Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Cash is a dead king...

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.




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]
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.

1 comment:

Brian in Central IL said...

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.