Tech of the Week | Tap-To-Pay Smartphones

Despite credit card companies' inability to popularize 'tap-to-pay' technology built into credit cards, Caribou Honig wrote an article for Forbes predicting that smartphones have an opportunity to employ tap-to-pay technologies and do it successfully.

"Apple will include Near Field Communication (NFC) in the next iPhone, embed a digital wallet as part of iOS, and enable Tap to Pay. 3rd party developers will create innovative, value-added “spokes“ to plug into the mobile wallet “hub.” This will be the watershed event that prompts merchants, motivated by a mix of fear and greed, to upgrade their point-of-sale terminals to support NFC, and as a consequence even competing mobile wallet platforms will benefit," Honig predicts. 

What this could mean for consumer purchases, expense tracking, money transfers, account management, and guided purchase decisions is not to be taken lightly. Not to mention the waterfall of data security concerns that will be on every users' minds. But if the value propisition is done right, in ten years, your smartphone will be that much more useful, but that much more terrifying to lose. 

Click here to read more about Tap-to-Pay technology in smartphones

Risk Technology of the Week | SmartCompliance | Apple's New iPad

Apple's done it again: Left us to contemplate why we can't just turn in our old versions for the latest one when it comes out...

As tablet technology is relevant to all industries, especially risk and insurance, we thought this week we'd sum up how the new iPad aims to set the standard in tablet technology yet again:

• A screen with 2048 x 1536 pixels - more than your smartphone, more than your HD TV, in fact, there are so many pixels in the new iPad that they are choosing to call it a "Retina Display" as opposed to merely a 'screen'
• To power such a retinal display of awesomeness, a A5x quad core graphic processor
• 4G LTE antennae for AT&T or Verizon service
• 10 hour battery life for WiFi, 9 hour life for 4G
• 1080p video recording
• Voice operation/dictation capabilties with enhanced microphone
• iPhoto for iPad

Unfortunately no variation in colors from black and white yet...

Click here to read more about the new iPad from one of PopSci's wittiest 

Tech of the Week | SmartCompliance | Asus Padfone

Finally. A laptop/tablet/phone in one. We all knew it was coming eventually, whether in Transformer form or something less dramatic. 

"The Padfone slides into an optional tablet accessory to become an Android tablet with a 10.1-inch display. Then, the tablet can connect to a keyboard dock to become a small Android laptop. It’s modularity to the extreme."

There's not much more to say except: Step up your game, Apple. 

Click here to learn more about the Asus Padfone technology

Tech of the Week | SmartCompliance | Instapaper

How often do you come across an article, web page or blog post, anxious to read on but knowing there are at least 10 other things you should do first? Enter Instapaper. A free service that allows you to bookmark anything and mark as "Read Later" - from your computer, smartphone, tablet, or even Kindle. 

Click here to learn more about Instapaper.

And click here for some other useful mobile apps, no matter your industry.