Author: Julie Campbell

The last few weeks are proving to be a defining period for this type of transaction.

Over the last few weeks, the combination of the groundbreaking mobile payments announcements made from Money2020 in Las Vegas and from the GSMA’s NFC & Mobile Money Summit in New York have allowed a much clearer vision of the future of this technology to be formed.

The leaders of the industry giants are now revealing the next steps that their companies will take.

This has given the world the opportunity to see a much clearer vision of the future of mobile payments technology, with increasingly pervasive tech as well as a considerable cooperation from the industry. As was pointed out by the co-founder and CEO of Ensygnia (a visual pay technology), Richard H Harris, m-commerce venders and retailers alike will now be working to give consumers a better shopping experience overall.

This includes the development of mobile payments for everything from smartphones to wearable gadgets.

It also involves the creation of new ways for people to order their products and services and to employ mobile payments through the establishment of identity and by “tokenizing the things we use for identity,” said Harris.

The Visa global head of digital for developed markets, Sam Shrauger, explained that he sees the tech within the retail environment becoming more omnipresent. He stated that by being able to work together, it will become possible to establish a “strong ecosystem” that will be both secure and safe because it gives consumers the opportunity to – for instance – walk into a restaurant and have their meal already prepared and sitting on the table for them. He explained that mobile payments and commerce are “all about taking friction out of every aspect of the shopping, buying, paying, post-transaction experience.”

The Groupon owned Breadcrumb restaurant point of sale system founder, Seth Harris, agreed with Shrauger’s statement that cooperation of this nature will broaden, as companies are well aware of how difficult it is to progress in this way when they are attempting to do so on their own. “I think we’re going to see a lot more cooperation among a lot of the big companies than people really realise. It’s only through us all working together that I think we’re going to get there fast.”

PayPal’s vice president of global solutions management, Carey Kolaja, pointed out that there has already been notable progress in mobile payments and loyalty systems over the last year and a half; that more distance has been travelled in that time than it has in the last decade.

The team has brought the effort to Kickstarter to build the funding that they need to move forward.

Two former employees from Valve are now working together on the development of their own pair of augmented reality glasses, in an effort that has brought them to Kickstarter in order to raise the necessary funds.

The two have come up with the wearable product that they have called CastAR glasses.

They use augmented reality to enhance the vision experience by projecting onto a surface made out of highly reflective material. What this produces is the appearance of what looks to be three dimensional objects directly within the real world view. The name of the new company is Technical Illusions.

The two are seeking $400,000 for the finishing step in development of their augmented reality glasses.

At the time that this article was written, the company had already managed to bring in over $300,000 toward their goal, with a full 30 days left to go. The augmented reality glasses have already managed to attract a certain amount of attention and hype, simply because of the developers, Rick Johnson and Jeri Ellsworth, who were both fired from Valve (which is a rare form of action from the massive game studio).

These augmented reality glasses give the wearer the opportunity to move about a space, such as the room of a workplace or a house, while still keeping up the 3D effects that are displayed for them to see. They are also capable of multiple person support as long as all of the individuals are all looking at the same reflective surface. Through an attachable gadget, the glasses can also be used for boosting the field of vision of the wearer, even when they are not looking at the reflective surface. Another mode provides the wearer with complete field of vision coverage for an experience more comparable to virtual reality.

That said, CastAR is being marketed by Technical Illusions mainly for the projected augmented reality, despite the fact that there are a number of other modes possible through their use. The price tag on the basic headset is $189 along with one reflective board, which is necessary for their use.