Carroll County Times Articles
Electronic Wallets
by Catherine McDonald – June 17, 2007
You have probably heard the commercial - "So what do you have in your wallet? " The future might hold a very different type of wallet - your cell phone! Buying and selling have come a long way; from bartering, cash/coins, bills (IOU), check books, credit/debit cards, ATM, and Internet Banking. Technology trends currently implemented in various other countries indicate that our next step is the electronic wallet.
An electronic wallet would use a device, such as your cell phone, to make electronic transactions. There are various ways to turn your cell phone into an electronic wallet. One way is to have your cell phone number registered with a bank or a credit card merchant and then you would enter your cell phone number along with your personal pin at a local store, supermarket, fast food restaurant, subway fees, concert tickets, or a vending machine.
New cell phones might have a chip called an NFC - near field communications. NFC is a wireless technology that allows short-range communications between electronic devices. This would allow you to wave your cell phone near a store's special reader, like a contact-less credit/debit card, to make your purchase. MasterCard and Visa currently are planning on implementing this type of technology in the future.
What is the cell phone possible future? Ed Zander, Chairman and CEO of Motorola, gave a keynote address at the Software 2007 convention. He discussed the future of the cell phone and emerging markets. Currently 25 mobile devices are sold per second. Ed rode out onto the stage on a bicycle that automatically recharges your cell phone. He stated that today the cell phone focuses on person-to-person communication while tomorrow's cell phone will focus on connecting the person to the world. Everything is heading towards digital with seamless connectivity the goal. This will be the device that you definitely don't leave home without. Ed's idea of the future; in just the way that "our children became so comfortable with PCs," he said, "our children's children are becoming so comfortable with these devices."
Not only do we need to adjust our ideas about the cell phone's capabilities, we may even need to adjust our perception of the phone. Technology experts predict that in the future, cell phones might be sold as necklaces, earrings, or perhaps even embedded in our bodies. Japan is now selling wrist videophones. As always, with all manners of storing personal information, security issues with these devices are a serious concern as are the possibilities of privacy rights abuses.
So start pushing those cell phone buttons, the future awaits!
About the Author
Catherine McDonald is President of A & O Consultants LLC, which specializes in Emergency Planning and Research and is a member of the Carroll Technology Council. She volunteers in Carroll County and is a volunteer speaker for community groups Questions are welcome and may be addressed in future articles. Email mail@carrolltechcouncil.org or go to www.carrolltechcouncil.org to learn more.
