Near Field Communication is coming to your smart phone this fall.
What does that mean to you?
Among other things, NFC-enabled devices (think smart phones or tablets) will enable the user to make mobile payments (have a look at the VISA video below), replace your passport, with one swipe open your home, car or hotel door, allow you to buy your theatre tickets online, replace the bracelet you have to wear when you go to the hospital, demystify your prescriptions when you’re at the pharmacy — and all that’s just for a start.

So, VISA is about to create and implement an effective, secure digital wallet service that’ll make all the above payment innovations real, set to arrive in a digital device near you at some point this autumn.
VISA’s idea is to let you store your VISA accounts, non-VISA accounts and even online payment services like PayPal into one digital wallet.
This way, you can pay for goods online with this do-everything wallet, with one account rather than various cards and different accounts allowing you, of course, to customize which cards you want, thereby simplifying how you pay for the goods you purchase.
Google has also announced a digital wallet, arriving first on Android phones, but due to expand onto all smart phones later this autumn.

A chip inside new Android phones — for now, only one model has it — will allow shoppers to wave their devices in front of a reader to pay for clothes and food at the mall or grocery.
Responding to privacy issues, Google said it will not have access to users’ financial information or purchase history.
Google’s electronic wallet will launch over the summer, with trials beginning in American cities on either coast. Users will need to download the Google Wallet application to begin using the service. Security will be paramount: Google said the chip cannot be accessed by passersby or by malicious software applications designed to steal information.
Users will need a PIN to access the app, and financial data will be stored on a tamper-resistant chip isolated from the phone’s hardware and software. At the point of purchase, the transmitter sends a unique, dynamic account number to verify the transaction.
“At the end of the day, it’s the same as a card,” says MasterCard spokeswoman Joanne Trout. “If there are fraudulent purchases, customers have zero liability.”
The success of MasterCard’s PayPass system — which allows shoppers to simply tap their cards on a reader rather than swipe — shows there is demand for “contactless” payments.
“There will be demand for this technology as long as there are enough retailers and enough phones,” Google announced upon introduction of the digital wallet concept.

For the past month, VanRamblings has volunteered four hours a week at Free Geek Vancouver …

“a nonprofit community organization that reduces the environmental impact of waste electronics by reusing and recycling donated technology … (which also acts as) a place for people to share technology, and to work together to build healthier, more empowered communities …“

Through community engagement Free Geek provides education, job skills training, Internet access and free or low cost computers to the public.
The impetus for travelling down to Free Geek, initially — aside from meeting co-founder Ifny Lachance, with whom we’d made contact while working on various political campaigns this past fall — occurred as a consequence of VanRamblings’ desire to both volunteer with a worthwhile non-profit providing service to the community, as well as to transform 24 hours of work at Free Geek into a PC (Pentium 4, 60GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 64MB graphics card) that we could donate ourselves to a deserving social agency.
As Ifny points out in this video …

“If you commit to 24 hours of volunteer time with Free Geek, you earn a free computer. We also provide computers to non-profits; we have a Hardware Grant Foundation for organizations that are serving the community … they can fulfill their mandate more effectively if they have not only the equipment that they need, but they don’t have to scramble for money to buy brand new computers.”

Free Geek supports free and open source technology, including Ubuntu, a community developed, Linux-based operating system that supplies all the applications you need — a web browser (Firefox), presentation, document and spreadsheet software (OpenOffice), instant messaging and much more.
Soon, we will have earned a free computer through our volunteer work — disassembling computers, picking up old computer equipment from schools across the city, receiving shipments, packing e-waste for responsible recycling, testing equipment and building computers — with Free Geek.
Even though we at VanRamblings consider ourselves techies, there’s a surprising amount of information we weren’t aware of — what a wonderful learning experience, then, that we’ve had at Free Geek this past month. If you’re in the market for a computer and money’s tight, or if you’re looking for a worthwhile, educational volunteer opportunity, Free Geek is the place for you. Or, if all you’re looking for is a ‘new‘ computer, for only $100 you can pick up a custom built PC from Free Geek’s computer thrift store.

As the grand prize winner at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, just wrapped this week in Las Vegas, VanRamblings has found the smartphone of our dreams: the Palm Pre, replete with …

• a 3.1-inch (480×320 pixel) multi-touch screen, easily outpacing Apple’s iPhone in capability
• a slide-down QWERTY-type keypad
• 802.11b/g WiFi, 8GB of internal storage, GPS, Bluetooth, a powerful processor, accelerometer and a wireless charger
• a 3.2 megapixel camera, with flash (alas, no video)
• a handset that gently curves so that it fits snugly against your ear while placing the microphone right near your lips
• a quick, efficient browser (powered by Linux) that renders pages beautifully

As to the question of which carrier will introduce the Palm Pre in Canada, because the Pre, at present, is designed for a CDMA network, either or both of Telus and Bell — both of which currently employ CDMA — will likely be the lucky Canadian carrier(s). Later in the year, Palm will introduce a GSM model, which will allow the Pre to expand to Rogers’ customers.
No details are yet available on pricing, but early expectation is that a Canadian carrier would mimic the $400 upfront charge that exclusive U.S. carrier Sprint has indicated they will charge for the Pre. Although, given the competition in the market from Apple’s iPhone ($199) and RIM’s Blackberry Storm ($249), the final Pre introductory price in Canada may be reduced to remain in line with existing A-list smartphones available on the market.

Have you ever tried to visit a web page only to get the 404 error or another message, even though the site was working just fine an hour ago?
Down for everyone or just me does one thing. Type an URL into the site, and you’ll find out if the whole world is seeing what you’re seeing. Yep, it’s easy to determine if if that web site you’re trying to reach is actually down, or if your busted-up computer or network filters is the problem.

So much for the benign reputation of Google. A report in the New York Times Saturday, July 5th, suggests that not all is well with the search engine behemoth. Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, recently told Google staff that he had no sympathy for the parents who were upset by a 75% increase in Google day care fees — to a whopping $57,000 a year! — and, further, that he was “tired of ‘Googlers’ who felt entitled to perks like ‘bottled water and M&Ms’.”
That’s what we love in our billionaire corporate entrepreneurs — a kind heart, an ability to relate to the concerns of line staff, and the milk of human kindness. Whoa, Mr. Brin, just what’s up at Google? Fifty-seven thousand dollars in annual daycare fees? Way to value your staff, Google.

A few weeks back, corporate anti-virus company, AVG, notified subscribers that their free AVG 7.5 workhorse would become defunct June 1st (the company later changed that date to June 25), although even as of this writing AVG 7.5 (the free version) seems to be performing well, as the company continues to provide virus definition updates to the supposedly defunct software.
Soon after AVG made the new version announcement word began to filter across the Internet that the free version of AVG 8.0 would work to full capacity for only 30 days, after which the e-mail scanning facility would become defunct, requiring subscribers to update to AVG 8 PRO.
AVG recently published an announcement that …

Contrary to rumours circulating on the Internet, AVG Free 8.0 does not include any “trial” or “time-out” functionality. Every option provided in the program is fully functional for the life of the product.

So, for those who loves them some free AVG, you can safely download the fully functional, and absolutely free, 8.0.1 version of AVG anti-virus here.

Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 3 currently rolling out to customers across the globe. Online tech company, CNET, warns users to hold off on downloading the massive Windows XP hotfix update until the ‘bugs’ have been worked out.
To prevent Windows XP from automatically installing, you can surf to this site, following the directions to block the installation of the service pack.
VanRamblings brings you this announcement in the hopes of preventing potential havoc on your PC. We advise you to wait until 2009 to download Windows XP SP3, when Microsoft will make the update mandatory.