Tag: samsung

Samsung tests Samsung Pay in South Korea

Samsung begun testing its new mobile payments platform in South Korea. Called Samsung Pay, the platform aims to become one of the most effective ways for consumers to make mobile payments, competing with other services from companies like Apple and Google. The platform has already generate some degree of hype, and Samsung has tentative plans to release it at some point later in the year, but has yet to announce an official launch date.

Samsung Pay to use magnetic secure transmission to make mobile payments accessible

Samsung Pay works in a similar fashion to other mobile payments platforms, leveraging NFC technology and biometrics in order to authenticate a mobile transaction. The biometrics that the platform uses, which is a fingerprint scanner, will make transactions secure, effectively protection consumer financial information as they use Samsung Pay to purchase products. The platform also makes use of magnetic secure transmission, which is a similar to the magnetic strips that are associated with traditional credit cards.

NFC technology has yet to see widespread adoption among retailers

NFC technology is one of the staples of mobile payments, but relatively few retailers have yet to embrace the technology. There are few NFC-enabled point-of-sale systems, which has limited the growth of mobile payments in physical stores. This is why Samsung Pay’s magnetic secure transmission may be a boon, as it will allow the platform to work with conventional point-of-sale systems in order to make mobile payments possible.

Competition in the mobile payments field continues to grow as companies enter into the space

Samsung will be facing harsh competition in the mobile payments space, much of which will come from Apple. Google also plans to launch its own mobile payments platform. This competition will give consumers plenty of options when it comes to mobile payments, but companies may find it difficult to keep the attention of consumers for long. Many consumers have yet to show loyalty to a singular platform, favoring the ability to jump from one platform to another in order to find the most benefit.

Wearables battle to become appealing to users as paten publication grows at a striking rate.

Despite the fact that the majority of consumers still aren’t buying wearable technology, the overall patent publications associated with those devices has been rising at a rate of about 40 percent per year since 2010.

From 2010 through until the end of May of this year, there have been 41,301 patents published.

It looks as though the tech behind wearable technology is being firmly locked into place, but the one primary question is what it will take to make consumers actually open up their wallets and buy these devices. Moreover, once they have them, will they actually like the experience or will it end up being a flash in the pan fad that goes out about as quickly as it came in?

Wearable technology takes in a massive group of gadgets, form smartwatches to augmented reality glasses.

There are fitness trackers, watches, glasses, goggles, and even diapers that all fall within the wearables category and that are already on the shelves and waiting for consumers to purchase them. However, analysts insist that it remains far too early to be able to decide which among this type of gadget will manage to sway consumers to actually buy, and how they will transform this sector of the market.

As a whole, the patent publication of wearables that are integrated into all forms of accessories and clothing that can be worn, has been rising by an annual 40 percent over the last five years. That statistic was released by Lux Research, a firm based in Boston.

At the head of the patent filing game was Samsung Electronics. In second place was Qualcomm, followed by Apple Inc. in third. According to market analysts, Samsung is making a concerted effort to lead the way in a wearable tech market that will have far greater consumer appeal over coming years.

Tony Sun, a research analyst at Lux, explained the current wearable technology situation by saying that “First, moving into wearable electronics agrees with the general interest of using electronic devices to better understand oneself in a quantitative way.” He went on to point out that “Second, Samsung is a major consumer electronic device and component developer. Wearable devices, like smartwatches, are a natural fit for Samsung’s existing manufacturing capability, technology portfolio as well as customer base.”