MPD Technology Trends and Insights

American Airlines getting in on that cellphone boarding pass fad

2008-11-21T20:40:00.001-08:00

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American Airlines getting in on that cellphone boarding pass fad

via Engadget by Samuel Axon on 11/14/08

American Airlines has joined its peers at Continental in offering boarding pass barcodes that you can download to and display on your BlackBerry, iPhone, G1, or whatever have you. Presently the airline is only offering the option on domestic, non-stop flights departing from O'Hare -- LAX and Orange County will start on the 17th. Some eastern yanks might be asking, "What, no JFK or Logan? Where's the east coast love, AA?" Don't get too bent out of shape, boys and girls -- tech-savvy business travelers love their BlackBerries, so we could see this pop up just about everywhere before long.

[Via Mobilitysite]

American Airlines getting in on that cellphone boarding pass fad originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Cashless Future Society? (1968)

2008-11-21T19:10:00.001-08:00

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A Cashless Future Society? (1968)

via Paleo-Future by Matt Novak on 11/17/08

The July 24, 1968 Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, NM) ran this piece by Jack Lefler about the possibility of a cashless society that would use a single identification card.

NEW YORK (AP) - Want to hunt polar bear in Alaska, entertain your mother-in-law at a Paris restaurant, rent a house-boat for a Mississippi cruise, hire a big-name orchestra for your daughter's wedding reception—and charge it?

All you need is a credit card.

These are some of the more bizarre ways you can use a credit card but their purchasing power covers the whole gamut of goods and services.

It's estimated that Americans are carrying 200 million credit cards and using them to spend around $50 billion a year.

As a result of the proliferation of credit cards, there has been widespread speculation about the possibilities of a checkless, cashless society in the future.

Some bankers envision nationwide system In which a single identification card would be used in place of all checks and almost all cash.

But American Express, a big name in the credit card industry, says, "The single-card system couldn't be further from reality today. The most striking feature of our present system of transferring money is the multiplicity of credit cards."

Credit cards as we know them today were pioneered in 1950 by Diners' Club, which was created with 200 members, an initial investment of $18,000 and a handful ot restaurants In the New York City area. Within a year it had grown to 10,000 members who could charge at more than 1,000 establishments.

Credit cards now fall into three categories:

—Travel and entertainment. Operators in this field are American Express, Diners' Club and Carte Blanche. These cards are held primarily by business and professional men.

—Private label. Oil companies, airlines, hotels, car rental companies and department stores offer these cards primarily to promote their services or products.

—Revolving credit cards. These cards, largely regional or local in nature, are issued mainly by banks and financial organizations and are meant primarily for use by housewives for shopping.

The credit card companies derive their revenue from discounts from establishments which accept the cards in lieu of cash and from membership fees. Some credit card practices have come in for criticism recently, mainly because of the mailing of unsolicited cards by banks and some others in the revolving credit field.

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First Look: Mobile Banking on AT&T

2008-11-10T14:41:00.001-08:00

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First Look: Mobile Banking on AT&T

via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) by Steven Sande on 11/4/08

Filed under: Odds and ends, Freeware, iPhone, App Store

While a lot of us have had internet banking for years, who would have thought that AT&T would have come up with a mobile banking app that lets you check accounts and pay bills for a number of banks through a single iPhone app?

Mobile Banking on AT&T (click opens iTunes) from Firethorn Holdings, LLC is exactly that -- an iPhone app that gives you full control over your money at 50 different banks nationwide. While the majority of the banks listed appear to be in the southeast USA, several nationwide banks including Wachovia, SunTrust, and USAA are participating in the program.

I was pleased to see that my business bank, FirstBank, with brick and mortar banks in Colorado, Arizona, and California, was one of the companies on the AT&T list. You need to sign up through your bank's secure website, enter your iPhone number, pick a six-digit PIN, then perform an authorization from the device using a code displayed on the website. Once activated, you can see balances, make transfers, and pay ebills.

What's your favorite iPhone banking app? Or have you moved all of your funds to a coffee can buried in the back yard? Leave a comment!

TUAW First Look: Mobile Banking on AT&T originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Publishers go digital

2008-11-10T09:34:00.001-08:00

From the NYTimes

PARIS — Long after other media joined the digital revolution, book publishers clung to the reassuringly low-tech tools of printing press, paper and ink.

But now the world of books is starting to go digital, too.

Last week, American authors and publishers reached an agreement with Google to settle lawsuits over Google's Book Search program, which scans millions of books and makes their contents available on the Internet. The deal lets Google sell electronic versions of copyrighted works that have gone out of print.

"Almost overnight, not only has the largest publishing deal been struck, but the largest bookshop in the world has been built, even if it is not quite open for business yet," wrote Neill Denny, editor of The Bookseller, a trade publication based in London, on his blog.

China, meet World of Warcraft

2008-11-09T10:34:00.001-08:00

and more on those virtual currencies...

China, meet World of Warcraft

via PSD Blog - The World Bank Group by Ryan Hahn on 11/3/08

The Financial Times today reports that China does U-turn on online money-making. Making 'real' money by trading virtual currencies earned from online gaming was banned two years ago, but it looks like the Chinese government has changed its mind. China will now collect a 20 percent tax on income earned from online gaming.

As I point out in a post on The end of Doha and the World of Warcraft, gold farming and trading in virtual currencies is "largely under the radar of the World Trade Organization and, to some extent, government tax collectors." The FT cites an online contributor with a slightly more poetic take on the issue: "If they successfully implement this tax, I will jump over Mount Everest."

Class is in Session: Teach The People Opens To The Public (in Facebook)

2008-11-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

Maybe CPI should have a place here. We'll look into it.

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Class is in Session: Teach The People Opens To The Public

via TechCrunch by Jason Kincaid on 11/3/08

Teach The People, a Facebook application and fbFund finalist that allows users to create learning communities, has launched to the public. Alongside the public launch, the startup has also annouced its partnerships with The Learning Annex (which offers lessons from celebrities), Destiny Image, and Quinnipiac University's Professional Athlete Transition Institute which will help initially populate the site with content.

At first glance Teach The People strongly resembles Facebook Groups, but offers a number of enhancements that make the platform more suitable for teaching. Each community instructor can upload documents, media, and online webcasts. The platform also will support premium content, offering an integrated payment system that allows instructors to charge for their online lessons.

Users will make use of a Digg-like voting system to request that their favorite instructors cover topics they're interested in. And to ensure that the content available on the site will actually be worth paying for, Teach The People is planning to offer a certification process to instructors for around $50. The site will also be implementing a rating system.

Teach The People originally launched at last year's TechCrunch40 as a standalone site, but is now shifting its focus to its Facebook application. The company was one of 25 winners (out of 600 applicants) to win $25,000 from the fbfund, and is in the running to win an additional $225,000 this December.

The site will face plenty of competition in the online-learning space, with competitors including Grockit and Brightstorm.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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Making Money On MySpace: Payments and Virtual Gifts Coming Soon

2008-11-09T10:30:00.001-08:00

It would be interesting to compare Virtual Currencies of Social Networks versus Virtual Currencies of Virtual Worlds like Second Life

Making Money On MySpace: Payments and Virtual Gifts Coming Soon

via TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on 11/7/08

In the platform wars between Facebook on the one side and MySpace, Google, and the whole OpenSocial crew on the other, the side that makes it easier for application developers to make the most money will win. Advertising in social networks has always been problematic, and with an advertising recession upon us those already-low ad rates are going to get lower, not higher. The other way to make money on these platforms is to try to charge for apps themselves or sell things through the apps. But to do that developers first need a payment and billing system to tap into.

Less than an hour ago, MySpace COO Amit Kapur revealed at the Web 2.0 Summit that MySpace is working on its own payments and virtual gift products that MySpace developers will be able to add to their own apps.

Facebook has its own virtual gifts, but has not yet opened that to developers. (Although there is a gift economy inside Facebook powered by other companies). And Facebook has been rumored to be working on a payments system since forever.

iPhone's App Store has proven that, at least on mobile phones, people are willing to pay for apps. Bringing that model to social networks could work if the quality of the apps goes up and the number goes down. One problem with Facebook and MySpace apps is that there are too many of them. there are no barriers to entry. Charging for apps, or trying to sell add-on services through them, would force the startups and developers creating them to build something that people are actually willing to pay for.

And it is not just the developers who are in a sudden rush to figure out how they are going to make money. Facebook and MySpace are also under more pressure to ramp up revenues these days.

The challenge to switching over to such a model from the current free-for-all is that the value of many of these apps is directly correlated with how many people use them. (More specifically, with how many of your friends use them). The minute someone charges for an app, the adoption rate goes way down. So some aspect of most of these apps will likely always be free. But the ability to charge for extras or for a more fully-featured experience might actually result in better apps being produced.

In any case, the race is on to provide alternative revenue streams besides ads to app developers. Will MySpace beat Facebook to the payments party?

Online microfinance: Kiva vs. MicroPlace

2008-11-09T10:26:00.001-08:00

from PSD Blog - World Bank Group by Alan Pereira

The Microfinance Gateway has just released a good and quick comparison between two major players in microfinance: Kiva and MicroPlace. The Microfinance Gateway piece is a good synopsis of the work these two organizations are doing; it talks about the differences between the two as well as their roots and how to invest in microfinance projects through them.

So much for start up times

2008-11-09T10:23:00.001-08:00

There's been a lot of talk about instant on* software lately. Earlier this year, Asus announced plans to outfit every one of its motherboards with the Splashtop software interface that lets you load a Linux based OS in a matter of seconds without waiting for Windows or another full operating system to launch. This allows you to surf the web, make VoIP calls, or do other basic tasks shortly after hitting the power button.

Most of the instant on* platforms we've seen come bundled with the Firefox web browser. That makes sense, since it's fairly popular and open source, making it easy to work with. But Phoenix Technologies, maker of the HyperSpace instant on* platform has announced that it will begin to use the Opera web browser.

Opera has a reputation for being pretty fast as web browsers go, both when it comes to launching the application and when it comes to rendering web pages. Under the deal, Opera will further optimize its web browser to work within the Phoenix HyperSpace environment.

Unlike Splashtop, HyperSpace can be run while you're booting a full operating system in the background. Or you can even launch HyperSpace from within Windows.

* While Splashtop and HyperSpace certainly launch faster than Windows XP or a full Linux desktop operating system like Ubuntu, it still takes 5-15 seconds to boot the OS, and a bit longer to connect to a wireless network if you want to use a web browser or other applicationgs that require internet access.

RSS Use Peaking at 11%

2008-11-09T10:21:00.001-08:00

Who uses RSS?

A new report from Forrester shows use of RSS feeds growing from two to 11 percent in the past three years. The key finding, though, is only 17 percent of the 89 percent who don't use RSS are interested in learning how, indicating a possible peak. What do you see as RSS' main barrier to popularity, and how could it be fixed (or replaced)? [via]

Attention Olympics fans: Beijing wants your data

2008-11-09T10:18:00.001-08:00

Attention Olympics fans: Beijing wants your data

via FP Passport - Science & Technology by Carolyn O'Hara on 6/11/08

Feng Li/Getty Images

The last thing Beijing wants to see at the Olympic opening ceremonies on August 8 is Tibetan flags, "Stop genocide in Darfur" signs, or similar such provocations from "troublemakers." And given Beijing's paranoia, it's hardly surprising that this year's opening and closing ceremonies are going to have some of the tightest security of any event, ever.

Each ticket for the ceremonies will have a microchip embedded with the user's photograph, passport details, addresses, emails, and telephone numbers. All event tickets also have microchips to prevent counterfeiting, but only the ceremony tickets will contain the personal data. Some have raised fears of data theft, and others question whether activists known to the Chinese authorities could even attempt to attend, since many of them are being detained or at least closely watched ahead of the games. Perhaps the biggest concern is that the tickets will be too effective: If you are attending the ceremonies with a few friends or family members and your tickets get switched among you, expect big delays at the gates.

Test number two

2008-11-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

This is test number two.

First post test

2008-11-09T08:37:00.001-08:00

First post test