My Way News - Industry says Africa fastest growing mobile market
My Way News reports: "Africa is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market and soon poised to have 735 million people using their phones for everything from transferring money to tracking animals for wildlife studies, an industry group said Wednesday [...] Many African consumers, particularly in rural areas, often lack easy access to bank branches. Earlier this year, global credit giant Visa paid $110 million for Fundamo, a South African company that helps mobile companies and banks allow their customers to instantly transfer money between phones."

Privacy and Security Fanatic: Facebook Wants to Issue Your IRL Offline ID & Internet Driver's License
Network World reports: "At the start of this year, it seemed as if Facebook wanted to utilize its identity infrastructure already on millions of websites in order to issue your Internet driver's license. Apparently that wasn't aiming quite high enough, since it now appears as if Facebook has future plans to issue your offline identity cards as well. Facebook filed for a trademark for 'goods and services' to use Facebook on 'cards, namely business cards and non-magnetically encoded identity cards' that could be read by NFC and RFID-enabled devices."

Privacy and Security Fanatic: Visa, MasterCard may take offline buying history and drag it online for targeted ads
Network World reports: Do you carry cash, or do you buy almost everything with a credit card, perhaps with a debit card backed by a credit card firm such a Visa? If you swipe plastic to pay, do you consider your offline transactions to be private or separate from your online life? If you use Visa or MasterCard, then those credit card companies know a great deal about you and would like to start using what they know about your personal purchasing history to throw targeted online ads at you.

My Way News - PayPal announces online shopping login service
My Way News reports: "PayPal, eBay's online payment service, announced a new service Wednesday that aims to make it easier to shop online by cutting down on the number of accounts consumers have to create with various Web retailers. The service, called PayPal Access, was unveiled at eBay's X.commerce developer conference in San Francisco."

Wired News - Cash Advanced: Google Wallet Is Tomorrow’s Billfold
Wired News reports: "Google’s newest offering replaces an accessory we’ve carried since man first stripped hide from beasts: Our wallet. Google Wallet is a service that eliminates the traditional notion of the leather carrying case, allowing you to store digital versions of your credit cards on your smartphone. Basically, Wallet lets you use your phone to pay for purchases at physical point-of-sale machines."

Comment: This looks like a great advance in mobile-commerce, just don't lose your phone.

My Way News - China calls US culprit in global 'Internet war'
My Way News reports: "China already heavily filters content and blocks numerous foreign websites, a system known as the 'Great Firewall of China.' The police employ a large force of Internet monitors to scour the Web for content deemed illegal or subversive, and those users transmitting sensitive contact can be charged with sedition or other crimes."

Yahoo News - Obama signs Patriot Act extension with autopen
Yahoo News reports, "Congress on Thursday passed a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused."

My Way News - Google tries to replace wallets with smartphones
My Way News reports: "Google Inc. is trying to nudge consumers and merchants into a world where the smartphone has replaced the wallet as the container for credit cards, coupons and receipts [...] The Internet search and advertising company faces tough competition from cellphone companies, payment card issuer Visa Inc., eBay Inc.'s PayPal payment service and others. All of them want to play the central role of tying together phones, retailers and banks into a new payment system."

Comment: Once again, this is not the mark, just a trend we are watching. I always feel that I need to include a disclaimer, you know how gullible people can be. The mark may have nothing at all to do with payment systems, we are just watching the trends. This trend is important because there are many parts of the world in which people don't have credit cards but they do have cell phones, so mobile payment systems bring a much larger part of the world into the global economic system.

My Way News - Banks offer cash transfers to cell numbers, emails
My Way News reports: "Three of the nation's four largest banks are launching a system that lets customers transfer money from their checking accounts using only a mobile number or email address [...] The service is a joint venture between Bank of America Corp. (BAC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co. The banks expect to add other financial institutions, eventually creating an industry-wide utility for moving money [...] The service is a direct threat to PayPal, which dominates the market for online electronic payments with nearly 100 million active users."

Comment: An interesting development in mobile commerce.

My Way News - Activists warn G-8 against Web restrictions
My Way News reports: "Internet activists and digital entrepreneurs warned Wednesday that if global leaders attempt to limit access to the Web, their restrictions will be bypassed and they will become irrelevant [...] more than 60 countries now have some form of Internet censorship in place, and that number is growing."

My Way News - Apple slammed over iPhone, iPad location tracking
My Way News reports: "Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple Inc. about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users - records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge [...] this week's revelation that the Apple devices do wasn't even new - some security experts began warning about the issue a year ago."

Comment: I think the media is getting a bit hysterical over this. I saw one media report that told viewers the location data could be read by anyone. That's just not true. You have to have access to the device and it's not being broadcast. Still, users should be made aware when location data is being collected by devices and told how it is used, how long it's kept, and what their opt-out options are. If this case helps build a consensus around that, then it will have been worthwhile to suffer through yet another round of media sensationalism.

Giga OM - Will Apps Become the New Wallet?: Tech News and Analysis
Giga OM reports: "Two recent news reports are bringing the digital wallet closer to reality. American Express is offering a one-stop-shop payment platform in the form of an app for Apple iOS or Google Android users as well as through Facebook. The Wall Street Journal is also offering more details on Google’s planned mobile payments strategy which will use a technology known as near-field communications to transmit payment data."

Comment: It's interesting to think that in one or two years the way we pay for things may be completely changed by the new mobile payment platforms.

My Way News - China's Web police block US ambassador's name
My Way News reports: "China widened its Internet policing after online calls for protests like those that swept the Middle East, with social networking site LinkedIn and searches for the U.S. ambassador's name both blocked on Friday."

My Way News - Google introduces online payment system
My Way news reports: "Google Inc. is undercutting rival Apple Inc. with an online payment system that lets publishers keep more of the fees charged for reading their digital editions [...] The announcement came a day after Apple rolled out a long-awaited subscription service for applications designed for its iPhone and iPad. Apple is demanding a 30 percent cut of all subscriptions sold on those mobile apps while Google is charging 10 percent."

My Way News - China restricts reports on Egypt protests
My Way News reports: "The recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia are no doubt giving pause to many authoritarian regimes around the world, but nowhere else appears to be as determined to control the message as China. Chinese censors have blocked the ability to search the term 'Egypt' on microblogging sites, and user comments that draw parallels to China have been deleted from Internet forums."

My Way News - Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests
My Way News reports: "In its effort to silence protesters, Egypt took a step that's rare even among authoritarian governments: It cut off the Internet across the entire country. The nation's four main Internet providers all went dark, and cell phone service was suspended in some areas. But the drastic move did not stop demonstrators Friday, and it could backfire by fueling anger and chaos in the streets of Cairo and beyond."

My Way News - The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark
My Way News reports: "Egypt has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major Internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely from the Internet to try and silence dissent."

My Way News - Restive Chinese city to be under full surveillance
My Way News reports: "China is putting a western city where deadly ethnic violence broke out in 2009 under full surveillance, including ensuring 'seamless' coverage of sensitive areas of the city with tens of thousands of cameras, state media reported Tuesday."

CNN.com - Credit cards: On their way out 'like vinyl records'
CNN reports: "You can already use your iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry to buy a hotdog at the ballgame, buy your Starbucks latt�, or give a friend a few bucks by Bumping phones. But by the end of the year you may not even think twice about reaching for your phone to pay at the register instead of fumbling for your credit card."

msnbc.com - Mobile payments are coming to Starbucks
msnbc.com reports: "Starbucks Corp. customers with certain mobile devices can now buy their coffee with the wave of their smart phone. The company had tested the mobile payment service in some markets and announced Wednesday that it was rolling it out to all 6,800 company-run stores and more than 1,000 Starbucks in U.S. Target stores. Customers with certain BlackBerry smartphones, iPhones and iPod touch can now use those devices to make purchases at these stores."

CBS News - Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans
CBS News reports: "President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today."

Comment: This seems a bit sensational and easily derailed by politics, I think I'll wait for more details before passing judgment.

Wired.com - Ears Could Make Better Unique IDs Than Fingerprints
Wired.com reports: "On a planet hosting 6.7 billion human beings, having proof you’re unique is of tantamount importance. The ear, it turns out, may be the best identification yet. Through a new shape-finding algorithm called 'image ray transform,' which boasts 99.6 percent accuracy, according to a study presented at the IEEE Fourth International Conference on Biometrics Sept. 29, the outer ear may prove to be one of the most accurate and least intrusive ways to identify people."

NYTimes.com - Readable on a Smartphone, Bar Codes Come to TV
The New York Times reports: "From the comfort of their sofas, mobile-phone users can scan a bar code embedded in commercials on certain evening shows on Bravo and instantly obtain additional information about a product and a discount to buy it."