Sometimes I can’t help but think back to my first cellular phone back in the mid-1990′s. But the history of mobiles started a decade prior, when phones were beyond the means of most consumers. Now we have countries with more mobile subscriptions than people and the phone itself is used less and less for it’s original purpose: Voice calls.

This infographic, courtesy of Savings.com, brings together historical datapoints showing the decreasing cost and size of mobile devices, in conjunction with more capable hardware and services.

Interestingly, the “phone of the future” will support HD graphics, electronic payments and can be used as a game console. Galaxy Nexus owners are already living in the future then as the smartphone with its NFC chip can be used as wireless wallet, is great for watching HD videos and connects to console-quality game services in the cloud, such as OnLive, right now.

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MasterCard and mFoundry, a mobile banking specialist, are poised to help banks launch potentially hundreds of NFC-based mobile wallets with a new partnership. The collaboration will allow banks that use mFoundry for their mobile banking apps to add support for contactless NFC MasterCard PayPass payments, turning those mobile banking apps into digital wallet payment tools.

MFoundry counts more than 500 banks, credit unions and other financial institutions as customers including two of the biggest banks, Banks of American and PNC. More than seven million users turn to apps and services built by mFoundry. Next year, these customers will be able to make touch-and-go payments at thousands of point-of-sale terminals with their mobile phones right through the app they use regularly to check their bank statements, pay bills and transfer funds. MFoundry said it will update its mobile apps most likely in the first half of 2012 to include NFC support and it will be up to banks to turn on the capability with MasterCard. Users will be able to connect their bank-issued debit and credit cards for NFC phone payments.

The two companies are also working on a mobile application that allows mobile phone operators to offer PayPass payments from their phones. MasterCard isn’t just striking a deal with mFoundry, it’s also becoming an investor in the start-up’s latest round. Larkspur, CA-based mFoundry is set to announce its latest round on Monday.

This collaboration is important news because consumers have a trusted relationship with their banks. While Google and the carriers through their Isis joint venture are trying to become a trusted wallet provider with their NFC-based systems, they still don’t have the kind of financial trust that consumers place in their banks. So banks could be instrumental in helping NFC along by introducing the technology to their customers through their existing banking apps.

For NFC to work, “you have to get consumers to change their behavior and we think banks are in a great position to do that,” said James Anderson, SVP of Mobile for MasterCard.

This will also bring the banks into the NFC mobile wallet market, where they have not been very prominent so far. Citibank is an early partner in Google Wallet while Isis, the carrier-led joint venture has not announced any banking partners, though it hopes to have a few on-board when it launches next year. But for the most part, the banks have been largely silent. It might due to the fact that they’re not all comfortable with the terms of the Google Wallet and Isis. Now, they’re in a position to leverage NFC themselves without having to work with another provider.

Drew Sievers, CEO of mFoundry said it’s not just big banks that can jump on board. The integration with MasterCard means a lot of smaller financial institutions will be able to extend support for NFC payments through their mobile banking apps. And he said this could be a catalyst for growth for mFoundry, helping it attract even more banking customers.

“By working with MasterCard, mFoundry will be able to evolve and expand its financial services
platforms to reach more consumers through new and existing clients,” said Sievers.

It’s still unclear if all these banking apps will get direct access to the NFC secure element to enable payments. There seems to some wrangling going on as the carriers in Isis, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, are not rushing to enable other wallets like Google Wallet to work on their NFC-enabled phones. It doesn’t appear like the Galaxy Nexus, Google’s flagship Android 4.0 phone, will support Google Wallet even though it has an NFC chip. That may come down to the fact that Verizon is not a Google Wallet partner like Sprint is. But Sievers believes that phones will eventually be wallet agnostic and that will allow banking apps with NFC support to flourish.

I think this could add some confusion in the short term as we hear a lot of different competing voices urging users to get on board with their NFC wallet. In fact, the term mobile wallet is going to get abused early and often, I imagine. But ultimately, I think this could be a good thing. New technology needs advocates to help sell it to consumers and in the case of NFC, which can trigger some security concerns in consumers, having the banks their walk them through the process would be a good thing. Provided these banking apps can actually leverage existing NFC chips properly without interference, it will be another way to get NFC adopted overall.

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• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
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RIM’s first all-screen Curve has sashayed over to the FCC. Two models of the BlackBerry Curve 9380, the REA70UW and REB70UW, are included in the latest filing, which goes into typical laborious detail on radio frequencies and the like. Thankfully, those myriad charts and graphs reveal support for WCDMA band IV, meaning that the phone plays nice with T-Mobile’s 3G network. Let’s just hope that, if given the chance to strut its stuff in the US market, it follows the Curve family tradition of arriving keenly priced. We’ll have to wait and see if it hits our wallet’s sweet spot, but for those more interested in the phone’s internals, the source link beckons below.

BlackBerry Curve 9380 hits the FCC, talking the T-Mobile talk originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile shopping tools like RedLaser and ShopSavvy have been a huge help in letting users compare prices through barcode scanning and decide if the product they’re seeing in store can be found for cheaper nearby or online. Now, those apps are letting people not only find better deals but immediately take advantage of those deals right through the apps.

EBay, which owns RedLaser, last week showed off how a consumer can scan a product, find the lowest price from retailers from participating businesses, and then buy the product right through the latest version of RedLaser using PayPal. The implementation is still limited with Toys-R-Us being one of the few retailers to partner with RedLaser on the service. But eBay expects to get more retailers to sign on. Users can’t buy things on eBay or through the eBay app, just though RedLaser.

Now ShopSavvy, which competes against RedLaser and has just raised million, is bringing similar functionality with ShopSavvy 5, the latest versions of its iPhone and Android apps. Users scan a product and see a better deal from retailers like Walmart.com, Target.com, BestBuy.com and BN.com. Then they can buy that product directly through the ShopSavvy app, which is due out Thursday, and have it delivered to them. If customers have set up a ShopSavvy wallet, they can make a purchase with one tap. ShopSavvy introduced this scan-and-buy functionality earlier this year in a limited beta but the service is now expanding nationwide. ShopSavvy 5 also brings a bunch of other improvements like better keyword search, improved comparison shopping and more local deals highlighted on its deals tab.

The rise of instant scan and buy raises the stakes for retailers. They have always had to worry about their prices relative to the competition, but now the consequences of being overpriced can be felt instantaneously. For retailers who integrate with these tools, there’s the opportunity to pick off a consumer instantly right from the aisle of a competitor. They don’t have to lure them over to their own mobile site or into their store. They can seal a transaction immediately. But they do have to price aggressively. Retailers who stand to lose a sale can also respond by price matching.

For consumers, scan-and-buy is another sign of how smartphone apps are making shopping even simpler and how it’s empowering users to always find the lowest deals from retailers. As Om wrote, consumers are becoming smart buyers who are armed with a wealth of data at their fingertips. Now, the next step for mobile commerce is to remove any remaining hang-ups in the buying process. If people want to buy, especially quickly, purchasing through these apps can be a big help.

This comes at a perfect time for the holidays when shoppers will be stressed and short on time as they look for gifts. As we’ve written, mobile shopping is going to be big this holiday season and the addition of instant scanning and buying will only add to that.

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Square, the mobile payment acceptance tool, is getting a lot more useful for merchants with version 2.2, which brings loyalty rewards for Square Card Case users, hardware integration with cash drawers and receipt printers and more back-end tools. The new app, which is debuting Tuesday on iOS  and Android , continues the momentum for Square, which is now up to 800,000 customers using the app since launching last year.

With Square 2.2, merchants who integrate with Square’s mobile wallet app Card Case, will be able to now identify and reward loyal users. They can set rewards based on a number of visits or a total amount spent at the business, and when the customer reaches that mark, the merchant can apply a discount to their purchase. It could be something like a 50 percent off discount or a free item. Merchants can tell a customer of the deal when they order and the discount will be noted in a user’s Card Case app.

I just talked with Megan Quinn, Square’s director of products earlier this month about the hands-free payments for Card Case users and I mentioned that there still needed to be a way to reward regular users. Little did I know Square was working on that feature. Quinn said it’s all part of trying to improve the experience between merchant and customers, to turn their interactions into less of a transaction and more of a conversation that builds loyalty over time.

“Meaningful sustained loyalty happens when people visit places where they have a great experience and feel comfortable. We want to turn customers who walk in once into someone who walks in every day,” Quinn said.

This underscores what Square founder Jack Dorsey said at GigaOM’s Roadmap conference last week about how technology tools like Square can highlight and strengthen our humanity by creating more face-to-face interactions. Unfortunately, users aren’t able to track their progress toward a reward on their Card Case app. That seems like a missed opportunity to really displace loyalty punch cards, which not only reward visits but encourage more of them as you close in on your next reward. I’m sure future versions of Card Case will include something like this.

The other improvements in 2.2 include the ability for Square to connect wirelessly to certain cash drawers and receipt printers. So far Square merchants have been giving out email or text receipts, but this will allow them to hand out physical receipts for customers that want it. It also helps Square work better in an existing business that uses certain cash drawers. Square will work initially with the Star Micronics receipt printer and the APG cash drawer Vasario Series.

And 2.2 also offers the ability to better track sales history, resend receipts, and provide refunds. There’s also a new feature that lets merchants customize their tip percentage options.

I like the updates to Square, both in this release and with the earlier improvements to Card Case. It shows that Square is really trying to innovate on both the consumer and merchant side. And it’s emphasizing really frictionless interactions and building consumer loyalty, which I think is key for merchants. People want more value and features but they really don’t want it to bog down their experience. I wish more merchants were accepting Card Case and perhaps with loyalty rewards, they might get into it. But overall, the latest updates show that Square is building out a more robust platform for businesses to work off of. The Square system still appeals mostly to smaller merchants, but as Square adds more features, it’s able to dream about moving on to bigger businesses.

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Sony barreled into CES earlier this year flaunting a 3D monster laptop boasting a 16-inch 1080p display, a built-in 3D transmitter and a fancy button that promised to instantly add an extra dimension to your boring “regular” 2D movies. It was the latest in the outfit’s VAIO F Series, and it was ready to snatch ,000 straight out of your wallet — but not all of us can throw down that kind of scratch. Still looking for a suitably powerful desktop-replacement that won’t decimate your bank account? That same 2011 VAIO F Series rig just might be your ticket, sans 3D trickery — and knocked down to a base price of 0. Does this somewhat more budget-friendly variant still pack enough punch to knockout your hefty desktop PC? Let’s find out.

Continue reading Sony VAIO F Series review (late 2011)

Sony VAIO F Series review (late 2011) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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