back to article Itsy-bitsy Wi-Fi brings pay-by-bonk to all

Desperate to pay-by-bonk but bored of waiting for the hardware? Then Podifi can help by providing a tiny Wi-Fi access point which turns any smartphone into a bonking wallet. Podifi comes from 2ergo, which has spent the last couple of years trying to flog the tech as being ideal for vouchers and loyalty schemes. The payment …

COMMENTS

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  1. frank ly

    Is that a bonking wallet in your pocket?

    ... or are you just pleased to buy stuff from me?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Embracing NFC?

    "The public will eventually adopt NFC payments, just because they'll be relentlessly pushed in that direction"

    Apart from nothing seems to be embracing NFC at the moment. I don't know of an App from any nationwide Hotel door lock vendor that allows you to open your hotel room door by using your phone.

    It isn't hard for the manufacturer to make an app or provide an API to build it into a hotel's app. However ask a company like Vingcard about it and the clam up and claim (from an actual sales guy) "it's available in America but the phones are different there, the phones in the UK don't support it". I did point out that the phones in the UK were identical or apart from the cell frequency but I didn't get any further.

    So - how can I use my NFC payment through my UK phone? Paypal is trying to get into regular payment sin a very big way using face recognition payments, queue buster payments etc. But if I just want to use my phone on a contactless payment terminal to pay using my regular credit card, I can't. In the US they have Google wallet, in this country we have specific phones by specific network operators. Who's going to purchase a phone from a single network operator just to pay by NFC?

    I can't see any reason why the NFC chip in a modern phone can't hold your pay-by-wave card details, your transport tickets, your loyalty cards and keys to your hotel room/workplace areas. All the tech is there today, it's all available right now and is as safe or safer than the alternatives currently in use.

    However, I guess it is due to the fact that the iPhone doesn't have NFC - when it does the media hype machine will go into overdrive about this new technology that Apple has invented. That would be fine, if it extended the technology, but the chances are the solutions will all be based on an Apple proprietary standard, patented with obvious tech and not interoperable with other devices.

    That is why the standard needs to be set now - so that It will be adopted by newcomers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Embracing NFC?

      There's only a couple of issues, and as I see it, it's like this:

      You want your hotel door credentials on your phone. What I would consider the best way of doing this is to ensure that they're stored either on the UICC (SIM card) or on the embedded secure element (eSE) on your phone. If the phone has an eSE, then the vendor only has to pay money to whoever secures the eSE. If there's no eSE, then the vendor has to pay money to the operator to get their applet on the UICC. That means they need to negotiate with each and every operator who's UICC they'd like their app on. This may well be the reason why Vingcard won't support non-US operators. The good news about doing it this way is that you stand a chance of being able to open your hotel door even if your phone is flat.

      The not-proper way to do this is to have an app that talks NFC. It'll work on any device that supports NFC. The downside is the credentials are open to attack (stored on the filesystem), and you can't open your door if the battery is flat. That's a pretty nasty downside, given that your charger is probably in your room...

  3. tony2heads
    FAIL

    "it lacks the secure element..."

    Without the security who is going to trust their money to the system. All you need is a stronger wifi transmitter secreted somewhere

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ?

      I don't believe you two have met. Tony, this is the question mark.

    2. Thorne

      Re: "it lacks the secure element..."

      "Without the security who is going to trust their money to the system. All you need is a stronger wifi transmitter secreted somewhere"

      Simple. You transmit a single use password with the payment

  4. koolholio
    FAIL

    Closed one loop to open another?

    It may close the loop for records being at both ends of the transaction in an auditable fashion, but it has changed the process of transaction... and assuming there is no other software running on the phone, and its transmission at any point, anywhere and any condition remains 'secure' inclusive of its algothrim of generating vouchers... I fail to see how a serial / USB device can run without installing a COM port with associated driver or a USB device driver? Think its a little bit of a falicy, but its a convenient design!

  5. hplasm
    Happy

    PayPal

    Bumpay?

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