The user could log into the bank account and transfer funds to AppStore account. From there Apple could handle micro payments to the vendors. Vendors cash out from the bank. Completely skipping MC/Visa infrastructure, if the NFC terminals are iPad or iPhone based. Ideally I would like something like this emerge in Android and in iOS so that there is some real viable competition to Visa/MC duopoly.

But looks like Apple is also talking to MC/Visa. So Apple does not seem to be competing with them, rather it is also looking to get a cut like the issuing banks are doing now.

Some POS terminals will offer PIN pad and a menu "Authorize by signature or authorize by PIN". If the buyer picks "signature" it is treated as credit card transaction. Further, these changes came after lots of protest from merchants and some law suits. When banks started giving out ATM cards with VISA/MC logo, all the transactions went through credit card channel. But it was not clear if the debit cards carried the 50$ liability limit for fraudulent use. Further, since the attached checking account is drained by the fraudulent use, it was not clear how soon the money will be credited back. When this program was rolled in, it was very heavy handed, abusive and one sided.

I am really glad something like this is long over due. But I wish we are not jumping from duopoly to a monopoly.

The cost of handling transactions is steadily diminishing. There was a time it would cost you something between 49$ and 149$ to place a single trade. It dropped to well below 10$ when I was still trading. Would not be surprised if they give you money to place a trade or something now. Compare it to the debit card transaction.

When it comes to creditcard I would not begrudge the 2% to 5% fee charged to the merchants. The credit card companies are essentially advancing an unsecured loan, and it would cost the individual merchants much more to check and advance credit to their customers. (Of course it there is some real competition the percentage might come down). But it is the debit card transaction that is atrocious. Money comes from the bank, there is no risk involved. There was a very nice system, including PIN numbers to manage the POS terminals. Way back when stock trade was 49$, it was 25 cent per transaction irrespective of the size of transaction. This should have become zero. But that is not what happened.

The Visa and Mastecard combined to discourage ATM cards and the POS terminals and undermined the system. They made debit and credit card to go through the same system. And the merchants were forced to pay 2% transaction fees on risk free money transfer from one bank to another.

The time is ripe, with prepaid cards and stored value cards for really cheap and free micro transactions. It took the clout of Apple to hit the music executives on their head and make them wake up, smell the coffee and realize the days of selling single track with 10 more useless tracks for 19$ per CD are gone. It might take such a juggernaut like Apple to make the bankers come around the bend and give up their 2% commission on risk free transactions.

But I wish we are not going from the duopoly of MC + Visa to a monopoly of AppStore. Well one thing at a time. Once the bankers get used to lower fees commensurate with the cost of transactions, may be alternatives to AppStore might emerge, and the system might become more open.

I just wish I could take a nap instantly. For some reason, my brain would not shut down and go to sleep on command.

Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students Students students students

Please sing the lyric to the tune of Developers, Developers ...

They are not using the free version of the google apps. The paid version has the server in our control, maintained by us. Google only updates the executables and server side stuff, they dont get to see any data or anything. The authentication server somehow switches from mail.google.com to $company.com/mail somehow. What kind of redirection etc done and how much google can glean from this nugget I am not sure.

Imagine, company A uses google docs. Company B sues company A and fires a huge fishing expedition subpoena during discovery to Google. No matter what the contract says between A and Google, Google will minimise its cost and it will not fight the fishing expedition as strongly as company A would. It would be very foolish of company A's lawyers to depend on the contract language with Google and allow Google access to the data of emails and internal documents. Our company legal is quite sharp. They really would not like our documents outside our control. I don't know how much we are paying Google. But given the response we get from Google for down times and tech support questions it is likely to be between 50$ to 100$ per seat per year.

Microsoft used to pay hosting service providers to switch to IIS. To gain a few server count numbers in netcraft.com surveys or something. It actually paid people to use Bing. Well let us see how much they are willing to give Munich to buy one more headline. All the while Google is consolidating its position in search and is seriously undermining the Office monopoly through Google docs.

I just met a 50 something guy who bought Nokia latest phone Lumia 650 or whatever. His phone constantly forgets the google log in, changes the ring tone and randomly shutsdown. Normally some kid or a nephew would have fixed the issue had it been a iPhone or android. There is no kid in his extended circle who knows to troubleshoot a microsoft phone. His complaint is not the problems with the phone. ALL his phones malfunction because he answers yes/no to prompts without fully understanding the questions. But there are always children who would bail him out.

I wonder how long its desktop monopoly is going to provide the cash to try these gimmicks.

Our (S&P Midcap) company switched to Google docs + Google Apps packages successfully. It lets people buy Microsoft products too if they ask for it. But except for a few fancy presentations including lots of animation no one on the engineering side uses Microsoft. Some in accounting use Excel. But almost 90% of the time people stay in google docs. Slowly people have figured out what features not to use in Microsoft to interoperate with Google docs. There is relative peace and clam. Its integration with gmail, and collaborative editing and sharing makes google docs very useful. We no longer have multiple versions mutating through the email attachments. That is the biggest benefit as far as the users are concerned.

If you can plug in the USB either way, then there will not be scratch marks on the phone when a drunk tried to plug it in the wrong way. Then his brother might not have tell tale scratches in the phone he borrowed. Then how can Sherlock impress Watson? Bad idea.

But Austin is in Texas. They elect dumb assess as governers, open carry deadly weapons, inject creationism in school textbooks, they are anti family planning. Life is not with living if you got to live it in Texas.

Your face will occupy all of one quarter of a pixel 25cm x 25cm. Good luck seeing your face from satellite. It is high res. But not so high as to see a face.

Does not go back very far. Just last 100K years. Similar to the La Brea tar pits in age and diversity. Tar pits preserve bones and lots of micro fossils very well, but it is very tedious to clean them out. May be this one could be easier.

NFL is a non-profit organization. It does not make any profit. What you call 9 billion dollar profit, might look like profit, walk like profit, bark like profit, smell like profit, bite like profit. But it is NOT profit. IRS will not get a dime.

America has been consistently electing politicians who promise to cut taxes. And they have been dutifully cutting the taxes for the richest people (and corporations which are people). But corporations are special citizens who can claim a non-profit status and exempt themselves from taxation. It is very expensive to create a new people-citizen. But corporate citizen is just a 25$ filing fee, no nine month waiting period, no active cooperation between two different people required. Corporation-people don't go to jail. They can be killed when it is suitable without any penalty. But corporation-people can be enslaved by other corporation-people and people-people. Corporation-people can have religious beliefs when it is profitable to have them. But they don't have religious responsibilities .

Don't blame the politicians. Blame ourselves, collectively.

Who's talking about borrowing any money from anyone? What part of cunning Wall street bankers pulling levers of influence you don't get? They will steal the required money from the Chinese. Probably with active collusion with the top Chinese government officials. If there is one thing our banksters are good at, it is using influence over government to steal money from the tax payers. And one thing Chinese, Indian, Russian, Brazilian governments are good at is in stealing money from their citizens. It is a match made in heaven.

The Europeans invested so much and spent so much to build the original Panama canal. They went bankrupt and USA picked up the semi finished canal cheaply. At that time that canal was part of Columbia. A group of influential bankers in New York with pulled levers in Washington DC, overseas American Navy etc, intervened in an internal conflict in Columbia and peeled off the zone of the canal from Columbia. They got Washington to recognize Panama with their puppets as the government. The puppets signed a highly lopsided deal favoring the banksters. They pocketed the money and walked off the mess. It took some 18 more years of stand off and then US Taxpayers stepped in and compensated the Columbians for stealing their canal.

So don't worry, our government could be weak and our military power could be misapplied. But we have some really cunning bankers who would steal the loin cloth of Papua New Guineans if they could make a dollar or two. They will steal this spanking new Chinese built canal from Nicaragua for us. Some two decades later we the tax payers will compensate the victims of their greed.