Owe someone for a coffee? Paym will let you square it away
The Payments Council, the organisation that sets strategy for UK payment mechanisms, has confirmed the name of a new secure way to pay using just a mobile phone number.
The new method will be called Paym, and will be integrated into customer's existing mobile banking or payment apps. At its launch (the data of which will be announced in April) nine bank and building societies will adopt the method.
Customers will be able to register their mobile number and select the account they wish to use before the service goes live. The new system, the Payment Council claims, will be the largest and most wide-ranging service for moving funds without an account number or sort code.
Easy, simple payments
The system will be expanded further in 2014, with other banks being added to the original nine, meaning that Paym will be available on more than nine out of 10 current accounts.
If a Paym user finds their mobile phone is lost or stolen and is concerned that that someone could access their account, they can ask their bank or building society to suspend service from that phone.
"Paym is a mobile update for payments that means you can pay securely using just a mobile number," said Adrian Kamellard, chief executive of the Payments Council. "Paym will make it easier to repay a friend for cinema tickets, split a restaurant bill or settle up for a colleague's birthday collection."
We've had the Samsung Galaxy Round and LG G Flex, and now Nokia might be lining up a flexible device onslaught after filing a patent for a rollable battery.
The Finnish company's new design, spotted in a patent filing by Nokia Power User, looks like a swiss roll in the way it wraps around itself.
Annotations point towards the battery's bend and twist capabilities, while the texts notes "the flexible battery 10 may be used in a multi-function portable electronic device."
Rollin' rollin' rollin'
Nokia's bendy plans start to unravel
The design looks similar to the foldable battery Nokia also patented last year, but less rigid. The new patent description clearly hints that Nokia is looking at how the smartphone space is changing and what it needs to do to keep up.
Nokia isn't limiting the options of its new battery technology to just the wearable sector though - an area of the market it is yet to launch itself into.
The patent reads: "Various embodiments of the invention could be used in any suitable type of portable electronic device such as a mobile phone, a gaming device, a music player, a notebook computer, or a personal digital assistant, for example."
With Apple's CarPlay in-car tech recently in the news, you may be wondering what good it all is if you don't happen to be buying a new car in the next couple of years.
Put another way, is there any way you can get iOS into your existing car? Up to a point, yes, and part of the answer for you could be the Mobile Home in-car Siri enabling gadget.
Of course, there are many ways you can get some in-car iOS goodness. Simple things like a dock for for iPhone. If you want to go a bit Heath Robinson, you can DIY an iPad into your dash. It's been done.
But for most of us, what we want is something cheap, simple to set up and easy to use that gives at least some access to iOS in the car. And that's exactly what the $80/£50 Mobile Home does.
Simply clip it to a sun visor and let Siri do the hard work
It's essentially a Bluetooth-based patch through that links your car and Apple's Siri voice control system. On paper, it means you can have access to all your iPhone's Siri-based functionality in the car and on the move.
That means stuff like sending and listening to texts, emails and social network updates, controlling music playback, making phone calls, setting up calendar events, inputting navigation queries and destinations and more. Intriguing, eh?
The one proviso is that you'll need a car that already has integrated Bluetooth connectivity with hands free. Not too onerous a requirement, but worth noting.
Features
The Mobile Home proposition is pretty simple. It's a small device with a single button that essentially duplicates the functionality of holding the home button down on an iPhone to wake Siri up.
Via the magic of Bluetooth, you can then talk to your iPhone via your car's hands-free microphone and audio system, giving you access to the full gambit of Siri voice control.
Of course, the Mobile Home has no screen of any sort, so if you want to do something that requires visual interaction with iOS, you'll need to have your iPhone docked or cradled somewhere on the dash. The Mobile Home is purely about voice-based interaction with Siri.
This unassuming like object gives full access to Siri and iOS
It's also worth noting that the Mobile Home is not going to give you voice control of your car's broader multimedia kit. Its just about controlling your iPhone.
For power, the Mobile Home uses a single CR2550 disc/coin-shaped non-rechargeable lithium battery. You get two batteries with the unit, each claimed to be good for about six months.
Performance
Setting the Mobile Home is pretty straight forward. First you sync your iPhone with your car. Then your sync the Mobile Phone with your iPhone. And that's it.
From then on, you simply leave the Mobile clipped to your sun visor or similar. It automatically goes to sleep after extended periods without use. To wake it up, you just press the button when you jump onboard.
We sampled the Mobile Home courtesy of the new Vauxhall Adam White Edition, a car that happens to have quite a bit of iOS support of its own.
Anyway, in our testing, there wasn't any detectable drop-off in voice recognition performance. In other words, Siri via the Adam's microphone and on the move was just as accurate or not as using Siri out of the car and via the iPhone handset.
The need for an internet connection is a possible deal breaker
We assume your mileage may vary according to the quality of your car's Bluetooth installation. But without testing a given car, it's hard to get specific about likely performance.
What was less impressive was general responsiveness and reliability of operation. We often had to have a couple of stabs at pressing the button to wake Siri up, which does a pretty good job of dispelling the sense of ease of use.
Arguably worse was a glitch with Siri's voice output via the Adam's audio system, which was sometimes clipped. In other words, you lost some of what Siri was saying.
How much of that is down to the car or the Mobile Home device is hard to say, but it does make it hard to give the device a really strong immediate recommendation. In an ideal world, you'd try it with your car before you buy.
Finally, it's worth noting that Siri requires an internet connection to function and that can be a problem for cars moving in and out of range.
For example, this follow-up to last year's HTC One is supposed to boast a 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, according to a brochure obtained by GSM Arena.
That's a step up from the previously rumored Snapdragon 800 chip that was thought to be powering the device and can be found in the current LG G2 and Google Nexus 5 smartphones.
Also, beneath its expected 1080p 5-inch display, the All New HTC One has been tipped to be packing a 2,600 mAh capacity battery.
Both phones use a Snapdragon 801 system on a chip from Qualcomm, while the new HTC One's 2,600 mAh battery life is close to its rivals.
The Galaxy S5 includes a removable 2,800 mAh li-ion battery capacity, while the crams in a non-removeable 3,200 mAh battery. The pros and cons are pretty obvious between the two.
It's unknown whether or not the All New HTC is destined to have a removable battery, but that wasn't the case for its predecessor when it launched last year.
The final interesting detail from the brochure indicates that the HTC One for 2014 will include a nano SIM card and slot vs the typical micro SIM configuration.
The maker of axed smash hit mobile game Flappy Bird has hinted the addictive title could one day return to the App Store, following the self-imposed exile.
At the time, Nyguyan claimed to "hate" the game that had "ruined his simple life," but in an extensive interview with Rolling Stone, he admitted to pondering its eventual return to the nest.
"I'm considering it," he told the magazine, before adding that any return would come with a "warning [to] take a break!"
Addictive-yet-infuriating
Since Flappy Bird went into hibernation, iOS devices with the game installed have appeared on eBay for thousands and many clones have emerged seeking to replicate the addictive-yet-infuriating experience.
Those fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to still possess the game are still generating massive wads of cash for the Vietnamese developer who was reportedly bringing tens of thousands in ad revenue during the game's peak.
As a result, the Nyguyan has quit his day job to focus on full time developing. He's got an untitled cowboy shooter, a vertical flying game called Kitty Jetpack and an "action chess game" called Checkonaught coming this month.
All of the games will feature those 8-bit inspired graphics combined with extreme levels of difficulty, according to the interview. Great! There goes another sheet of Gorilla Glass!
