wallet

Isis, the wireless carrier joint venture created to push mobile payment services, said today that it would launch its trials in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas, on Oct. 22.

There will be as many as 20 compatible handsets by the end of the year, the company said in an e-mailed statement.

Isis is an effort by Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile USA to create a standard platform that would allow consumers to pay for goods and services with their smartphones. It's just one of several mobile payment initiatives -- one of the most notable being Google … Read more

Sprint has doubled down on Samsung's big Galaxy Note 2 bet. The carrier has just confirmed that the advanced, 5.5-inch screen Android device will hit its stores shortly.

Expected to cost $299.99 when it launches on October 25, both Samsung and Sprint hope the Galaxy Note 2 will offer plenty of catnip for Android users and possibly prove irresistible for users craving a smartphone with tablet-like features. Running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google's latest and greatest software yet, the phone will connect to Sprint's new 4G LTE network and boast a 1.6GHz quad-core … Read more

Apple's Passbook isn't the most supported application out there, but it's starting to get some love.

McDonald's is among a few companies now offering support for Apple's new Passbook application. Dubbed McDo France, the application allows people to place an order and pay for it from their iPhone. From there, users receive a QR code that can be scanned at 45 McDonald's restaurants in France.

In addition, both Eventbrite and Airbnb recently updated their apps with Passbook functionality. Now, Eventbrite users who purchased tickets to local events will be able to add them to … Read more

Micropayments, a long-discussed way of supporting content on the Web that has yet to catch fire with users, is about to get a big boost from Google.

The company confirmed today that users will soon be able to pay for Web content using Google Wallet, buying individual articles for an average of $0.25 to $0.99 each. Once users buy the page, they will own it forever, Google said. The project is expected to launch later today or tomorrow.

A draft post announcing the new project appeared briefly in the RSS feed for the Google Commerce blog, where CNET … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Does Passbook, Apple's new digital wallet, live up to its lofty expectations?

With the first batch of companies just rolling out integration with the feature, we're getting the first taste of just how well it works in the wild.

Tonight that's a baseball game here at AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants face off against the Colorado Rockies, a game we got into using Apple's newly released wallet technology.

Passbook, which went out today inside of iOS 6, is a new application from Apple designed to store membership cards, tickets, … Read more

After seemingly overcoming a series of security issues, Google is cashing out of the prepaid payment card market next month.

The Web giant began telling users today to get busy spending whatever balances remain on their cards because those cards will be discontinued on October 17.

The prepaid cards were made obsolete with the introduction of the ability to use any debit and credit cards with Google Wallet, the company said. Google announced on August 1 that its payment system was moving to the cloud, meaning it would be able to accept all major credit and debit cards.

Debuting in … Read more

Your smartphone is going to get more adept at handling money, but maybe not in quite the way you've been imagining it would.

There's been a lot of talk lately about mobile payments and how new apps or NFC technology will let you pay for things with your smartphone. But the truth is that this market is less about finding a new way for you to pay for things and more about offering you an easier way to carry and redeem coupons and special offers.

What's the most successful mobile payment system to date? It's an … Read more

Watch out, Google Wallet. There's a new mobile-payment service in the works.

A consortium of of retailers today announced that they have launched a mobile-commerce company, called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and Lowe's are among the many companies that have signed up for the initiative. The companies combine to generate a whopping $1 trillion in sales each year.

MCX is currently in the process of developing a mobile application that would allow customers to pay for purchases at participating retailers with their mobile devices. According to MCX, the app will work across "virtually … Read more

Windows Phone developers who want to add in-app purchases to their products can do so, but only on Windows Phone 8.

Guidelines recently posted by Microsoft confirmed that developers "can only add in-app products to Windows Phone 8 apps." This means that users and developers alike using Windows Phone 7.8 will probably be out of luck.

App makers who want to take advantage of the new feature are advised to explain the "fundamentals" of the in-app product, such as alias, price, type, and languages. They also need to provide Microsoft with a name and image … Read more