Offering to play matchmaker between your high-end camera and smartphone, XEquals has extended support for its BlueSLR remote control beyond iOS. Yes, Blackberry and Android users can now download their respective app and pair this Bluetooth dongle to their (still Nikon-only) DSLR. The compatible dongle and free app will land later this month, but before you lay down the requisite 9, it’s worth checking that both your camera and phone models are supported. As it stands, compatible Android phones are limited to some HTC or Samsung models. While Android support is likely to expand in the future, there’s no word on a Pre 3 version.

Continue reading BlueSLR dongle arrives for BlackBerry and (some) Android phones

BlueSLR dongle arrives for BlackBerry and (some) Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Erply, a point of sale and inventory software provider from Estonia, has been growing quickly, racking up 20,000 retail customers including 8,000 who are using iPads hooked into point of sale terminals. Now the company is looking to jump into the ring with Square and Verifone by offering an iPad payment dongle that will process credit card swipes similar to Square but also handle near field communication (NFC) payments.

The NFC angle is a little gimmicky right now considering there are few ways to pay with NFC-enabled phones. But it shows that Erply isn’t just poised to be a me-too product but is looking to the future, when NFC payments become more prevalent. But the real benefit will be in tying a dongle into Erply’s cloud POS and inventory software, which allows merchants to get a real-time view of inventory and payments as they come in from multiple terminals and locations. That will be useful for small and medium sized businesses with more than one location. Employees will be able to process transactions from the sales floor and they’ll be able to check on back-room inventory right from their iPad to help a customer.

“With our mobile credit card reader, we are providing retailers with the full range of technology options they will need to accept and process payments and make real-time decisions that affect their business,” said Erply CEO Kris Hiiemaa.

Another selling point for Erply is its payment processing fees, which will hit about 1.9 percent, lower than Square’s 2.75 percent. Erply is able to do this because the device encrypts the card data and transmits it directly to the POS software to process the transaction and record the sale in inventory. Because there’s less chance for a merchant or a criminal to steal the card data, that allows Erply to lower the risk margin, which means lower fees. Erply doesn’t process the actual payment but works with about 25 payment providers, who are able to process payments in a day.

Erply’s dongle though comes with a price of , compared to Square’s free swiper, and companies can expect to pay or more for Erply’s software. Customers with one iPad can get a free package. IPhone support will come within the next three months. Erply won’t necessarily appeal to a lot of Square’s business customers, who are often small merchants with one location. But it’s another choice for small and medium sized businesses and allows them to go mobile with payments inside their store.

There’s still a lot of room for competition in this mobile payment space and Square is finding that there’s plenty of companies looking to cash in by helping merchants accept payments. Erply’s move to process payments on mobile devices may do more to coax some merchants into mobile payments than siphon away business from Square, which also improved its iOS apps and redesigned its website this week.

And it should keep Erply growing at a fast rate. Erply, which is now processing .5 million in transactions a day, won the Seedcamp funding competition in London in 2009 and has been steadily stealing away customers from larger firms like Microsoft and SAP. It recently just signed its first Fortune 500 customer and about 40 percent of its clients are in the U.S. In March, Erply raised million from Redpoint Ventures, Index Ventures and a bunch of angels including Dave McClure.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Mobile payments: forecasts, technologies and opportunities
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T

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Remember that Griffin-made StompBox we showed you back in January? Well, it’s finally hit the market, so you can free up those virtuoso hands and get to pedal-pounding wicked sound effects. The four button foot controller works with Frontier Design’s iShred LIVE app for iOS, connecting your instrument via an included GuitarConnect cable to a 1/4-inch jack. The device is “designed to work with… a guitar, bass guitar, electric violin and keyboard,” so your virtual jam band session is all but guaranteed. This musical f/x dongle is available to order now for .99 online, or you can just head to one of Apple’s boutiques to snag it. Sadly, the effects switcher doesn’t come bundled with a copycat of Slash’s hat, but that shouldn’t stop your credit card from indulging in this latest bout of Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

Continue reading Griffin’s StompBox available to order, virtual guitar shredding now a go

Griffin’s StompBox available to order, virtual guitar shredding now a go originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading PhotoFast i-FlashDrive does USB on one end, 30-pin dock connector on the other

PhotoFast i-FlashDrive does USB on one end, 30-pin dock connector on the other originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Jun 2011 09:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation announces official wireless cans for PS3, stereo frags coming September originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 05:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever find yourself wishing your iPad iPad 2 was free from the fickle whims of wireless internet connections? Neither do we — but, if you’re the cable-dependent type, your prayers may not go unanswered for much longer. Redpark (who gave the iPhone an RJ-11 dongle) has created the Console Cable with the ubiquitous 30-pin Apple connector on one end and an RJ-45 plug on the other. The device is used in conjunction with a .99 Get Console app to allow Cisco engineers to use their iDevice of choice to perform maintenance out in the field. Cable and app are exclusively compatible with Cisco devices, however, so no Ethernet on the iPhone… yet. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes it happen — your move, hackers.

Redpark Console Cable gives iDevices an RJ-45 connector, not Ethernet access originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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