Paying by Phone ? Conveniences and Cautions

It seems like every time I get to the register of a chain store, they offer me a new way to pay with my phone. But these new modes of paying have serious pros and cons ? and there may be compelling reasons not to dive into mobile payments just yet, despite their growth.

Mobile Payments Predicted To Go Up 44% in 2013
Research firm Gartner says over $235 million in payments will be made with mobile devices this year. In retail outlets, those pay-by-phone options break down into three main categories: brand specific apps (like the Starbucks app), payment apps (like PayPal or Square Wallet), and NFC ? Near Field Communications (special phones linked to a Google Wallet or Isis account).

NFC ? Near Field Communication
Let?s start with NFC since it?s gotten all the hot press. This technology is built into certain devices, predominantly Android and Blackberry phones. You link the phone either to a Google Wallet account (tied to your bank or credit card), to an NFC credit card account (like Mastercard PayPass), or to an Isis account (tied to your mobile phone billing), then tap a terminal at the checkout to pay. But these tap-and-go contact-less payments will account for only 2% of all mobile payments in 2013 according to Gartner. Stores with NFC terminals are limited, and only a handful of phones have NFC technology built in (and the iPhone is NOT one of those).

Probably the biggest issue is that NFC is a solution in search of a problem: how difficult is it to swipe a credit card? More explicitly, what does NFC payment do for the consumer?s convenience that swiping a credit card can?t? If NFC terminals were everywhere, maybe it would facilitate leaving home without cash or a credit card, but until then, the technology faces significant inertia, and I wouldn?t buy one phone over another just because it has NFC baked in.

Brand-Specific Apps
Many chains have their own apps that let you input your credit card info and ?load? money on the app for in-store payments. By combining the payment functionality with apps that track purchases and reward loyalty, ?regulars? get a significant convenience and can even frequent their favorite joint without a wallet. Do you go for a run every morning and grab a coffee when you finish? Hello Starbucks app on your phone! uyl_WaysToPay_still_embed

Pre-order/Pre-pay
I particularly like the order ahead and pay by mobile functionality that chains like California Pizza Kitchen App have brought to market. This makes the take-out pizza experience incredibly easy. Order and pay by app, walk in, tell them your name, get your food and walk out in under three minutes. The app even remembers your previous orders so you can replicate them with one click ? genius. Jamba Juice is said to be testing pre-order and pre-pay for their app, and when this is a feature is replicated by more chains, it will bring many loyal customers into the mobile payment world.

Wallet Apps
Paypal and Square wallet are the two biggest players in app-based mobile payments. Stores that offer payment by app either let you key in your mobile phone number and a pin or use location data captured by your phone, in which case the phone will generate a QR code to be scanned at the register. Again, stores need special equipment and merchant accounts. Plus, the major benefits of using Paypal or Square are still limited to people who don?t have a bank account or credit cards and prefer a mobile option.

Money Transfers
While in-store mobile purchases are growing, 71% of all mobile payments are money transfers ? and most often, person-to-person transfers. The clear winner here is Paypal, which lets you email or even text money to anyone?s phone or email address. The recipient needs to have a Paypal account (or sign up for one) but so long as it?s not a business payment, just between individuals, there are no fees.

These types of transfers are ideal for repaying a friend, or sending money to a family member who needs the cash immediately. Some services don?t even need a bank account to work ? good news for the 8% of US households that don?t have bank accounts. Customers can use cash to purchase a PayPal card or Money Pak card in retail outlets, and then use the pin numbers on those cards to deposit money into the Paypal mobile account (but beware: prepaid card purchases can have fees associated).

Text Money From your Online Banking App
Banks like Wells Fargo and Chase now allow you to send money to individuals directly from their phone app. There?s also a brand new mobile phone-based bank called GoBank that, among many other innovative features, lets you send money directly to a friend from your GoBank account.

Send Money via Gmail
Google is also entering the mobile transfer space; they are trying out a product that lets you send money through Gmail, almost like an attachment. Google said in a statement this is only available to users over 18. It?s slowly being rolled out to users in the U.S., and we assume later, internationally.

Person-to-Person Credit Card Payments
PayPal and Square both offer credit card readers that plug into a smart phone and allow anyone to swipe a credit card and accept payment. If you have an account, the readers are free. They make great sense for small business owners, fundraising events, or even collecting money around the office for a baby gift. But the big gotcha here is the roughly 3% that the services charge you to accept money via credit card.

Security
The weakest link in the mobile payment security chain is not the wireless transmission of your data via NFC or the scanning of QR codes from a store?s app. The technology is not the problem; it?s what that technology enables: more corporations may have your credit card and billing info on their servers (hello hacking target). And an even bigger vulnerability: if your phone is stolen, thieves have access to a treasure trove of accounts and payment methods. If you plan to pay with your phone, you?d better have security software enabled, like Lookout for Android or Find My iPhone ? both of which allow you to erase your phone remotely as soon as it?s stolen.

[Related: How To Lock Down Your Cell Phone If It?s Stolen]

Bottom Line: Mobile payments make sense if you don?t have a bank account or credit card, if you frequent a chain that offers mobile payments and reward features, or if you want to transfer money to friends and family in a secure and convenient way. But be sure you know the fees associated with these payments and can remotely erase your phone if it?s stolen.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upgrade-your-life/paying-phone-conveniences-cautions-141559523.html

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Kardashians Reveal Secrets Behind North West's Name

Rob Kardashian tells Ryan Seacrest he thinks the unique name 'sounds cool.'
By Jocelyn Vena

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709614/kardashians-baby-north-west-name-advice.jhtml

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Knobby-Headed Beast Roamed Ancient Desert

More than 200 million years ago a bumpy-faced, cow-size creature, roamed the central desert of what was then the supercontinent Pangea, a new study finds.

The creature, known as Bunostegos akokanensis, is from a group called pareiasaurs, large herbivorous reptiles that lived from 266 million to 252 million years ago (during the Middle and Late Permian). Fossils of Bunostegos suggest life on Earth at that time was a lot more diverse than people thought, the researchers said.?

Skull fossils found in what is now northern Niger show a series of distinctive bony knobs decorating the animal?s skull ? hence the name Bunostegos, which means "knobby roof," or skull. These knobs were probably skin-covered horns such as those of giraffes, and may have been used by Bunostegos to recognize other members of its species. Other pareiasaurs had knobs like these, but they weren?t as large, the researchers said. [Images: 25 Amazing Ancient Beasts]

The fossils come from a region in the modern-day Sahara desert. About 260 million years ago, this area was a large desert in the middle of the Pangean supercontinent. Within the desert, "we suspect there was an oasis type area that could support life," said study researcher Linda Tsuji, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Burke Museum and University of Washington, Seattle. Because the climate was so isolated, "there was not much interchange into or out of that area," Burke told LiveScience.

To determine how Bunostegos fits in with other pareiasaurs, the researchers compared its anatomical traits with those of other related species. The creature was thought to be related to highly evolved pareiasaurs, but the new analysis shows it was more similar to older, more primitive pareiasaurs.

The findings suggest the animal?s bulbous cranium evolved independently of the bumpy head trait seen in other species of the time. Furthermore, the evidence indicates the Bunostegos lineage was isolated for millions of years, due to the extremely arid conditions that prevented animals from entering or leaving the desert. This isolation likely led to the beast's bizarre features, the researchers say.

Until now, most knowledge of the late Permian fauna has come from regions that are now in South Africa and Russia. But the pareiasaurs from the central desert look quite different, Burke said. "The Permian is a lot more diverse than you first think it would be," she said.

"Our understanding of the Permian and the mass extinction that ended it depends on discovery of more fossils like the beautifully bizarre Bunostegos," paleontologist Gabe Bever of the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved with the study, said in a statement.

The discovery is detailed in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter?and Google+.?Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/knobby-headed-beast-roamed-ancient-desert-190642760.html

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We haven't hit the global warming pause button

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Biological arithmetic: Plants do sums to get through the night

June 24, 2013 ? New research shows that to prevent starvation at night, plants perform accurate arithmetic division. The calculation allows them to use up their starch reserves at a constant rate so that they run out almost precisely at dawn.

"This is the first concrete example in a fundamental biological process of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation." said mathematical modeller Professor Martin Howard from the John Innes Centre.

Plants feed themselves during the day by using energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and starch. Once the sun has set, they must depend on a store of starch to prevent starvation.

In research to be published in the open access journal eLife, scientists at the John Innes Centre show that plants make precise adjustments to their rate of starch consumption. These adjustments ensure that the starch store lasts until dawn even if the night comes unexpectedly early or the size of the starch store varies.

The John Innes Centre scientists show that to adjust their starch consumption so precisely they must be performing a mathematical calculation -- arithmetic division.

"The capacity to perform arithmetic calculation is vital for plant growth and productivity," said metabolic biologist Professor Alison Smith.

"Understanding how plants continue to grow in the dark could help unlock new ways to boost crop yield."

During the night, mechanisms inside the leaf measure the size of the starch store and estimate the length of time until dawn. Information about time comes from an internal clock, similar to our own body clock. The size of the starch store is then divided by the length of time until dawn to set the correct rate of starch consumption, so that, by dawn, around 95% of starch is used up.

"The calculations are precise so that plants prevent starvation but also make the most efficient use of their food," said Professor Smith.

"If the starch store is used too fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted."

The scientists used mathematical modelling to investigate how such a division calculation can be carried out inside a plant. They proposed that information about the size of the starch store and the time until dawn is encoded in the concentrations of two kinds of molecules (called S for starch and T for time). If the S molecules stimulate starch consumption, while the T molecules prevent this from happening, then the rate of starch consumption is set by the ratio of S molecules to T molecules, in other words S divided by T.

This research is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/qb4963q8I7k/130624093524.htm

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