Hey everyone, I am currently recording from Burlington Vermont. I just finished my commute home from the office. I was listening to the radio and they were talking about the current Google homepage.
If you go to google.com you will notice that below the search bar there is a link to Google’s latest addition to the android market. That being a phone with capabilities of connecting you to your Google Wallet. The Google wallet being a virtual access point to you bank account, credit card, or Google gift card if you do not have the services they request. I thought this was a really cool idea. This gives people the ability to not carry any money, not carry their credit cards, just walk into any store, swipe your smartphone and pay for your goods.
I thought that was really awesome so I immediately went home to see if this would work in Burlington, VT. Burlington of course not being the biggest tech center, it is known for bicycles and organic food, I thought it was going to be very strange if this service was offered in the area… In fact it was actually accepted at a lot of gas stations in town. I then decided to look at my hometown, Albany New York….though that was little more tech savvy. And in fact it is, not only gas stations but also Rite Aid, CVS, and other convenience stores will accept the phone. I then looked into Rochester New York, home to RIT where we will all be this fall. In addition to the gas stations and the convenient stores I mentioned earlier, several retailers will also accept your phone – one being New York and Company, located in the Market Place Mall, which I found really surprising. If any girls are thinking about shopping in Rochester before you go back to school there will be no credit card required you can just use your smartphone and swipe away while you shop.

I did think this was a really cool idea and wanted to share it with everyone. To all those in GCCIS shout out to you. Anyone in a computer science major: I think this is really cool for your majors, for where your industry is heading. Hopefully one of you can figure out how to connect our student ID cards to our smartphones so next year we can just swipe our phones rather then those cards. That would be really cool, think about that, work on that before you get to campus. Thanks Guys!