exists, but the fundamental infrastructure that will make such a system secure is still under development.
The technology that permits these kinds of transactions is called Near Field Communications or NFC and the basic capability is already available on a number of Android powered smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S.
NFC uses short-range wireless communications that have a range of around 4 cm and which uses the 13.56 MHz frequency band. The data transmission rate is quite low, only a few hundred Kbits per second.
The technology uses what is known as an initiator and a target. The initiator is the active device which generates the RF field and the target responds to this field. It is essentially the same as RFID technology and the target can be a very simple device such as a RFID tag.
What that has held up using this technology for monetary transactions is concerns over security. Although the range of just a few centimetres is very short, it remains vulnerable to being hacked using sophisticated eavesdropping tools. These could be made sufficiently sensitive that they could be over a meter away from the initiator.
There is also a vulnerability to data modification by an intruder. Also there are concerns regarding the possibility of hacking into a stolen smartphone.
These security problems are being addressed by highly sophisticated encryption techniques which should guarantee at least the same and probably better security protection levels as with conventional credit and debit cards, though of course nothing can be 100% safe.
The latest report suggests that by 2014 around 300million smartphones will be used for monetary transactions including contactless payment. The key to the rollout of this technology will be the mobile phone networks, and some are planning to introduce the technology within the next couple of years.
Visit Dial-a-phone to browse through phones which are capable of this technology.
This one’s for the cheapskates: Daniel demos how to temporarily turn off cellular data (so you don’t go over your limit) and the built-in way to see how many text messages that long SMS of yours is actually about to send — before you do it! For more reviews, news, tutorials and articles, check out www.todaysiphone.com
Duration : 0:2:31
Everyone is trying to cut costs these days, downsizing on everything from day-to-day expenses, such as food shopping and utility bills, to luxury items and activities – like holidays or retail splurges. Yet many people still find that no matter how hard they try, they’re always met with a steep mobile phone bill at the end of the month.
Did they perhaps misread their contracts when purchasing a mobile phone? Or are they actually going over their allotted minutes, resulting in much higher bills than they had originally anticipated? While the latter is most likely the case, there’s no need to sacrifice your social life or the convenience of having a mobile phone because of high mobile phone service costs.
There are a number of things you can do to lower your monthly mobile phones bills. For starters, it’s worth asking yourself the obvious: do you keep track of how many minutes you speak on your phone throughout the month, or do you allow yourself unlimited mobile use, disregarding your minutes until your expensive bill arrives? A lot of people don’t realise just how frequently they use their phones until they see that bill. But the truth is, those minutes add up – so it’s worth keeping a close eye on your usage. It’s also a good idea to reconsider how many ‘free’ minutes your contract allows, and where you might be able to make adjustments to your usage to get yourself closer to that allowance.
Secondly, do you send text messages or photos through your phone? These actions can also add up on a phone bill, so they’re important aspects to consider. Another question to ask is whether your phone service provider can extend any offers on free texting. Service providers usually have a number of deals on offer at any given time, so they’re not likely to advertise all of them to every single customer. However, if you ask and if any such offer is available, you’ll be sure to hear about it.
Another option to lower your phone bills is to purchase calling credit or a subscription through an online software application. Such applications offer minutes at pre-determined, affordable prices; enabling you to make cheap calls to destinations all over the world.
Moreover, buying credit before making your calls means you’ll increase your awareness of your phone usage – which can help to lower your phone bills significantly. So, it can prove worthwhile to make a few adjustments to your usage. That way, you can enjoy all the benefits of having a mobile phone for less.