Putting NFC to good use with Google Wallet

After years of having NFC technology available, Google starts the ball rolling with their implementation Google Wallet. It looks very promising, while not only allowing your credit cards to be loaded onto this “digital wallet” but also such items as loyalty cards and rewards programs. Google are planning to extend this to other items such as boarding passes and movie tickets in the near future. Unfortunately the rest of the world will have to wait a while longer as it is currently US only and being offered only on the Nexus S 4G.

MasterCard have announced plans introducing PayPass cards and terminals in time for the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Currently ANZ is the only bank that offer PayPass enabled cards. It is unclear if/when Google Wallet would allow loading of such cards to be used locally.

Google Wallet will no doubt spur Apple, Microsoft and others into incorporating NFC into their upcoming roadmaps (if they already haven’t). With NFC-enabled mobile phones likely to become ubiquitous as credit cards it will be interesting to see new and inventive ways NFC is put to use next.

NewsMap.jp, a visual feast of news

Bored with the plain old Google News? NewsMap.jp does an amazing job of visualising the news in a spatially logical way. The colour coding not only reflect different categories of news but also its age by using different shades of the same colour. The news is taken directly from a localised Google News feed. For those with large displays, it looks great in fullscreen mimicking a screensaver. Check it out.