The cellphone has been more than a cellphone for years, but soon it could take on an entirely new role — standing in for all of the credit and debit cards crammed into wallets.

Instead of swiping a plastic card at the checkout counter, consumers would merely wave their phones. Read more

Article 2: Can the mobile phone beat the hype?

Depending on your level of involvement in the digital industry, you might not have heard of near field communication (NFC) or you’ve heard so much of it you’re starting to wonder if it’s all hype.

NFC relies on an underlying technology that wirelessly identifies objects from a short distance through tags that are inserted into pretty much anything. The benefit of NFC over something you’re probably more familiar with like RFID, which is used in key fobs and current forms of electronic payment like PayPass, is that it can send and receive information two ways, where RFID is limited to sending information just one way. Read more