In what at first glance seems like a step backward in the mobile payment space, Google Wallet is close to launching a physical plastic card. So much for all the oracles predicting the imminent fall of cash and plastic.
Read the tech news these days, and you could be forgiven for thinking that folding cash and credit cards will soon be extinct, replaced by digital wallets in our smartphones. But the reality hasn't lived up to the hype, and a growing chorus of experts say it probably never will.
Apple's iPhone 5 added many new features, but one highly-anticipated improvement was left out: the near-field communications chip that would allow you to make purchases with a wave of the smartphone, using your built-in mobile wallet.
It has been 63 years since Frank McNamara invented the credit card, and those little pieces of plastic are everywhere. But now, a groundbreaking new technology could upend the industry he created.
Many major companies are hoping that consumers will use their smartphones as a credit or debit card, and Google may be preparing to join in with its Android phones. But is the trend, which has grown popular in Japan, finally ready to take off in the U.S.?