Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has launched a mobile wallet app with a more-than-passing resemblance to Apple's Passbook. It enables fandroids to pay each other over the air and squeaks every time it's used. The new wallet comes from Alipay, the financial arm of Alibaba, which already processes 8.5 million transactions a day …

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Monday 21st January 2013 12:31 GMT TRT

Yeah that Google barcode thing...

I found myself overdrawn after trying to video the zebra enclosure at Whipsnade.

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Monday 21st January 2013 13:03 GMT frank ly

I may be wrong here but .....

"Using the microphone and speaker, the two devices beep to each other until the transfer has been authenticated."

The payment processing fee is 0.69%

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Monday 21st January 2013 13:24 GMT Anonymous Coward

Eh....

"Apple and almost everybody else is waiting for radio-wave-based Near Field Communications (NFC) technology to emerge"

Er...not Nokia, having invented NFC which you can see in the oooh so bad, Symbian running Pureview 808. And some Luminas.

Samsung not either, having equipped their Galaxy phones with an NFC chip.

UK restaurants, coffee shops and retailers aren't waiting for NFC technololgy, as they have it already.

Banks and Credit Card companies aren't waiting for NFC, as they are taking NFC payments from said retailers and have eqipped their cards with NFC technology.

Urban transport payment systems like London's Oyster enabled payments using NFC.

The question is the other way around: "When it comes to NFC, where is Apple?"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/28/feature_wtf_is_near_field_communications_nfc/

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2021658/Do-shops-accept-Quick-Tap-NFC-mobile-phone-payments-We-test.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/02/ericsson-idUKLDE71128320110202

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/13/tfl_nfc/

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1. Monday 21st January 2013 14:09 GMT g e
  
  Re: Eh....
  
  So. Just apple then because they thought they had a better idea than fitting NFC. Which was to not fit NFC.
  
  Meanwhile Rest of World moves on. Without them.
  
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2. Monday 21st January 2013 15:49 GMT Phil W
  
  Re: Eh....
  
  The technology is available in shops, and on devices.
  
  What's lacking is apps for paying using your phone, in the UK at least.
  
  As far as I'm aware at present Orange are the only network offering an NFC payment app, and also one of the major high street banks is offering it. I believe in both cases this is restricted to the Galaxy S3 for reasons unknown.
  
  Quite frustrating as I have a Galaxy Note 2 on T-Mobile and would like to be able to pay by bonk with it.
  
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Monday 21st January 2013 13:48 GMT Miek

"Pay-by-squeak requires two devices with the Alipay Wallet installed, which means Android for the moment though an iPhone version is promised. Using the microphone and speaker, the two devices beep to each other until the transfer has been authenticated." -- Does this also include the three working days it takes the bank to authorise and transfer the funds ?

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Monday 21st January 2013 16:11 GMT Dr_N

Next up on retro tech ideas...

..infrared light pulses?

Or why not: smoke signals?

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1. Tuesday 22nd January 2013 14:25 GMT Swarthy
  
  Re: Smoke signals
  
  And hey, <insert disliked phone here> already has the capability of doing smoke signals... Once.
  
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Monday 21st January 2013 18:30 GMT Naughtyhorse

2 things

1) It looks a bit like something apple have already made...

2) There will be an IOS version out soon..

Yeah, i cant see there being an issue there, it's not like apple are that bothered about people doing stuff that looks like apple stuff, and besides the ToS of the appstore is _heavily_ slanted toward the interest of the endluser. so i guess apple will just have to suck it up.

as if!

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