Eideard

Consumers will not need any form of wallet to go shopping by 2016, the online payment firm Paypal says. But it is not the UK or the US that is leading the march to empty their pockets, it is Turkey, not known for its early adoption of new technology.

The death of cash has been talked about for a while. Claims were made by Visa a few years ago that the date would be 2012, which now seems unlikely. Now analyst firm Forrester, in a report paid for by Paypal, is the one wading in on the debate saying the tipping point is just five years away.

Near-field communication (NFC) on both mobile phones and in cards allows quick payments for smaller purchases by using a radio signal that activates when the chip is placed near a reader.

Market research company Allied Business Intelligence thinks that the watershed – or wallet-shed – moment will be even earlier, in 2014…

The countries which most prominently use credit cards – the US, the UK and Canada – have been relatively slow to change their ways. But one surprising country is amongst the leader in trialling the way forward for mobile payments – Turkey…

There are not that many branches of banks outside Istanbul so, until very recently it has been a cash-based society. ATMs are a fairly new concept. Not all cards work in all machines and the banking industry has been very fragmented.

In a country which is still classed as a “developing nation”, no one system of electronic transfer has yet become established so new ideas have less of a problem getting accepted. Another advantage it has is that the country has a relatively young population, willing to try new things who have not developed long-term habits which are notoriously difficult to change.

Mobile phone operator Turkcell is responsible for one of the success stories. Within four months of launching, 100,000 pre-paid cards registered on mobile phones were sold. They are used to buy goods from shops or for sending money and can be used without a bank account. Money can even be taken from ATMs.

Ironically, there is no money to made from cash transactions so making it as easy as possible to spend digital money is in a company’s interest, taking small percentages of the cost of payment as a transaction fee and lowering the cost of processing physical money.

It is those smaller transactions, still predominantly in cash, that could be the biggest change…

It’s all OK with me. As long as I am assured by my bank these transactions are secure – and insured by the bank – I only foresee one problem. As much of a geek as I am, since I’ve retired I have no need for a smartphone. So, my cell phone is capable of nothing more than voice calls.

All you need to get one is money – not brains

A Swiss motorist used his mobile phone to record himself driving on an autoroute near Geneva at 320 km an hour, nearly three times the speed limit, police said Wednesday.

But the offence was only uncovered six months later when the 28-year-old was questioned in another case and investigators found the images still on the phone.

Some shots were focused on the speedometer of his car, a Bentley Continental, according to a police spokesman.

Others showed the road, revealing where he was, and the phone’s timer recorded the date and the time — just before 3:30 in the morning local time last April.

Police said the driver, whom they declined to name, probably took the shots to impress his friends. His license was confiscated and he is free on bail awaiting trial.

When your testicles are hardwired to the accelerator on your car, you really can’t count on your brain working at all.

Dangerous murals on Maine labor history – removed by Scrooge LePage

Prosecutors have declined to pursue charges against a homeless man in Maine who helped himself to an outdoor electrical outlet to charge a pair of cellphones.

Bangor police originally charged 23-year-old Shaun Fawster last weekend with theft of services after an officer caught him charging phones on an outlet hidden behind some flowers. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon after the officer found a folding knife tucked under his shirt.

But Susan J. Pope, assistant district attorney, said prosecutors declined to pursue the case.

Fawster, who’s a transient with no known address, couldn’t be reached for comment.

I don’t mind giving you a comment. With a state governed by a drudge who hates art that depicts working people as worthwhile human beings, with [a few] coppers who harass a homeless dude who stays North instead of heading South – it only took a day or two to find an assistant DA with her head screwed on straight enough to release the poor bugger.

AT&T has announced a definitive agreement to buy Deutsche Telekom’s American T-Mobile subsidiary in a cash and stock deal worth about $39 billion, and giving the German carrier an 8 percent stake in AT&T…

T-Mobile and AT&T share similar GSM and UMTS/HSPA networks, and both are working to build new next generation networks using HSPA+ and LTE. However, obtaining the rights to radio spectrum and building out these networks is both expensive and complex.

AT&T’s chief executive Randall Stephenson said the deal “provides a fast, efficient and certain solution to the impending exhaustion of wireless spectrum in some markets, which limits both companies’ ability to meet the ongoing explosive demand for mobile broadband…”

T-Mobile adds 33.7 million subscribers to AT&T’s network of of about 95.5 million, creating a total of about 130 million users, and becoming the largest American carrier. The deal will also expand Apple’s iPhone to three of what were the top four US carriers, as Apple has already brought it to Verizon earlier this year.

RTFA for the details. Fascinating – and expanded choices for anyone who owns or intends to own a GSM mobile device. In our market in northern New Mexico, we had held off on buying any iPhones or 3G iPads because of the requirement of dealing with AT&T. Their service is mediocre here at best. T-Mobile has been our personal choice for cellular service for years.

One of the best analysts in the world on the dynamic mobile market is Om Malik. Here’s a link to his analysis as the story broke. Not especially optimistic.

A tug boat lookout was on a cellphone call to his mother’s house when the barge it was ferrying collided with an anchored tour boat in the Delaware River last summer…

Two tourists died and 26 other passengers were injured in the July 7 collision between the barge and the tour boat near Philadelphia…

The accident occurred shortly after the tour boat, the DUKW 34, had dropped anchor to deal with a mechanical problem that caused smoked to pour out of the engine. Around 2:37 p.m., a barge propelled by the tug boat, the Caribbean Sea, collided with the tour boat, causing it to sink in 55 feet of water.

According to the report, the Caribbean Sea’s master was off duty and below deck. The mate was on navigation watch. The report states that, according to telephone records, the mate made a call to his mother’s house at 2:32 p.m. The call, according to the report, lasted until 2:38, one minute after the accident occurred.

The report also states that that between noon and the accident, when the mate was on navigation watch, he made 13 phone calls and answered six.

There should be some conclusion made about priorities and safety, I would think. eh?

Two lost hikers in Annadel State park were rescued Saturday evening by the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter, thanks to the light from their cell phones.

“We were able to locate them because they shined their cell phones up at us. We have night vision goggles on board. That kind of stuff stands out like a spotlight,” said Sgt. Dave Thompson.

The sheriff’s helicopter was in the area on another call just after dusk…when a 911 call came in at 6 p.m. from two lost hikers…The two young women who had hiked or jogged into the park before dark after parking their car on Carissa Avenue called authorities to say they were lost…

The sheriff’s helicopter was able to locate the two young women relatively quickly on Orchard Trail. The chopper landed and took them back to the deputies waiting outside the park…

“They were definitely dressed for a walk or run in the park. They had on summer clothes and short sleeve shirts,” Thompson said. “As temperatures drop, you can start to get into trouble if you’re out there overnight.”

He said the women, in their late teens or early twenties, “were definitely a little cold, a little disoriented. They were certainly happy to be located.”

Cellphones rock. Back in the day, the reason I got my first cellphone was that our local sheriff’s office had moved to an early arrangement utilizing cellphone towers to get a rough location on folks who were lost or injured in the wilderness. Which comprises a lot of what is northern New Mexico.

I had recently crashed my mountain bike on a trail in the Caja del Rio that I later learned probably hadn’t been traversed in two years. Almost broke my ankle. Intimations of mortality are a bear!

A 30-man armed SWAT team stormed a school in Illinois after a staff member accidentally called his wife from his pocket, causing her to believe that he was being held hostage.

Officers in America wearing riot gear and carrying automatic weapons searched Carlton Washburne School, Winnetka, for almost three hours after the woman, who has not been identified, called 911.

Joseph De Lopez, the local police chief, said the woman reported receiving a call from her husband in which she could hear muffled voices and believed he was being held captive by a man with a gun.

Within minutes a security perimeter was established around the school, whose pupils had left for the day, and officers poured into the building. Three TV news helicopters were circling above.

But while they were still searching the school, and the man’s distressed wife remained connected to his mobile phone and to 911, he returned home.

While driving back from work, he had called his wife by sitting on his mobile phone, which was in his back pocket, while he listened to hip-hop and talked to himself.

“His wife was the last number he’d dialled,” Chief De Lopez said.

Mark Friedman, the school district interim co-superintendent, explained that the music’s “gangster-like” lyrics had contributed to the woman’s concerns.

This passes for “good, clean fun” in the United States of America.

Charles Manson, the former cult leader, was among thousands of prisoners in California who have been found with mobile phones in their prison cells.

Manson, 76, who orchestrated a murderous spree by his followers four decades ago, was able to make phone calls and send text messages from behind bars.

After the phone was discovered under his mattress it was established that he had contacted people in California, New Jersey, Florida and Canada.

A spokesman for the California Department of Corrections said: “It is troubling that he had a mobile phone since he is a person who got other people to murder on his behalf.”

Manson is held in Corcoran State Prison in California and has been denied parole 11 times.

In the late 1960s he ordered his followers to commit murders in an attempt to bring about a race war…

Manson is said to have received more letters than any other prison inmate in the United States and it has not been disclosed who he contacted by phone.

Several suits have been won which would allow prisons to block cell phone transmission. Generally, administrators are still unwilling to challenge prisoners with contraband like this – because a certain portion of the non-criminal population thinks it’s too harsh for cons to be deprived of contact with their supporters in the world outside bars.

Technology that improves mobile phone reception indoors is starting to break into the mass market as operators struggling with network congestion have started to distribute these devices for free.

A femtocell is a small, low-power indoor base station for 3G mobile phone networks, enabling operators who struggle with network capacity to improve indoor coverage at a much lower cost than the alternative of adding more large mobile phone towers.

The emerging femtocell market has so far remained a small business partly due to the high costs of technology, but this year the wholesale price has dropped below $100, enabling operators to give them away for free.

Google-backed Ubiquisys — one of the top firms in the new market — told Reuters it expects millions of femtocells using its technology to be sold next year, compared with 2010 volumes in hundreds of thousands…

“There have been some launches since summer and a few operators have started giving them away free to customers, like AT&T in some cities,” he said…

In addition to Ubiquisys, major technology firms like Cisco , Samsung Electronics, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei make femtocells.

The devices are plugged into a customer’s broadband Internet connection, like a wireless Internet base station, and allow users to make calls or use data services with their regular 3G mobile phones.

With near $100 smartphones starting to hit the stores, and use of video on phones starting to proliferate, most telecoms operators around the world are struggling with network capacity.

Fearful of losing customers, only a few have publicly admitted to the problem of keeping pace with data traffic, but 63 percent are experiencing difficulties, a global survey of 30 operators by telecoms software firm Amdocs showed last week.

I’m not holding my breath; but, I guess I will call T-Mobile to see if I can wangle something like this out of them.

We haven’t had a landline in years. Mostly we use Skype. But, our T-Mobile cheapo Samsung phones are what we carry for use away from a computer or iPad around Lot 4.

Not the same kids. I hope.

Armed robbery charges were sought Tuesday against two 11-year-old Detroit boys accused of holding up an 8-year-old boy in Center Line with a plastic pellet gun built like a semiautomatic pistol.

The 8-year-old was walking with a cell phone in his neighborhood along Van Dyke Avenue, south of 10 Mile Road at about 4 p.m. Saturday when the two older boys rode up on bicycles, said John Riley, Center Line Public Safety Director. One boy demanded the cell phone. The other held the replica pellet gun — which fires hard plastic pellets — to the younger boy’s head, he said…

The younger boy gave them the phone, then ran to a nearby pizza place for help. A pizza store supervisor called police, who spotted the older boys and gave chase. The two 11-year-olds dumped the bikes, which reportedly were not theirs, and attempted to run away, but were arrested a short time later, Riley said…

None of the boys is being identified because they are minors.

“We’re going to follow through with charges,” Riley said, adding that a petition to prosecute the 11-year-olds in Macomb County Juvenile Court was submitted Tuesday.

Riley said the pair likely will end up in the Wayne County juvenile justice system because they live in Detroit..

Nothing in the article about the parents of the young villains.

I don’t know what questions to ask. Don’t their parents care what they’re doing? Do they have any adults actually responsible for teaching appropriate behavior? Didn’t daddy have a real gun they could have borrowed?