27
Mar
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[Editorial] No, T-Mobile Doesn't Still Have Contracts, You Just Have To Pay For Your Damn Phone

Posted by in Carriers, Editorials, T-Mobile

Yesterday, T-Mobile officially announced its new "UNcarrier" plans to much fanfare and profanity. The idea is simple: you pay one price for your service, and a separate price for your device. You can either choose to pay the full cost of your phone up front, or pay a deposit at first and then a monthly fee after that.

"But wait," the entire tech world cried, "That monthly fee is still a contract, right? I mean, I can't pay $99 up front, terminate one month later, and walk away with a super cheap phone, right?" Well, no, that would just be straight up theft and- "Then it's still a contract!

16
Aug
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Now You Can Add Your Discover Card To Google Wallet Straight From Discover's Site

Posted by in Google, News

When Google announced that it would support all major credit and debit cards, it was big news. What may have slipped under the radar, however, is that Mountain View also sent an open invitation to card issuers to sign up for tighter integration into the service. Today, Google is announcing that you can add your Discover card to Google Wallet directly from your account on Discover's website. You even get fancy card graphics now, too!

The process is stupid simple to set up:

To save your Discover Card to Google Wallet, just follow these short steps:

  1. Visit discover.com/googlewallet and sign into your Discover account
  2. Click “Add Your Card”
  3. Sign into your Google Account

And that’s it!

08
Jun
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Rumor: Sprint Releasing Its Own Mobile Payment Service Called "Touch," Google Wallet Now Left High And Dry

Posted by in Android OS, News, Sprint

Well, we knew it was a possibility, and given Google Wallet's painfully slow adoption rate (by carriers and payment processors), rumors today from NFCTimes that the service's sole remaining partner Sprint is coming up with an alternative aren't exactly surprising.

NFCTimes says the service will be called "Touch," and will utilize a "secure element" system like Wallet (a physical chip) in order to securely process mobile payments. Likely by necessity, this would mean the end of support for Google Wallet on Sprint handsets released after the launch of the new "Touch" service. Two embedded payment systems would be confusing to average consumers, and Sprint will have much more control over its own service (as well as revenue from it), as compared to no control with Google Wallet - undoubtedly something it wants.

26
Mar
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Square's Card Case Is Now Pay With Square, Lets You Auto-Open Tabs At Some Merchants By Dropping Your Name, Acting Like A Big Shot

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

You might not have heard about Card Case. It's not the most popular of Square's innovative services, but it's worth just as much attention for the average consumer. Now that it's getting a facelift, it's a good time to revisit the concept. Pay With Square (as it's now known) is an app that allows you to create and maintain tabs at local businesses by simply giving the retailer your name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImNEWcg0d80

To answer your first question, no there's not a lot of places that support this payment method just yet. However, the app does have a built-in directory of the places that do support it, which is handy for new payment methods.

06
Feb
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Rovio Explains Why The SMS Permission Was Introduced In Angry Birds v1.5.1

Posted by in Games, News

The latest Angry Birds update v1.5.1 that hit the Market yesterday introduced a whole bunch of levels, support for lower-end devices, and... a new SMS permission requirement. This not only prevented the update from being installed automatically, but also created quite a bit of user confusion, or even panic, around the reasons why the game would ever need to send or read our text messages.

Rovio's own Twitter account, probably manned by one of those evil pigs, insisted it was a mistake that would be fixed Monday, which calmed some of us down, but the truth ended up lying elsewhere. In fact, it turned out we knew about it all along, but most of us forgot in the 2 months that followed.

02
Feb
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[Recap] Missed Today's Honeycomb Event? Here's All You Need To Know + Watch It In Full On YouTube

Posted by in Google, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Videos, XOOM

Today has definitely been one of the more exciting days this year, at least in the Android department. Last week, Google sent out invitation for a Honeycomb-related event, where we, of course, were expecting detailed walkthroughs of Android 3.0 and hands-on with the Motorola XOOM.

Rumors of the web store that was promised almost a year ago as well as Google Music, teased at the same time at Google I/O last year, were flying, and one of them definitely came true today - we've finally got ourselves a web-based Market with over-the-air app installations.

Instead of Google Music, we got a different present in the form of in-app purchases, which will, hopefully, put an end to multiple variations of apps (Lite, keys, Demo, etc), help curb piracy, and allow for easier microtransactions within existing aps and games.