Hasta La Gadget!

While most sit-down restaurants offer a way to add on a tip when you sign the credit card slip, It’s a bit of a hassle to have to fish for some loose change or bills in your wallet after paying for a cup of coffee or snacks using your credit card. But if DipJar gets traction, then you might soon be able to leave tips simply by ‘dipping’ your card into the jar.

DipJar is an electronic jar of sorts that has been programmed to charge you $1 every time you dip your card into it. So if you want to leave a $5 tip, you’re going have to swipe your card five times, so that might sound taxing. But really, how tiring is it to have to dip your card five times into the slot? I’d imagine not very much – though it might wear out the stripe on your card faster.

The DipJar is currently being tested for use in coffee shops, restaurants, cafes, and every other establishment out there that accepts tips. You can contact the crew behind it if you want to get a DipJar for your own establishment. All you have to do is tell them a bit about your store and location and sign up on their site. If they like you, they’ll send you a DipJar so you can start collecting tips electronically.

[via DipJar via Eater]

If a payment terminal could be forced into servitude as a crude handheld gaming device, what else could it be made to do? Researchers at the Black Hat conference showed just what mischief a commonly used UK PoS terminal could get up to when they inserted a chip-and-pin card crafted with malicious code. That enabled them to install a racing game and play it, using the machine’s pin pad and screen. With the same hack, they were able to install a far less whimsical program as well — a Trojan that could record card numbers and PINs, which could be extracted later by inserting another rogue card. On top of that, criminals could use the same method to fool the terminal into thinking a transaction was bank-approved, allowing them to walk out of a store with goods they hadn’t paid for. Finally, the security gurus took a device popular in the US, and used non-encrypted ethernet communication between the terminal and other peripherals to hack into the payment device and take root control. Makes you want to put those credit cards (and NFC devices) away and stick to cash — at least you can see who’s robbing you blind.

[Original image credit: Shutterstock]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Security experts hack payment terminals to steal credit card info, play games originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 06:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thought PayPal was done upping its mobile payment game when it unveiled its triangular Square competitor earlier this year? Think again. Despite Here being, well, here, PayPal’s not satisfied having but one way to scan your plastic, and so it’s snapped up Card.io. In case you’ve forgotten, Card.io gathers credit card info visually using a smartphone’s camera — no scanning dongle required — to save fingers and thumbs from having to enter payment info manually. Oh, and for folks fearing that PayPal would pull the plug on other apps’ access to Card.io’s SDK, not to worry — PayPal assures us that Card.io’s technology will remain available to developers.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

PayPal buys Card.io visual credit card scanner platform, is neither Here nor there originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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