The Entertainment segment handles the digital content development and management of mobile phone handsets and terminal tablets.
That's an approach that was echoed by Isis, the carrier partnership that's also now managed to sign up six handset OEMs, four payment terminal manufacturers and four issuing banks.
The new contactless payment system allows users of recent Samsung Galaxy S smartphones to pay for goods and services by tapping their handsets on contactless terminals, and pay for travel on Transport for London's network of tube, train and bus services.
A small card-reading device that plugged into a smartphone's headphone or charging ports could turn that handset into a card payments terminal.
A small card-reading device that plugged into a smartphone's headphone or charging ports could turn that handset into a card payments terminal.
Universal is providing specific content for the service; Vodafone Germany is offering the GPRS network and backend systems; Nokia is supplying its handset package, and Philips has a prototype consumer terminal.
By the early 1980s, Computerworld magazine was advertising $13,000 Davox terminals that fused a monitor, keyboard and a phone handset into a telemarketer's dream machine.
Using the technology, known as Zoosh, involves briefly holding a phone within six inches of either another handset with a Zoosh-enabled app or a dedicated reader connected to a store's checkout terminal.
While it's a good step in terms of headline, LoopPay currently requires extra hardware to work with mag-stripe based terminals, so Samsung will need to work on a stylish peripheral or specialist hardware in a handset to maximise the purchase of LoopPay.
When it launches, the carrier alliance will bring an armada of partners: all the major credit card brands, three banks with 100 million customers, and makers of merchant terminals and phone handsets (Apple is not among them).
