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Google Wallet Launches With $10 Credit
Following up on our digital wallet discussion yesterday, CWmike writes "Google officially launched its Google Wallet application today for NFC-ready Sprint Nexus S 4G phone users. The application launches initially for Citi MasterCard credit card holders, but Google also said today that Visa, Discover and American Express will be able to add their cards to future versions of Google Wallet. The application, first announced in May, was described in an official blog post. Visa said in a separate statement that it has licensed Google to use Visa's PayWave technology, used in 'hundreds of thousands' of terminals worldwide. But Visa didn't describe a timeline for when that function would be enabled. Google said it will allow users to add any bank card to a Google Prepaid Card and they will receive $10 to try the service."
Reviews of the service are popping up, and many seem to say the same thing; when it works, it's great, but your real wallet isn't going anywhere.
now they know what kind of porn i buy.
So, if my physical wallet isn't going anywhere because I still need it for all the cards, cash and stuff I need to carry that I can't put on my phone, and I still need actual cards for merchants who don't have the right tech at their registers, what exactly does Google Wallet do for me? I can't think of a time when I'd have my phone and wouldn't have my wallet on me, so it's not convenience. About all it seems to do is enable Google to watch what I purchase. Sorry, I'm going to need something of benefit to me first.
I simply do not trust Google with anything personal and I will not use this service.
Unfortunately, to receive the $10 credit, you have to have the NFC chip implanted either in the forehead or the back of the hand....
This is a good attempt to help the government pursue getting rid of physical currency. Coinage has always been a problem as the metal to produce the coins becomes more expensive than the coins themselves. Paper money has been difficult to track and monitor. It would be much easier to control and eliminate black markets if there was no paper money. Also, inflation and the money supply would be easier to manipulate (which is changed to facilitate government debt in wartime or during recessions).
As currency becomes more virtual, we can stray further from real (tangible) value like actual physical commodities (gold, silver, etc.). Public ignorance will help provide faith for virtual currency, which will be faith in corporate profit and eventually faith in government debt (like with our current paper/metal currency). This can help support more greed and corruption as debt fuels investments while inflation reduces debt. Since, by decoupling currency from tangible commodities we can inflate the currency infinitely. However, the only potential problem is people whose faith is finite.
Some people have such specific fetishes that they pay to have a film produced. Take the story of Scat Swapping School Swallow , for example. In 2004, a movie about pooping back and forth was proposed on Something Awful to someone with connections to a Brazilian porn studio specializing in requests. By June, the film was complete, and it was being distributed under the name "swap.avi". A year later, other films were referencing it.
I heard an interview in the town square last month about this and the gentleman was gushing about how in a few years we won't carry bushels of supplies to barter in our oxcarts anymore. Which seems to miss the point that we carry other supplies in oxcarts. My pitchfork, shovel, rake are all still in there, plus some gold shillings for places which don't barter.
Meanwhile, why would I use Paper Money? Most stores don't support it and, in my area, they probably won't for several years. And if I'm out and about I'm going to have both my oxcart and gold shillings on me. I don't see th benefit of paying for something with paper money.
So you have to have a NFC-ready Sprint Nexus S 4G phone and a Citi MasterCard? That sounds like a very narrowly defined target audience to me. I wonder what their marketing department told them about those people.
Google already owns everything about me and knows all there is to know, so why not?
I'm kinda serious here -- unless you basically boycott the Internet and hide whenever the Streetview car comes, there's no way you've never contributed to Google's vast knowledge base. It's just a fact of modern life that Google knows as much about you as you're willing to give, which for most people including me is basically everything.
And the sky hasn't fallen. Google is tech company run by tech people; they're not selling your personal info to the Chinese, or cracking into the Pentagon, and in fact they have a vested interest in making sure that people feel safe and secure when using their products. If massive scandals started appearing where Google was doing vastly improper things with people's data, people would stop using their services. So far that hasn't happened.
If you don't trust Google, you pretty much can't trust Facebook (duh), Microsoft (puppet of the MAN), the Linux Kernel Team (Honeypot #1!), Slashdot (moar like Slashvertisingdot right?), any other search engine, email (non-encrypted asynchronous communication stored in plain text at both ends? No thanks!), any chat program (the NSA listens in!).
You pretty much can't be on the Internet.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
library card, NO
driver's license, NO
cash, NO
postage stamps, NO
receipt from store, NO
business cards, NO
employer-provided keycard, NO
foreign currency, NO
insurance card, NO
rolling papers, NO
So I do without all those things, and some more I didn't think of, and switch to electronic versions of credit cards and ... I guess just credit cards. Oh shit, my battery is down, I'm out of the service area, I got wet, I'm on an airplane, etc.
And not to mention, I don't do online banking because it's a huge security hole. And they charge more.
...and thus, a second rate citizen in google's eyes. To be clear, once I started PAYING for a google service, I lost functionality with a fuzzy promise date of "soon" ( for the past 6 months ).
I don't think I'll be jumping on board this particular bandwagon, thanks.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Google haven't revoked the DigiNotar CA on android... Until they start taking security seriously or allowing users to make there own security decisions, I won't be using android for anything money related. And before anyone craps on about how unlikely a hack is... Answer this. Why did they revoke it for chrome?
But, unlike email which served a theoretical purpose at that time, this serves no particular use. We have credit cards that do all that, and the only situations I can think of where it would be useful to have it built into the phone are the same instances where one is likely to not have their cell phone.
Progress is great, but progress for the sake of progress is best left to researchers.
Yeah, hey, in 1999, we already had pocket still cameras, pocket video recorders, and cell phones, and laptops that could get on the internet. So why would we ever want one device that could do all those things? That would just be progress for the sake of progress.
Or did you miss the part where he said "everything in your wallet could be in your phone, so this is just a step towards that" ?
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
There's already Bitcoin wallets for Android, which can be used to send/receive payments directly between phones (or merchants) with QR Codes.
Luke-Jr
I'd just like to point out:
There are roughly 14,000 McDonald's in the USA.
Virtually all of them take credit and debit cards and have 3 - 5 card readers.
Virtually all of those card readers can take Visa PayWave, as well as the similar technology from AmEx, MasterCard and Discover.
So all "hundreds of thousands" means is they got maybe a half-dozen large chains to put the silly things in around the world. Statistically speaking, nobody accepts them.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
But, unlike email which served a theoretical purpose at that time, this serves no particular use. We have credit cards that do all that, and the only situations I can think of where it would be useful to have it built into the phone are the same instances where one is likely to not have their cell phone.
Progress is great, but progress for the sake of progress is best left to researchers.
Can you do micro transactions on your credit card? As far as I can tell (so far) the advantage of this is for retailers - not consumers. Either way, without a compelling reason I'm not in a huge rush to sign up.
"We have credit cards that do all that, "
You have a credit card that forces you to enter a password to use it?
It also hides the CC number from casual viewers who might copy it to send anonymous gifts to meemaw?
Maybe I just missed the sarcasm but here in Canada I've got 2 debit cards and 2 credit cards with embedded RFID chips and I have to enter a PIN to use them (except at places that haven't upgraded machines yet and you still need to sign, but they are becoming uncommon)
I heard an interview in the town square last month about this and the gentleman was gushing about how in a few years we won't carry bushels of supplies to barter in our oxcarts anymore. Which seems to miss the point that we carry other supplies in oxcarts. My pitchfork, shovel, rake are all still in there, plus some gold shillings for places which don't barter.
Meanwhile, why would I use Paper Money? Most stores don't support it and, in my area, they probably won't for several years. And if I'm out and about I'm going to have both my oxcart and gold shillings on me. I don't see th benefit of paying for something with paper money.
Mod up this guy up --- ppplease!
I heard there's a thing called television - but my radio works just fine....
How is this in any way a good thing for a vendor? I have to wonder what Visa / Mastercard are doing with NFC / contactless payments while all this is going on. I would have thought it would be vastly preferable for stores (and consumers) to have a single payment processor. It means lower transaction fees and the existing infrastructure more or less works like it does now with only small modifications.
On a practical point, it seems plain dumb to have to wave around a $500 phone just to pay for some groceries. It's not hard to envisage scenarios where this could be a terrible idea - e.g. thieves following people into the carpark and mugging them for it.
All 100,000,000,000 Americans will be setting up Google Wallets accounts and donating their $10 to support the great American government in its time of need.
I would do this!
Yeah, hey, in 1999, we already had pocket still cameras, pocket video recorders, and cell phones, and laptops that could get on the internet. So why would we ever want one device that could do all those things?
We still don't, unless you use your iPad to make phone calls somehow.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it