Lightning payments

The Tampa Bay Lightning, a National Hockey League (NHL) team has put an radio frequency chip in replica hockey jerseys, courtesy of NCR Innovation. These jerseys are given to season ticket holders, complete with customized name and number. The RF chip gives instant discounts and fulfills purchases within the stadium, so jersey wearers do not need to bring cash.

Season ticket sales have close to doubled since launch of the jersey.

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Your very own private monitor

This is COOL. Mod your old LCD monitor so only you can see the screen, you have to wear modified glasses though. Really works… the technology and science checks out.

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Oh come on!!!

When I saw this full page ad by Patagonia in the New York Times, of all places, I couldn’t stop laughing. Guess the message was – don’t buy quantity, buy quality, save earthly resources, yadah, yadah, yadah…

Get off that moral high horse Patagonia! Try saying this – ‘we are trying not to sell you an over-priced jacket, but someone’s gotta pay for the ad.’

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has come and gone, high costs of setting up point of sale hardware and the RFID chip has ensured its inevitable burial, R.I.P.

QR (Quick Response) codes have been around since 2000, seen good action in Japan but has yet to show its mettle globally. Major downside on the need to download and install a QR reader for mobile devices AND it is singular action only i.e. scanning it with the QR reader only takes the user to a webpage on their phones. Although you see them everywhere, I just don’t see how QR codes can sustain interest from marketers.

Augmented Reality has technically been in existence before the QR code, undergoing various definitions and applications for military training and theater, until HITLab released the AR ToolKit in 1999 – the format we are familiar with today – via personal computers and mobile phones.  Current AR usage enhances the shopping experience than to enable it. However this could quickly change as data processing on mobile devices speed up. We (at Fuel) are AR fanatics and forever pushing the limits of it and who knows, we may just crack a really neat way to do more, much more.

NFC (Near Field Communications) feels like its the next big thing… but so did RFID. NFC does have one up on RFID – low cost of implementation. And when NFC comes ready loaded on all new smart phones, it will be a landslide.

More apps using NFC please! We are working on it too.

1. Experts

2. Celebrities

3. Other users

4. Crowd

5. Friends

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Since today is Kelvin and my collective birthdays (yes we are born on the same date). I felt compelled to do a mega update, sort of making up for lost blog time.

Mobile Flash no more

Adobe kills Mobile Flash with a swift hand, and for the better. Now we do not have to contend with 2 development platforms. But is HTML5 ready for the big time? Google’s Swiffy extension will make conversion easier. However tests will tell.

And for the record, Apple didn’t win, Flash is rubbish for mobile.