We’re seeing NFC chips showing up and tickling the innards of more and more mobile devices, but at this rate it’s going to be ages before we see some proper market penetration. Gemalto may have just jump-started that process with a new NFC on a SIM card design that’s certified by MasterCard PayPass. It’s similar to the company’s Zuckerberg on a SIM project we heard about last month, but this time it’s wirelessly paying for a drink and not wirelessly telling your friends how much you just had to drink. This means near-field wireless payments could be brought to nearly every GSM phone on the planet, also allowing for secure on-device transactions, like adding more minutes to a pre-paid phone. This is said to be the beginning of a “mass commercial roll out,” giving us reason to hope that soon forgetting our wallets at home will be a feature and not a bug.

Continue reading Gemalto bringing NFC payments to phones of any intelligence with MasterCard PayPass SIM

Gemalto bringing NFC payments to phones of any intelligence with MasterCard PayPass SIM originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

The other day I was way from home and my house alarm went off. I couldn’t get home to check it and it was driving me nuts. Thankfully a family member was nearby and was able to go check on the house for me. But this got me thinking, if it happens again, what’s the easiest way for me to check on what’s going on without waiting for a neighbor or the alarm company to check it out. I had a couple of webcams, a computer, and my iPhone. I thought, surely I can figure out a way to use these to see whats going on at home from wherever I am. Here’s what I came up with. More

The United States Navy has been working on next-gen weaponry ever since the last-gen was present-gen, and if the next next-gen ever actually arrives, well… we don’t stand a chance at lasting very long. According to Wired, the Navy’s Office of Naval Research is expecting laser technology (as it relates to weaponry) to mature in the next score, and if all goes well, a free-electron laser could be mounted on a ship during the 2020s. As of now, FELs produce a 14-kilowatt beam, but that figure needs to hit 100+ in order to seriously defend a ship; unfortunately for those who adore peace, it seems we’re well on our way to having just that. When it’s complete, these outrageous pieces of artillery will be capable of “burning incoming missiles out of the sky [and] zapping through an enemy vessel’s hull.” Something tells us that whole “You Sunk My Battleship” meme is just years from reappearing in grand fashion.

Future Navy lasers will ‘burn incoming missiles,’ blast through ominous vessels originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

We can hear the light and feel it in our hearts. It’s not just terrible poetry – it might be fact. Scientists have shown that infrared light can stimulate the muscles in your heart and inner ear. More

We can hear the light and feel it in our hearts. It’s not just terrible poetry – it might be fact. Scientists have shown that infrared light can stimulate the muscles in your heart and inner ear. More

We can hear the light and feel it in our hearts. It’s not just terrible poetry – it might be fact. Scientists have shown that infrared light can stimulate the muscles in your heart and inner ear. More

We can hear the light and feel it in our hearts. It’s not just terrible poetry – it might be fact. Scientists have shown that infrared light can stimulate the muscles in your heart and inner ear. More

We’ve seen many a theoretical demonstration of lightning-quick networks, but most use some rather special purpose hardware — like lasers and such that your average ISP doesn’t have hanging around. However, this new benchmark of 448Gbps is a little more impressive because it was achieved on commercial fiber hardware. A few teams of researchers were the ones shoveling the bits, including the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, the National Inter-university Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), and good ‘ol Ericsson. It’s said to be the world’s first transmission line operating at that speed, and what’s most impressive is that it’ll be tested on further network segments in the coming months ahead of becoming an actual product at some point in the not-too-distant future. Not soon enough.

Researchers manage 448Gbps on commercial hardware, coming soonish to a trunk near you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

We’ve seen many a theoretical demonstration of lightning-quick networks, but most use some rather special purpose hardware — like lasers and such that your average ISP doesn’t have hanging around. However, this new benchmark of 448Gbps is a little more impressive because it was achieved on commercial fiber hardware. A few teams of researchers were the ones shoveling the bits, including the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, the National Inter-university Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), and good ‘ol Ericsson. It’s said to be the world’s first transmission line operating at that speed, and what’s most impressive is that it’ll be tested on further network segments in the coming months ahead of becoming an actual product at some point in the not-too-distant future. Not soon enough.

Researchers manage 448Gbps on commercial hardware, coming soonish to a trunk near you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

We’ve seen many a theoretical demonstration of lightning-quick networks, but most use some rather special purpose hardware — like lasers and such that your average ISP doesn’t have hanging around. However, this new benchmark of 448Gbps is a little more impressive because it was achieved on commercial fiber hardware. A few teams of researchers were the ones shoveling the bits, including the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, the National Inter-university Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), and good ‘ol Ericsson. It’s said to be the world’s first transmission line operating at that speed, and what’s most impressive is that it’ll be tested on further network segments in the coming months ahead of becoming an actual product at some point in the not-too-distant future. Not soon enough.

Researchers manage 448Gbps on commercial hardware, coming soonish to a trunk near you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink