Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

Online banking

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For years (I’m embarrassed to admit how many) I’ve kept a wad of cash in a money market account at my local bank. For a long time I thought of this as my “savings” account, as opposed to my day-to-day checking account where I kept a few thousand bucks.

In the last couple of years I’ve moved most of those funds to my investment portfolio but kept some (too much) in the money market account. Last week I got curious about exactly how much the money market was earning. A whopping .15%. The lady at the bank apologized when she told me.

When I asked my financial advisor for ideas he recommended a savings account with an online bank. He pointed out that the good ones are FDIC insured, just like my local bank and because they aren’t supporting all that brick-and-mortar infrastructure, they can afford to pay better interest rates. I went with Ally where I’ll get .90%.

My initial experiences have all been positive. Security seems very tight. I can talk/chat with someone 24/7. And their iOS app is very good. By that I mean, simple.

Once it sunk in that my money is not really in the vault of the bank across the street, I got comfortable with the idea of an online bank. I’ll keep a checking account with my local bank but as tools like Apple Pay gain wider acceptance, that might not always be the case.

Apple Pay

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George Kopp and I went to Panera today for lunch and to try out Apple Pay. [The video is vertical because George thought it might get more of the transaction] This took a few extra seconds because I forgot to put my thumb on the Touch ID button. Had I done so it would have automatically used the first credit card in my Passbook app. As it was, I had to tap on my VISA card and then do Touch ID. I’m just not sure how paying for something is going to get easier/faster than this.

UPDATE: I stopped by Walgreen’s for a flu shot and on the way out picked up a bag of cookies to see if I could pay with Apple Pay. And, because nutrition is important to me, I swung by McDonald’s and got some fries. What I found most interesting is at both places, the person behind the counter had obviously never heard of Apple Pay. But when I passed my phone over the scanner, the registers made a happy beep and the transaction just happened. All the counter people did was enter the amount.

I see two possible futures for Apple Pay. (And I think we’ll know in six months) It will either be an unqualified success or it will go the way of the Amazon Phone, Microsoft’s Zune or Google’s Wallet. If it flops it will be because there was insufficient demand; retailers decided they didn’t want it (for reasons good and bad) and refused to make it an option; or some other combination of factors I’m not smart enough to see.

But it won’t be because people started getting their thumbs hacked off to fool TouchID or any other Mission Impossible bullshit.

Your grandpa’s bank

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oldbankI’ve enjoyed my VISA Amazon rewards card (from Chase) and I’ve used the points to make purchases. But rewards cards (at least this one) is not part of the Apple Pay system. No problem. Took about 5 minutes to get approved for a card that will work with Apple Pay. Haven’t decided on whether to keep the Amazon card.

My “back-up” card is a MasterCard issued by my local bank. So I stopped by to ask if they had any information on when/if they would support Apple Pay. The first guy I spoke with had never heard of Apple Pay.

“Have you heard about Ebola?” I asked him. It was a joke!

While he was calling different departments to see if anyone knew about this new “Apple Pay thing,” the lady at the next desk gave me a little lecture on how their bank (Central Bank, Jefferson City, MO) didn’t jump on every new thing that came along.

“We were one of the last banks in this area to offer online banking,” she proudly announced. “We’re very conservative.”

“So, this is Your Grandpa’s Bank,” I teased.

Stony silence.

Like the music business and television and newspapers, the banking industry is due for some major disruption. I really don’t need them for much these days and have started looking for ways to use them less.

Coffee Zone Time Lapse Video

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An hour of video using the time-lapse feature on the iPhone 6 boils down to 30 seconds. A pretty cool effect. This is my local coffee shop (Coffee Zone) between 7-8 a.m. today. If you watch closely you might see someone’s breakfast get knocked over and cleaned up. That’s Jordan behind the counter. I’ll try to be a bit more creative with this in my next effort.

Scott Adams: The Age of Magic

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“Imagine walking to a crosswalk and doing the “halt” hand motion in the direction of traffic. Your ring and your watch can tell by their orientation to each other that you have formed that gesture and so they send a “pedestrian waiting” message to the street light. The lights change for you and you cross. It will feel like magic. Or point at something in a vending machine and your watch and ring can detect which item you selected, charge your credit card, and send a code to release the item. To an observer it will seem that you pointed at an item and magic released it.”

CreepShield.com

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The tagline for this site is Sex Offender Facial Recognition and it works like this. If you meet someone on a dating site or Facebook you can check their photo agains those in the site’s database of registered sex offenders. I wasn’t impressed with the results of my search.  Several of the dozen or so ‘possibles’ were of a different ethnicity. You can try it out at http://www.creepshield.com/

CreepShield

What does that ‘Check Engine Light’ mean?

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Last time I called my MINI service rep to ask about an engine light on my Cooper, he said there are more than 100 things that could cause the light. If I’d taken the time to dig out my manual, it would probably have listed all of those but I’m not sure how I would know which was the culprit.

The light came on last night so I opened my Automatic app, clicked on the alert icon and learned the problem was “incomplete combustion in cylinder 4.” It also gave me easy-to-follow instructions for clearing the light and nearby mechanics.

automatic

This feature alone is worth the price of Automatic ($99). But the device/app has made me a better driver. Fewer jack-rabbit starts; less hard breaking; and I’m keeping my highway speed at 70mph.

Location-aware Wi-Fi lets fans be part of show

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Company I used to work for is big in collegiate sports marketing so this story probably more interesting to me than many of you. But this tech will almost certainly show up in lots of places. A few excerpts from full post:

The system, developed by UK start-up Mobbra, will let organisers *send football replays, backstage interviews with pop stars, or area-specific food deals direct to fans’ phones*. It will also encourage the audience to become part of the show.

With Mobbra’s system, dubbed Massivity, organisers can *take control of fans’ phones to create spectacular effects*. For instance, the camera flashlight on each phone could be activated remotely, turning the crowd into a glittering star field. Or a team’s colours could sweep around the phone and tablet screens in the venue like a Mexican wave.

These kinds of applications are possible because Mobbra has found a way to deliver Wi-Fi to every user in a large crowd. A typical wireless access point can supply just 50 connections – so unless a venue can afford to run an access point for every 50 or so people, Wi-Fi is not guaranteed. Even then, simple radio interference can destroy any chance of stadium-wide access.

The phone side of the equation is choreographed by an app called Fangage, which tweaks the phone’s Wi-Fi settings. It will launch on the Apple and Android app stores later this month. *During a game, all phones could vibrate to tell the crowd of a betting opportunity, or a special food and drink offer*, says Walton. “You can have four streams of video, which could be replays or goals from other matches that are on at the same time. At gigs you’ll get behind-the-scenes news and backstage interviews with the stars.”