Wallet Phones

‘Burgers paid for by mobile phone’. This article on the BBC news website made me laugh this morning. One of Japans top mobile phone providers has made a deal with McDonalds to allow customers to pay for their happy meals with their mobile phone. Besides the fact it allows corporations to collect more information on your spending habits it seems like a great idea.
I have already seen mobile phones used for payment into football matches, concerts and so on by swiping a bar code in a text massage on your phone instead of a ticket. Also, my personal favourite which is using your mobile phone to pay for ‘pay and display’ parking by phoning a particular number, they even send you a text ten minutes before your time is up. This potentially would save me lots of money. I tend to have the more relaxed attitude of not paying for parking if I don’t have any change based on the argument that if I get a £30 ticket one in ten times then the saving on the parking payment will pay for the ticket. Unfortunately this hasn’t quite worked out for me just yet.

But the burger example uses a different technology. This is a variation on the ‘mobile wallet’ technology, where can be used similar to a contact-less fob key to pay for purchases (a pin number is used for more expensive transactions). So, soon enough my mobile phone which is already my camera, MP3 player, PC and photo album will also be my new visa card, train pass and sports club card. Then, I would really be depressed if I lost my mobile phone