Almost a year ago, Google held a press conference to announce Google Wallet, an ambitious, multi-faceted plan for a cash-free future in which mobile phones would replace hard currency.
President Obama wants to get re-elected! No surprise there. He also needs your money! Big whoop. He’s going to use Square to get those donations! Hey now, that’s pretty convenient. According to Politico, campaign personnel for Obama are being issued Square credit card readers
Storing passwords in plaintext is a bad idea. You’d think that the smarties at Netflix and Foursquare would know better. But the Wall Street Journal reports their Android versions – and other apps – do no such thing. Not good.
“Your phone will be your wallet.” That’s what Google’s promising with Google Wallet and Google Offers, which’ll combine payments and deals in one neat package. And it’s a pretty compelling little vision of the future of paying for stuff.
Square’s credit card reader for iOS/Android devices is pretty awesome – it lets anybody quickly and easily start taking credit payments. But according to Douglass Bergeron, the CEO of competing company Verifone, the device itself isn’t hardware-encrypted, meaning anyone could write an app that strips unprotected info from your card.
That’s not bad for a startup that’s been around what, a year? And is only available for iPhones, iPads and Androids in the US.
Mind you, it’s free to sign up – and you get one of those neat dongles for free, too. They also recently dropped the transaction fee of 15 cents too. [@Jack via TechCrunch]
