Phone apps move toward digital wallets
Wouldn’t it be nice to forget your wallet – permanently?
That day is coming sooner than you think. In the walletless future there will be no credit cards to lose, no cash to carry and no concert tickets to leave at home. Already, with a few taps on the screen of your smartphone, you can order a meal at a restaurant, loan your friend 20 bucks or even unlock the door to your house – so you can lose the keys, too.
Nearly half of U.S. consumers own smartphones, and as they have gained popularity the devices have grown to resemble pocket mini-malls, with rows of virtual storefronts where consumers can buy video games, music, books and TV shows.
It’s becoming such big business that the largest banks and credit card firms are partnering with wireless carriers, handset makers and eager software developers to push the smartphone further into the center of global commerce.
The plan is to turn your phone into a digital wallet that will let you pay for just about anything, whether you’re online or at the register. By 2016, mobile payments are expected to reach $617 billion worldwide, a nearly sixfold increase from last year’s $105 billion, according to research firm Gartner Inc. By then smartphones are expected to account for close to two-thirds of all U.S. mobile phones.
There are big advantages to electronic money. It’s easier and quicker to process than cash or plastic, and without the need to fish around for credit cards or wait for receipts to print, long lines may become a thing of the past.
What that all tallies up to is that the way we buy and pay for things is in for the biggest change in decades – certainly since the rise of plastic cards in the 1950s, and perhaps since the emergence of personal checks a century earlier.
Netflix video streaming tops 1 billion hours
Netflix subscribers watched more than 1 billion hours of online video last month as the advent of high-speed Internet connections and high-powered mobile devices change people’s viewing habits.
The rising usage of Netflix’s Internet video service may turn out to be a mixed blessing as the company phases out its DVD-by-mail rental service to focus on its goal of building a lucrative franchise in Internet-streamed video.
Netflix is trying to wean people off DVDs to save on mailing costs and reduce its investment on a format that it expects to become obsolete. Delivering Internet video is quicker and less expensive than discs, but the streaming selection isn’t as extensive as what’s available on DVDs. To compensate, Netflix has been spending tens of millions of dollars during the past two years to add more compelling titles.
One of the biggest reasons that Netflix’s streaming service is catching on is because it costs just $8 per month to watch an unlimited amount of video without commercial interruptions. The average cable-TV subscription costs about 10 times more, with advertising interspersed with the programming on most channels. Netflix now has 26.5 million worldwide subscribers to its streaming service, more than the 22.3 million TV subscribers at the leading cable provider, Comcast Corp.
Galaxy S III may rival iPhone
Android phones seem to come out in waves, and the Samsung Galaxy S III is the next big thing. It’s such a big thing that Apple has been in court to keep the Galaxy S III from being sold in the United States.
The court fight seems to have stalled as some carriers have finally begun shipping the Galaxy S III.
Samsung said recently it expects to have sold 10 million Galaxy S III’s by the end of July.
That’s a bold prediction, but considering that the phone is being sold by all the big mobile phone companies, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
And in an even bolder move, Samsung is selling exactly the same version of the phone through all the major U.S. carriers. Most vendors seem to have it priced at $199 with a two-year contract for the 16-gigabyte version, so it’s even priced the same as the iPhone.