AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Apple will replace your damaged iOS device if it was destroyed by a spaceship...with this kind of publicity, it is no wonder that Apple has some of the most loyal and fanatic customer base? Source:  Cult of Mac .

Every few weeks, you hear about this or that retailer getting hacked and millions of credit cards are stolen.  Okay, when that happens, we talk to our bank and change the numbers on the credit card or, worse, have charges reversed if we happen to be unlucky enough to have been a victim of credit card fraud.  With the consumer-unfriendly CurrentC being developed by good folks at Walmart, Target, CVS, and a few others and slated for 2015, there is one question that has been bugging me beyond these retailers asking for very personal questions like social security numbers and sharing with each other our buying habits that has not been asked. What happens when, not if, one or more of these retailers and "third parties" they will inevitably blame when the CurrentC system is hacked to our bank accounts?  Do we need new bank account numbers?  Change banks?  And will will put the stolen money back in when they're emptied by these hackers?  Does anyone know? 

MCX, the retailer group that wants everything but your first-born from you, that is offering their own mobile payment system as an alternative to other forms of payment systems like NFC, is still months if not a whole year away from offering the dubious service.  The system, CurrenyC, is still in beta.  Neverthless, it's never too early to get hacked right? That's exactly what happened when it informed beta testers and folks interested in the system that there was unauthorized access to their e-mails.  (Source:  Macrumors ) Given the bad press that CurrencyC is getting, I'm going to go ahead and make this prediction:  we're going to see some defections just ahead of the Christmas shopping season starts.

With all the back and forth over NFC payment (I know there is a lot of attention on Apple Pay but it is more than that - it's NFC implementations like Google Wallet), here is how a retailer can do well this Christmas shopping season.  Open up a couple of checkouts just for shoppers who want to pay with the NFC-enabled mobile devices. That's right.  It's that simple.  While many in the Apple camp like to boast about how wealthy the iPhone demographic is, Android users savvy enough to use Google Wallet probably are not doing too badly themselves.  In general, those who are likely to take up new tech features probably are smart and wealthier.  If I'm right, this is how retailers not beholden to the Merchant Customer Exchange that forbid its members from offering NFC payment options to potential customers can race ahead of the competition.  Already, Android and iPhone fans are calling for an united front to boycott CVS and Rite Aid and there are dozens more com...

Source:  Bloomberg . The Bloomberg post does shed some light on the failed venture between Apple and bankrupted GT Advanced.  While all such deals carry risks, the amount of risk GTA took on was more than it bargained for.  I believe the part that in the post where Apple told GTA that it required the same terms from other supplies.  GTA simply was not the right company or had the right people to follow through. It does sound like I'm placing the bulk of the blame on GTA but I think it's Apple that picked the wrong partner for sapphire covers that was obviously meant for the iPhones.  Had this deal worked out, it would have been a selling point for Apple that would further set the iPhone apart from competing devices.  Having said that, there are few companies out there that can take on this kind of risk and Apple is obviously one of them.