Techwatch

Until now, the main method of paying for small value transactions (such as ringtones or games) has been premium rate messages, often with several messages ending up in your inbox for higher value transactions (for example, a £4.50 game download may result in three £1.50 texts being sent to you).

But now, Google seems to be set to launch its own mobile payment method – possibly for their rumoured Gphone – following the publication of one of their US patent applications, ‘20070203836 text message payment’, filed in February 2006. This uses a fairly straightforward SMS system to send a text to a server, which carries out some authentication then debits your account and credits the account of the payee. An example text would be, “Gpay Starbucks354 3.50” to pay Starbucks’ branch 354 for a drink.

There are some interesting aspects to the patent, such as using biometrics for authorisation, using formatted text messages to give a web-like interface and allowing the account holder to limit the type of transactions which may occur. These limits include transaction and daily amount limits, limiting usage to certain geographical areas or times of day, and barring/allowing certain types of stores – such as only allowing mobile related products or barring the purchase of alcohol and adult products.

Apart from these aspects, it looks very similar to many other systems, such as Paypal Mobile or the premium rate SMS method. These work OK in general, but can require the user to do non-intuitive tasks in order to complete a transaction. For example, when using a mobile browser to complete the purchase of a ringtone or game, it isn’t intuitive to have to drop out of the browser, type a shortcode, keyword and purchase details into a text message, then wait for a premium rate incoming text with a WAP URL to download the content from.

The newly launched PayforIT system aims to get around that problem by integrating the billing with the WAP site. It works in a similar way to internet payment gateways, where you complete a shopping basket then are referred to a secure provider such as ProtX or WorldPay. The provider takes the payment then redirects you back to the merchant who, with the success/fail code from the payment, either provides the content immediately or apologises that your payment failed.

PayforIT differs from ProtX-like systems in that the funds source is the mobile account – either adding items to your bill or depleting your prepay credit. All of the main networks are supporting the system, while content providers can choose which payment gateway they want to use. The gateways have to be approved by the networks, and they all give a standardised payment page layout. This should become familiar to users, so they will become comfortable using it.

The main advantages seen by content providers is that it allows more finely tuned billing options, and will help to reduce the dropout rate where a customer fails to complete a transaction. For customers there is more transparency; it will be made very clear in the standardised gateway layout if they are purchasing a one-off item or a subscription service, together with the amount it will cost, which are both unclear when you just send a text to a shortcode.

Harnessing yellow power

At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin in August, the latest Japanese battery innovation was on show – the NoPoPo Aqua.

The big problem with rechargeable batteries is finding somewhere to charge them up. There isn’t always a wall socket handy, especially if you’re travelling.
The NoPoPo (no-pollution power) Aqua Battery runs off liquids; you use a pipette to fill them up. The capacity isn’t huge by today’s standards – the AA size is only 500mAH – but this does compare favourably with old fashioned NiCads.

They are also fairly environmentally friendly. While they don’t last forever, they also don’t contain the typical heavy metals such as mercury or cadmium you find in other batteries, which can pollute water supplies if disposed of with standard waste.

The best part is that they will work off just about any liquid – beer, water and apple juice all work, as does urine. When they become available over here next year, you’ll just have to persuade the boss that your lunchtime drinking session was necessary (and, in fact, a valid business expense) as you needed a good supply of bodily waste to provide some green (or should that be yellow?) power for your phone.

iPhone Hacker

The teenager who cracked Apple’s iPhone security has successfully sold his originally hacking prototype.

George Hotz spent the summer working out how to unlock the iPhone to allow any SIM card to be used in it. It took him 500 hours to generate the crack, which has now been refined to simply scraping the coating from one track on the PCB and shorting that to a capacitor, together with a software patch.

Once he’d succeeded, he put his original phone on eBay; he thought it would gain some interest, as he claims it is a piece of mobile history. That didn’t work out, as hoax bidders raised the price to ludicrous levels.

Having pulled the eBay auction, he got a call from Terry Daidone, the owner of phone refurbishing company CertiCell. Terry offered George a $30,000 (£14,934) Nissan 350Z, together with three new iPhones to hand out to members of the team who helped to crack the iPhone but didn’t actually own one themselves.

That’s not a bad pay-out for a few weeks work, but almost as importantly George is starting his college course at Rochester Institute of Technology and, as a result of his hacking skills, has consulting work arranged with CertiCell and online store Puremobile, which specialises in unlocked handsets.