Headline Jan 14, 2015/

''' BYE- BYE CASH : 

WHY HELLO DEBT '''

''INCREASINGLY, it will be hard to get a lot of experience on offer with just cash.'' paints Osama Bedier, VP, Google. 

Walk into a store,  -submit your shopping list, and a map directs you to the peanut-butter-brittle  ice cream you crave.

When you get to the front of the line, just bump your phone on the reader and you also get a discount via an e-coupon you've down loaded. 

Or scan pictures of the lasagna, salad and French bread. you want for dinner from a Safeway ad as you wait for the train and pick up the bag on your way home.

In the days ahead, the surging popularity of the  mobile wallet     -a smartphone that also acts as a credit card, checkbook and shop bot  -will radically shift shopping habits.

It's the biggest thing in retail since the credit card got us talking about a cashless economy. 

The driving force is communication: cash can't communicate, but phones can. Your alarm clock, radio, camera, landline and GPS, even your Laptop, have already been displaced by your phone.

Why not the $69 and four credit cards the average American carries?

''Everything eventually migrates to the cell phone,'' says Scott Ellison, an analyst with IDC who tracks the mobile industry.

''And when it moves, people tend to do a lot more of it.''

Tammy Lam, 28, a p.r. executive in San Francisco, uses her T-Mobile HTC myTouch phone to pay for just about everything.

''I ordered my dinner from my local Thai on GrubHub while sitting on the bus on the home from work last night. I bought all my presents on my phone.

When friends and I are out, we use  Groupon  to buy a meal.'' says Lam, who uses her phone instead of her computer for shopping even when she's at home. And she prefers it to her cards or bills when she's out.

''I hate cash,'' says Lam.

Lam is an early adopter, but there are enough people like her to set off a mobile-wallet war that escalated in  2012,   -converting billions of dollars'  worth of transactions to cashless in the  $ 4 trillion plus retail economy.  

Google, the company that changed online search, in 2012, launched Google Wallet in partnership with Citibank, MasterCard and Sprint's  Nexus  S   4G phone.

PayPal, the company that solved  secure online payment, announced  20 partnerships that year designed to allow you to order ahead,  self check-out in stores and simply use your phone number and PIN to pay for purchases.

Isis   -A Verizon,  AT&T  and  T-Mobile wallet with  Visa, AmEx, Discover and MasterCard  partnerships  -launched midyear in Salt Lake City and Austin. Visa's own virtual wallet,  V.Me,  is also on check.

'' Anything with an  on  switch could be a payment device,''  says Anuj Nayar, PayPal's communication director.

And of course, everyone anticipates major moves by Apple, whose stores are already processing sales through  iPhones. Apple went on to announce a wallet that year, as predicted by Mark Beccue, a mobile analyst with ABI research.

''They have such a loyal following, and they're vertically integrated   -they'll help move thing forward.''

MOBILE WALLETS work in different ways. Google and Isis rely on NFC, or near-field communication. Basically, this means the phone and the sales terminal talks to each other.

The Subway sandwich chain is installing NFC in about  7,400  of its  25,000 locations; 219 Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores have it up and running; Jamba Juice, OfficeMax, Coke vending machines, even:

New Jersey Transit trains are set up to take payments with a tap of your phone.

Some of the more fantastic aspects of these schemes   -like tapping a sign at Home Depot that automatically calls a service rep   -requires stores to be fitted with NFC equipment throughout, something that hasn't quiet happened yet. But the pattern is set    

''Consumers expect to use one click to buy just about anything,'' says Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google.

''There are no checkout lines online''

The Honour and Serving of the  operational research  continues. Thank you for reading and see ya all on the following one.

With respectful dedication to all the Credit Card companies in the world. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Global Integration '''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless