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Showing posts from February, 2011

5 Ways Mobile Will Transform Commerce

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David Sims covers the payment and data sectors for O’Reilly Radar and is the author of “ePayments: Emerging Platforms, Embracing Mobile and Confronting Identity.” Given everything your smartphone does for you now, from mapping the skies to tracking your rides and delivering your website analytics, isn’t it a bit surprising how difficult it is to buy stuff with it? Mobile commerce — like flying cars or domestic robots — is one of those promises that has long seemed just around the corner; a logical next step, but one that has receded into the future before us, like a financial mirage. At the risk of getting fooled again, I think that’s about to change. Twitter lights up every time Apple hires an engineer with expertise in near field communication (NFC), the wireless technology that will most likely power wave-and-pay mobile systems, and Eric Schmidt showed off tap-and-pay capability in an Android phone at the Web 2.0 Summit last fall. The fastest growing smartphone platform seems determ