Mobile Payments

We’ve been talking about the future of this a lot lately, and here’s a nice little infographic that sums up mobile payment growth and the overall landscape.

Mostly correct but American Express’ Serve supports Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and debit cards.

https://www.gplus.com/Mobile-Payments/Article/INFOGRAPHIC-Goodbye-Wallets-How-Mobile-Payments

Contributed by Collin Whitehead

Virtual shopping in subway stations

The South Korean version of the supermarket chain Tesco installed virtual stores in subway stations as a way to provide more shopping opportunities for busy, smartphone-handy commuters. Shoppers browse 2D displays of groceries, scan a QR code to select items and complete their purchase all on their phone. The supermarket then delivers their goods by the time they arrive at home.

Watch a case study here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJVoYsBym88

In this case, mobile is not only affecting shopping habits in stores, but also allowing for the whole shopping experience to be recreated virtually and on-the-go.

Contributed by James Taylor

Via Laughing Squid

Tiny Riot

A digital tool for letting out your frustration — just grab your iPhone, hold it tight and shake your fist!!!

These guys (formerly featured on the blog here: http://gspdigital.com/create-your-own-is-parade/) made the app, in their words, “as a way to release for our frustration with the uncertainty of post 3.11 Japan.” Check it out more here: tinyriot.jp

Contributed by Tomohiko Hayashi

Wired and Whimsical

From wallets that help your spending to hula girls that tweet from your carshare, the work of concept artist John Kestner — who uses APIs to “teach” objects how to react to our everyday lives — could be amazing inspiration for DOOH work.

Contributed by Leila Coffman

An Augmented Reality nod to the (cinematic) past

A number of cool augmented reality apps have sprouted up recently that infuse the modern day street perspective with winks to the past — for instance, the Museum of London’s StreetMuseum app.

A similar app, Augmented Reality Cinema, pulls on the heartstrings of cinephiles, playing scenes from famous movies at the location where they were filmed in London. It’s such a simple idea, but also such a satisfying example of how the mobile technology we carry around with us everywhere can provide playful new ways to see and appreciate our surroundings.

Via Laughing Squid

WOW! World of Fourcraft

What do you get when you combine the mystical World of Warcraft with Foursquare?

World of Fourcraft uses the Google maps API and Foursquare to transform New York into a huge, WOW-inspired, multi-player strategy game fueled by check-ins. New Yorkers: declare your allegiance to a borough today!

As it’s well-put by Mashable, “the nerdverse might just explode.”

Via Mashable

Angry Birds LIVE

It may not be the most innovative idea ever, but this live version of Angry Birds was probably really fun to produce. Plus it’s always interesting to see the translation of an online experience into the physical world — it definitely started a party in Barcelona!

Contributed by Collin Whitehead

Talking with your Hands: Control your iPhone remotely

Imagine using an iPhone in the palm of your hand. Now, do it again but put the phone away.

Using a depth perceptive camera, researchers are able to allow people to use their iPhones remotely. People can tap their palms, swipe or perform other gestures captured by a depth-sensitive video camera. The signals are transmitted to the iPhone using a WiFi radio and the actions are performed in realtime.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37611/

Imagine allowing people to use a personal phone or public kiosk by interacting with either themselves (palm touch) or more subtle means, such as voice or other “natural” gestures. We are no longer tethered to the device.

Contributed by Kevin Jeong

Unlock your door with your Phone

Finally a set of keys you can’t lose (…unless you lose your phone).

The Lockitron app lets you lock and unlock your door using your smart phone. It even works via text messaging with non-smart phones.

Via Laughing Squid

Google Music

Probably the most interesting thing coming out of Google I/O last week was…The Google Music Project. It’s officially in BETA and soon to release (my sources say most likely due to legal clearances with labels), however, invites are being sent out to a percentage of users for testing the new service. Having had the chance to do so myself, it has been an amazing experience without having to “wire” your device to your computer in order to enjoy the music you love. It works on tablets running Honeycomb, latest smart-phones running the latest android build, as well as a web version to allow you to access your music anywhere in the world on any device.

The UI on the devices is really straight forward for the most part, and even syncs with android widgets to allow you to access it as quickly as possible. The site UI is interesting and simple, yet it’ll be great to see how they scale for users who have a large music library. I believe the most important thing to come is how Google plans to make this service part of the SOCIAL scene, as in a competitor to Spotify and/or iTunes (when that goes to the cloud hopefully this year).
http://music.google.com/about/

Contributed by Gianni Argiris