Actual currency, that is. You know, the greenish paper stuff wadded into your pockets. Because if you have a smartphone you can take credit cards easily now.
So if you run into a buddy who owes you $50 from last week's road trip, and he claims to be a little short - whip out your phone and let VISA handle the debt.
Square, which launched Tuesday with iPhone and Android support, is a small, plastic cube about the size of two Chiclets. From its bottom side an audio connector plugs into the headphone port on your phone. A slot in the cube lets you pass a credit card through. When you do, a reader converts the data from the magnetic strip into an audio signal and passes it on to software on the phone.Wired got its hands on a test unit earlier this year and put it through the paces. Based on our early look, Square appears to be a great option to let anyone with something to sell accept credit cards as payment. [More]
1 comment:
This is interesting. I wonder what it does for trade shows now, could make transactions a lot easier or I wonder what this means for card processing fees and if those will get competitive or reduced in order to accomodate all of the potential new users.
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