My Way News - Companies struggle to popularize mobile money
My Way News reports: "Mobile money may seem like a hot concept, but consumers aren't warming to it [...] Companies are building chips antennas into phones that let the gadgets interact with "tap to pay" terminals and other devices equipped with short-range sensors, like subway turnstiles. But getting the technology to do something useful and convincing people to adopt it is a slow process."

Comment: Not really the MOTB, of course, but mobile-commerce news is always interesting because it always seems just about to take off but never quite gets there. Of course, I'm talking about Western markets, there are many places in the world where paying with cell phones is common, but so far, the U.S. consumer and even many Europeans can't pay now the way they do in parts of Asia. 

My Way News - Banks see an opportunity in Africa
My Way News reports: "The spread of mobile phones has made it easier for the poor of the continent to maintain bank accounts. Africa's middle class is growing, too, and millions of people need a way to amass and maintain their money."

My Way News - UK: Surveillance devices to monitor Web traffic
My Way News reports: "The U.K. plans to install an unspecified number of spy devices along the country's telecommunications network to monitor Britons' use of overseas services such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a report published Tuesday by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. The devices - referred to as 'probes' in the report - are meant to underpin a nationwide surveillance regime aimed at logging nearly everything Britons do online, from Skype calls with family members to visits to pornographic websites. The government argues that swift access to communications data is critical to the fight against terrorism and other high-level crime."

Comment: This shows you what can happen in a country without a written constitution or a bill of rights. 

My Way News - SD college tests fingerprint purchasing technology
My Way News reports: "Two shops on the School of Mines and Technology campus are performing one of the world's first experiments in Biocryptology - a mix of biometrics (using physical traits for identification) and cryptology (the study of encoding private information). Students at the Rapid City school can buy a bag of potato chips with a machine that non-intrusively detects their hemoglobin to make sure the transaction is legitimate."

Wired - Obama OKs Netflix-to-Facebook Sharing as E-Mail Privacy Reform Falters
Wired.com reports: "Left in the dust were reforms to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The reform package, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), would have nullified a provision that allows the government to acquire a suspect’s e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed. Currently, the government can obtain e-mail or other cloud documents without a warrant as long as the content has been stored on a third-party server for 180 days or more."

Wired.com - Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear RFID Tracker Loses Lawsuit:
Wired reports: "A Texas high school student who claimed her student identification was the 'Mark of the Beast' because it was implanted with a radio-frequency identification chip has lost her federal court bid Tuesday challenging her suspension for refusing to wear the card around her neck."

My Way News - Iran building software to control networking sites
My Way News reports: "Iran's police chief says the Islamic Republic is developing new software to control social networking sites. Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam was quoted in Iranian newspapers Saturday as saying the new software will prevent Iranians from being exposed to malicious content online while allowing users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. He did not say when the software would be introduced."

My Way News - India launches new system for handling welfare
My Way News reports: "India will send billions of dollars in social welfare money directly to its poor under a new program inaugurated Tuesday, aiming to cut out the middlemen blamed for the massive fraud that plagues the system [...] The program will eliminate middlemen and transfer cash directly into bank accounts using data from Aadhar, a government project working to give every Indian identification numbers linked to fingerprints and retina scans. Currently hundreds of millions of Indians have no identity documents."

My Way News - China requires Internet users to register names
My Way News reports: "Beijing encourages Web use for business and education but tries to block material deemed subversive or obscene. It has steadily stepped up censorship, especially after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia. The latest measure requires users to provide their real names and other identifying information when they register with access providers or post information publicly."

My Way News - UK gov't told to rethink data surveillance plan:
My Way News reports: "British lawmakers on Tuesday demanded the government water down plans to keep track of phone calls, email and Internet activity - a bill critics dub a 'snooper's charter.' The Communications Data Bill would force telecoms service providers to retain for a year records of all phone and email traffic and website visits, though not the content of calls and messages."