Hasta La Gadget!

HTC’s Droid Incredible 4G LTE gave us a pleasant surprise by providing a capable Android phone that didn’t have to be supersized. It’s gone largely untouched since its mid-year introduction, though, which makes a new and imminent update all the more important. The upgrade’s biggest trick is support for Isis mobile payments that more officially throws Verizon’s hat into the NFC payment ring. Anyone living beyond Isis’ coverage will still want to check for the update when it’s ready — the patch switches on global roaming, allows remote technical support, makes Tango video chats useful and improves LTE connection quality. No matter what you’re looking for, Verizon’s tendency to start over-the-air updates within days of posting documentation leaves a likely short wait before the most recent Droid Incredible gets a breath of fresh air.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC, Verizon

HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE update to bring global roaming, Isis wallet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in May, Groupon purchased Breadcrumb, a point-of-sale system for the hospitality industry meant to erase the clunky systems of past years and replace them with a sleek, affordable iPad app. Breadcrumb offers all the features needed by restaurants, cafes, or bars in a single app, including the ability to process sales using an card swiping attachment for the iPad. Originally offered under a pilot run in New York, this POS app is now available nation-wide.

Features for this point-of-sale app include the ability to track employee labor, map out tables or serving courses, send orders to one or more kitchen stations, control cash drawers and receipt printers, and configure various menus, including pricing. In addition to offering the various features a restaurant or bar may need, Breadcrumb also allows real-time monitoring of reports, which are updated with every interaction with the app. Reports can be viewed by authorized users anywhere via a web browser.

Breadcrumb is only available for the iPad, which is perhaps disappointing to those who prefer Android, although the limitation makes sense from a stability standpoint. The variety of hardware available that runs Android – some of which is very low end – could result in bugs and glitches that, while not explicitly Breadcrumb’s fault, would no doubt be associated with the app instead the hardware. Whether the app will ever be available for Android is unknown.

Pricing is split into four tiers. For small businesses, the $99 pricing tier allows Breadcrumb to be run on one iPad, while the $199 tier authorizes 2 iPads, the $299 tier authorizes 5 iPads, and the $399 tier authorizes 10 iPads. All four pricing options include unlimited users and free updates.

[via Groupon]

Groupon launches point-of-sale system Breadcrumb is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Starbucks will kick off its Square payments system in early November, with the system expanding to support digital tipping for your favorite barista in summer 2013. The news follows the addition of Starbucks loyalty card to Apple’s Passbook in iOS 6, and will see around 7,000 US locations taking the Square Wallet payments from next month.

Square and Starbucks announced their deal to use the mobile payments upstart back in August. At the same time, Starbucks cut out its existing credit and debit card processing partner, replacing them with Square’s backend, and invested $25m in the firm.

As the mobile app provision increases, Square and Starbucks will make buying a cup of coffee even more straightforward. Passbook will automatically flag up the Starbucks Card on the iOS device’s lock screen when they enter a store, and they’ll be able to pay by “swiping” their phone.

The agreement was lauded as reducing Starbucks’ processing costs as well as increasing Square’s footprint as a payments service provider and making it more likely that users would take the time to install the mobile app. However, the addition of tip support – although tardy after payments in general have been accepted – will offset any shortfall in tipping to store staff themselves, who might suffer from a reduction in cash payments for smaller amounts.

Square hits Starbucks in early-November; Save your tips until Summer 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s 2012, and we’re still fussing with paper currency. Why isn’t everything electronic? Or at the very least, exclusively utilizing magnetic strips on plastic rectangles? Where are those ID/Passport/money-replacing cards we were promised in the 90s? More »

When it launched with iOS 6 this Wednesday, Apple’s Passbook mobile-ticketing feature boasted a handful of high-profile partners — including Fandango, Live Nation, Lufthansa and Ticketmaster — but that list still leaves plenty of room for fleshing out. According to Venture Beat, AmEx is launching integration with Passbook later today. The credit card company’s Passbook functionality will include notifications for new account transactions, along with the ability to view your current balance and redeem membership rewards points. The service can also use smartphones’ location to verify charges flagged as suspicious.

Starbucks, which was featured in an early Passbook demo at WWDC, also announced the timeline for its integration with the service, tweeting today that an “update is coming at the end of the month” and offering no further details. Judging by Apple’s earlier previews, Passbook will let customers pay with a Starbucks card. The coffee chain’s Passbook functionality looks to be quite similar to its partnership with Square, which will be the go-to mobile payments option for non-iOS customers when it launches this fall.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

AmEx, Starbucks announce plans for Passbook integration: both live by end of the month originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Sep 2012 13:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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