GOOGLE LAUNCHES GOOGLE WALLET

Putting to bed months of rumors, Google on Thursday announced an "open" NFC-based mobile payments ecosystem that lets users pay for items by tapping their phone against a payment reader.

"Your phone will be your wallet. Just tap, pay, and save," said Stephanie Tilenius, Google's VP of Commerce, announcing the platform at the Google Partner event in New York.
'Google Wallet' is a free Android app that securely stores multiple credit cards, or a Google prepaid card linked to your credit card (one that Google provides). When opened on an NFC-enabled smartphone, you can tap your phone against a supported payment reader and the item you want to purchase is instantly charged to your credit card.

Field tests are already in place in New York and San Francisco, but when it launches commercially this summer Google Wallet will work on Sprint's Nexus S 4G, MasterCard credit cards issued by Citi, and at retailers equipped with Mastercard's PayPass terminals. The transactions will be processed by First Data, an Atlanta-based company.

Retailers who've signed up include Walgreens, Subway, Toys "R" Us, American Eagle Outfitters, and Macy's.

At the event Osama Bedier, a former PayPal exec and currently Google's VP of Payments, demonstrated the end-to-end consumer experience with a skit about buying denim shorts for his daughter.

First, Bedier opened the Google Wallet app on his Nexus S and agreed to the Terms and Conditions. He then attached his Google Wallet to a Google account, entered a PIN number to open the wallet, and filled out a form to link his Citi credit card account to the app.
Then Bedier stepped into American Eagle Outfitters store (use your imagination), where Beth McCormick, senior director of customer systems at AEO, joined the stage and handed him a pair of American Eagle's MIDI shorts. Bedier brought the shorts to a PayPass terminal, tapped his smartphone against it, signed his name, and "left" the store.

Bedier called this "Single Tap" but in reality, it's more of a tap-sign transaction.

LEAK: FACEBOOK AND SPOTIFY TEAM UP FOR MUSIC SERVICE

Facebook has partnered with Spotify on a music-streaming service that could be launched in as little as two weeks, sources close to the deal have told Forbes.

The integrated service is currently going through testing, but when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events.

Clicking on the Spotify icon will install the service on their desktop in the background, and also allow users play from Spotify’s library of millions of songs through Facebook. The service will include a function that lets Facebook users listen to music simultaneously with their friends over the social network, one of the sources said.

The partnership is another indication of how Facebook is moving towards becoming a hub for media like movies and music. Last March for instance, Warner Bros. announced it would make movies available to stream and rent through Facebook using Facebook credits.

It has yet to be decided if the new service will be called “Facebook Music” or “Spotify on Facebook,” but it will only be available for Facebook users in countries where Spotify has a presence, excluding the all-important United States.

SONY SAYS IT MAY HAVE "SOME" PSN/QRIOCITY SERVICES UP NEXT WEEK

As the PlayStation Network / Qriocity outage stretches into its second week, over on the PlayStation Blog rep Patrick Seybold has just posted an updated Q&A based on the inquiries of concerned users. Beyond the security of our personal information, the most important question is when service might be restored and he reiterates Sony expects to have "some services" up and running within a week from yesterday.

When it comes to the most important personal information like credit card numbers, there are assurances that the credit card database was encrypted and there is no evidence anything was taken, but that's a possibility that still cannot be ruled out completely. To keep things secure, Gamasutra reports game developers are getting new SDKs with updated security features as well. When the service comes back up, expect a mandatory system update that requires a new password before getting back to your Mortal Kombat or Portal 2-related plans.

PLAYSTATION NETWORK HACKED, PERSONAL INFORMATION STOLEN

On Tuesday, Sony issued an update explaining the recent PlayStation Network and Qriocity outages. The company said it has discovered that between April 17th and April 19th, someone broke into its network and stole user information. In an effort to stop the security breach, Sony temporarily killed access to its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, hired a security firm to investigate, and started beefing up its security measures. However, the leaked information may be alarming to PlayStation network users. Here’s part of Sony’s statement:

We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.

Sony said that it doesn’t think credit card data was taken, but that it will not rule out the possibility, and says that it’s possible credit card numbers – excluding the security codes – may have been obtained by the intruders. The firm advises that its customers “remain vigilant” by closely monitoring credit statements. Sony says the services will be reactivated as soon as possible and that customers can dial 1-800-345-7669 with any questions.

GOOGLE SAYS CHINA BLOCKING GMAIL

Google and China have a long history of conflict stemming from the work of Chinese hackers to gain access to the inboxes of thousands of Gmail-using political dissidents… a conflict which finally resulted in Google pulling itself from the country.

Now the search giant is accusing the Chinese government of hacking Gmail and disrupting service to the popular webmail provider because of fears of a “jasmine revolution,” or an uprising of the oppressed similar to that which has happened over the course of the last month in Middle Eastern countries like Libya, Egypt, etc.

China’s interference with Google makes it appear as if Google’s services are having technical problems, even when they’re not. Users and advertisers within China have complained about numerous technical issues plaguing Gmail within the country, including difficulty sending messages, marking messages as read, and so on.

Google says there is no problem with the service on their end. In fact, they explicitly say it’s because China is blocking Gmail, but trying to make it look like they’re not involved.

“Relating to Google there is no issue on our side. We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail,” said a Google spokesperson.

This is just another in a long line of moves on the part of the Chinese government to suppress the Internet’s ability to coordinate political dissident. Consequently, China has been doing everything possible to lock Western companies like Google out of the country, even having gone so far as to launch their own search engine, Panguso, through the state run China Mobila telecom.

APPLE EXPANDING MAC IN STORE PERSONAL SETUP SERVICE

In January Apple introduced a personal setup service for Macs in its stores. This allowed for any customer purchasing a Mac to have a member of staff help them setup e-mail, iTunes, and take them through the Mac user experience.

The personal setup for Mac has proved very popular. So popular in fact that Apple is expanding the amount of space allocated for it in official Apple Stores as well as brining on staff to help carry it out.

The extra space required to do this won’t just appear, so Apple has had to decide what to cut in order to fit it in. The losers in this are peripherals, games, and upgrades it seems. 32 of the 40 games Apple usually displays are going, as are printers, scanners and hard drives. The extent of the product removals from the customer-facing area will be dependent on the store, though. The smaller it is the more that has to go.

To be clear, Apple will still offer the products it is removing, they just won’t be on display.

HUAWEI OFFERS TO BUILD OUT CELLULAR COVERAGE IN LONDON'S UNDERGROUND FOR FREE

China's Huawei has generously offered to pick up the roughly £50 million ($81 million) tab for equipment to line London's sprawling subway system with mobile phone reception, a package it says it's extending as a gift from Olympic host nation to another (London will host the 2012 Summer Olympics, and it has said in the past that it'd like the Tube wired in time). The official line is that Huawei would make its money back over time through maintenance contracts, but some politicians are raising red flags over the Chinese firm's potential control over a critical piece of London's wireless infrastructure -- a sentiment that seemed to help kill a potential Huawei deal with Sprint in the States.

APPLE TO LAUNCH MAC CONFIGURATION SERVICE

According to 9 to 5 Mac Apple will soon implement a configuration service for Mac computers purchased in store. The new service, performed by Apple Store employees, will "help you setup your e-mail accounts, walk you through the Mac App Store, setup an iTunes account for you, and show you the basic pointers of owning a Mac.” The new configuration service is expected to launch tomorrow, January 11th.

ABOUT.ME OUT OF BETA; OPEN TO ALL

About.me is a relatively new service, but it’s already attracting boat loads of users. Since September, About.me has let people reserve personal profile pages, and has just opened up to everyone. It’s an incredibly simple concept — have your own profile page that has a short bio, links to your different social networking profiles and services, and most importantly, a super high resolution image of yourself. In addition to being a great personal landing site, About.me offers a great suite of analytics items to track how much traffic you’re getting and from where, etc. Over 400,000 people have reserved their profile page names on About.me since September. [BGR]

XMARKS LIVES

Just in time for Halloween, popular browser syncing service Xmarks has risen from the grave like a zombie looking for brains.  Citing the power of the people Xmarks has received "numerous" offers to keep its service up and running.  In addition over 35,000 users have pledged to pay between $10 and $20 per year for the use of the service.  Xmarks explains:

The past ten days have been an amazing lesson in the power of community. Not in the “web 2.0 social graph” sense – I’m talking about old school community with users speaking up, speaking out and banding together. Thank you Xmarks users. You told the world it was simply unacceptable for our service to shut down and it worked. Thanks to your passion, Xmarks now has multiple offers from companies ready and willing to take over the service and keep making browser sync better and better!


Power to the people!!! [BGR]