Verifone’s new mobile point of sale is ready for Apple Pay
Verifone, the company behind payment terminals found in millions of stores, has announced a new mobile point of sale (mPOS), the PAYware Mobile e355. Designed to help companies deploy mobile devices in their stores, the PAYware Mobile is meant to outlast current phones and tablets, adaptable to changes in form factor. It accepts multiple payment types, including magnetic stripe, EMV, and NFC payments such as Apple Pay.
From Business Wire:
The PAYware Mobile e355, the newest mPOS terminal in the Verifone Mobile suite of products, frees merchants from consumer technology upgrade cycles and adapts to multiple OS options. It is a flexible, long-lasting device that can accommodate different form factors and outlive smartphone and tablet models. This enables merchants to make long-term investments in mPOS, at a much lower cost of ownership. Furthermore, it supports all of the major OS options, including Android, iOS and Windows.
Verifone expects the PAYware Mobile e355 to be available in late summer 2015.
Source: Business Wire
A detailed examination of the Selfie Brush (iPhone 6 edition)
Historically, if you wanted someone to know what you looked like after you’d died, you hired a portrait artists to work for weeks recreating your face in agonizing detail. With the advent of video conferencing, however, the forward-facing camera went from technological oddity to vital necessity. It wouldn’t be long afterward that people rediscovered the art of self-portraiture with a more immediate result. When Instagram launched, it enabled everyone on the planet to instantly show the world how good their ass looked. It was only natural, therefore, that someone would fuse the worlds of self-portraiture and personal grooming to form the Selfie Brush.
Hardware
This is actually the second generation of JD Beauty Group’s styling device-cum-smartphone case, which has been widened to accommodate both the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S4. Unfortunately, a compromise had to be made with these larger devices, so the strip of reflective plastic that was found on the iPhone 5/S version has been abandoned. Thankfully, the shift has enabled the price to come down a little, and the Selfie Brush can now be picked up for as little as $14.99 online.
Set the hardware down on a table and you’ll see a rigid silicone paddle brush that falls down to a fancy handle with a hole in the middle for attaching a strap. Looking at the top end, you’ll see a wide slot that’s around 2.65-inches wide, where you’ll slot in your smartphone. There are also access holes cut into both sides of the body for access to your device’s volume and display / power buttons.
Unfortunately, there is one build-quality issue that is readily apparent from our photographs. The bright pink outer coating is, unfortunately, susceptible to dye-run, which meant that when we dropped the brush into a cheap black tote bag, it came out with a significantly tarnished look. Otherwise, however, we had no problems with the otherwise solid hardware.
In use: as a brush
Each one of the 144 bristles (our review unit is missing one) is tipped with a soft pink dome, and using it to de-tangle my hair is easy and relaxing. In fact, an unstated feature of the Selfie Brush is that it’s almost as good as a stress relieving device as it is to rectify hair-based disasters. Unfortunately, it’s better designed for long hair, and what you gain in “broad brush” straightening you lose in the sort of pin point accuracy you normally find in a comb. Another unstated feature is that the solid construction would enable the brush to pull double duty as a spanking device for an impromptu BDSM party. We assume.
In use: as a smartphone case
The first thing that you’ll instantly notice when sliding your iPhone into the Selfie Brush is that the bristles instantly obscure the primary camera. It’s a high price to pay for this combination of style and self portraiture, and each prospective buyer will have to weigh this compromise up for themselves. That said, since it’s called the Selfie Brush, it does force you to insert yourself into every image you take: which, you have to agree, is kinda the point. Oh, one other issue is that there is a warning on the underside of the case informing you that you should remove your smartphone before brushing wet hair. Which does undermine the point of using it somewhat.
If you use a purse or bag to transport your smartphone from place to place, then you’ll not have any issue with using this as a case. If you, like me, normally keep your smartphone in your pocket, then you will notice a small drop in portability and, without wanting to resort to hyperbole, is a tad uncomfortable.
Performance and battery life
The Selfie Brush is a solid object, which means that it has an infinite battery life, vulnerable only to time’s endless march.
The competition
There are no other products like this on the market, in fact, I’m not sure about anything any more. Will you be my friend? I’m in here on my own and it’s starting to get dark.
Wrap-up
To be a little personal for a moment, I do find the excessive gendering of the Selfie Stick to be something of a concern. After all, in the same way that the technology industry should be looking to eradicate booth babes, it should also stop assuming that women like devices that are pink. As for if you should make a splash and buy a Selfie Brush, it all comes down to personal preference. After all, if you struggle with your hair and also own a smartphone, this seems like a slam dunk. Still, for $14.99, it’s not as if you’ll break the bank trying one out.
Photography by Nicole Lee.
Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Apple
Source: Selfie Brush
Ringtones for BlackBerry 10 – It might not sound exciting, but you may well be surprised
In this day and age getting hold of the ringtones you want is normally nothing more than a Google search away, so bare with me with this one, as it’s actually pretty sweet.
Miniclip’s Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Rush is the latest endless runner for Windows Phone
The list of endless running games on Windows Phone is continually growing, with the latest additon being Miniclip’s Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Rush. The game is set in the Strawberry Shortcake universe, and features a similar set of controls as other games in the genre, which involves collecting fruit and coins that are then used in a cake-decorating mini game, all while dodging obstacles.
NSFW: The enduring impact of the iPhone, eight years later
NSFW is a weekly op-ed column in which I talk about whatever’s on my mind. Sometimes it’ll have something to do with the technology we cover here on iMore; sometimes it’ll be whatever pops into my head. Your questions, comments and observations are welcome.
Time flies. This past week (Friday, more specifically) marked the eighth anniversary of the iPhone, which Steve Jobs unveiled during a Macworld Expo keynote in San Francisco. It’s hard to imagine a time before the iPhone and iOS, but it really wasn’t that long ago.
I wasn’t there to see it firsthand, but I did play a part in Macworld’s coverage of the event, as Jason Snell graciously reminded me in a recent post on his blog, Six Colors. He and I tag-teamed the keynote coverage, because it was the only way we could coordinate liveblogging at the time.
Things have come a long way in eight years, it seems. It’s become easier to liveblog events like the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus introduction, at the very least.
Apple wasn’t first to market with a smartphone (I was a quite happy BlackBerry user at the time); it wasn’t first to market with a touch screen phone, but Apple did bring those things together in a unique and compelling way unlike anything we’d seen before, and changed the way smartphones worked forever.
Don’t believe me? Check out the Android prototypes that were in people’s hands before the iPhone was introduced — much more like my then-beloved BlackBerry.
This isn’t about how much Android aped iOS early on; it’s ancient history, and Android has gone from me-too to cutting edge, giving the iPhone a run for its money.
I don’t think many of us there at the start knew exactly what sort of impact the iPhone was going to have on Apple’s business. Some of us knew that Apple would have a hit, surely. But the iPhone eclipsed the Macintosh to become Apple’s biggest money maker, quicker than any of us would have imagined. And it paved the way for the success of the iPad three years later.
While it looked for a while like Apple’s efforts with the iPhone and iOS might just eclipse the Mac all together, 2014 showed us a very different future: Apple’s trying to achieve a careful balance between the two systems with efforts like Handoff and Continuity. We’re experiencing some growing pains, to be sure, but the path forward is pretty clear — the two operating systems and the devices that run them can coexist, and together they offer functionality that exceeds what either of them can do individually.
Eight years ago, Apple’s star was on the rise: it was selling more Macs than it had in years, and it seemed like everyone either already had or wanted an iPod. The iPod was enormously popular and had certainly changed the way many of us listened to music.
The iPod and the iTunes Store had proven to be a very disruptive combination to the music industry, and even more so to other companies trying to sell digital music and digital music players.
The iPod is no longer the marquee product it used to be — its functionality has been included in the iPhone, making a wholly separate iPod a niche product. Even the iTunes Store has lost steam as consumers’ tastes continue to move to streaming music services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple’s own Beats Music.
2015 promises to be an interesting year — we’re going to see the Apple Watch finally see the light of day. Wearables have been strictly a niche product up to now, but I wouldn’t bet against Apple to transform that business the same way they did smartphones.
This year at the Consumer Electronics Show, Apple itself was nowhere in sight — just like every other CES since the early 90s, Apple didn’t exhibit. But its presence was felt almost everywhere, from the myriad devices designed to work as part of the iOS ecosystem, including many new products designed to tap into Apple’s HomeKit API, to devices and companies that are clearly influenced by what Apple’s doing.
Apple casts a long shadow in consumer electronics these days, largely on the strength of the iPhone and the iPad. But if past is prologue, things can change — and can change rapidly. It’ll be interesting to see how this year’s crop of new Apple products are received, and to see what sort of impact they have on the industry in general.
Just say no to 16 gigabytes of storage in 2015
Just like 8GB two years ago, it’s time to do away with the 16GB standard
The Christmas holiday meant taking a lot of photos from several different devices for me. My youngest daughter ran around all day with my HTC RE Camera, and between grabbing 4K video on my 2014 Moto X and importing photos from the RE and the Olympus Image Share app connected to the Pen E-P5 my phone got quite the workout. By the end of the day we had managed to consume nearly 10GB of the 26GB that Motorola allows me access to on this 32GB phone. I recognized that I had done this to myself, and after dumping everything to my Desktop it became even less of a problem for me, but I couldn’t help but wonder how little I’d have been able to do if I had opted for the 16GB version of this phone.
The state of smartwatches in 2015: perception vs. reality, and the Apple Watch
CES 2015 has come and gone, and for another show, there was a huge emphasis on the wrist worn wearable, something which we’ve come to colloquially refer to as the “smartwatch“. So what exactly is the state of smartwatches in 2015? Are we at the point where it’s a mainstream consumable and people know what they […]
The post The state of smartwatches in 2015: perception vs. reality, and the Apple Watch appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
LOD Tactics, a space combat game for Windows and Windows Phone
LOD Tactics is a combat game that is available for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone that focuses more on team strategy than run and gun tactics. LOD Tactics (short for Line Of Defense Tactics) has you commanding a team of four Galactic Command marines as they battle their way through various missions.
Available for low-memory Windows Phones, the game has sixteen missions (first three are free), which are based on the Line of Defense comics. Your four-man team can be trained to improve their skills, upgrade and improve their weapons and give their stats a boost as missions are completed.
LOD Tactics has a bit of a Halo Spartan feel to it and while it’s not a difficult game to pick up, you may need a little time to get used to the gaming controls. LOD Tactics has seen a decent amount of success over on iOS and Android platforms, as well as being a popular online MMO game. After tackling a few missions, the gaming title should do well in the Windows environment.
The Stilgut Leather Flip Case is an elegant way to carry your BlackBerry Passport
I’m quite partial to leather flip cases on my BlackBerry 10 smartphones, ever since I got a red one for the BlackBerry Z10. Back in November 2014, I reviewed the OEM leather flip case for the BlackBerry Passport and while it was pretty good quality and well made, there were more negatives for me and so I looked around for an alternative leather flip case. Many had suggested the Stilgut Leather flip case, so I decided to give it a try.
Young adults flock to Instagram, while more seniors sign up on Facebook
When we wrote about that survey, which found that working adults care more about email than social media, we said that might be why grandparents are some of the most active on Facebook. Well, according to this new study that’s also from Pew Research center, we got it right: more than half (56 percent, to be exact) of internet users aged 65 and above have signed up on the social network. What’s even more impressive is that percentage apparently comprises 31 percent of all seniors in the US. If you’re looking to get in touch with your selfie-loving teenage cousin, though, you may want to hit up Instagram instead. 53 percent of young adults between the ages 18 and 29 prefer the photo-sharing social network, which probably explains all those cringe-inducing reactions to Instagram’s recent spam account crackdown.
Other than that, the study also found that Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and even LinkedIn saw a huge increase in users over the past year. Facebook still remains the most popular, though, it’s just that more adults now maintain several social media accounts. You can read the study’s full results, which were based on the activities of American adults (81 percent of the total) that use the internet, on the research center’s website.
[Image credit: Shutterstock / Lisa F. Young]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Pew Research
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