Digital wallets have come a step closer with the news that Motorola will be trialling Mastercard’s PassPay service in some areas of the US by the end of the year.
The trial will involve two new Motorola handsets, but the company has not yet announced which ones they will be. The phones will use Near Field Communications technology to enable contactless purchases with new Motorola handsets.
Electronic purchases typically enhanced by NFC include buying travel tickets, a service already enjoyed by users in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.
McDonalds and Loews Cinemas are amongst businesses that already offer PayPass services, in this case in Orlando, but the Motorola trial is expected to reach to states beyond Florida.
Ron Hamma, vice president and director of enterprise business development at Motorola said ian a statement: “Motorola is excited to be working with MasterCard to create a phone that has the potential to be lifestyle changing, and offers a convenient, fast, and secure method of payment. In essence your phone will become your wallet, key chain and your ID. Fully integrating MasterCard PayPass technology in our phones is a natural fit and major benefit to the consumer.”
PayPass
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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