By Michael, on July 15th, 2012 
These days cell phone applications, or “apps” as the youngsters call them, are all the rage. Everyday, dozens if not hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of new cell phone applications hit the market. A simple search on a cell phone will reveal an application for everything. There is an app for finding the nearest pinball machine wherever you are, there is an app for checking out the latest prices on the stock market, there is an app that can tell you when and where the bus that you are waiting for is, and there is even an app that allows you to use your credit card without actually having it on your person or in your wallet. That’s right! the future of transactions in the United States of America (and someday, the rest of the world) will be entirely digital and automatic. With a few buttons on a cell phone, a person can charge whatever they want to their bank account, from wherever they want.
The end idea is for the cell phone to eventually replace a credit or debit card altogether, and the prospect is a good idea in some instances, and a bad- possibly even dangerous- idea in other instances. In the end, it all depends on how the future pans out. In 2010, two of the United States’ largest cell phone companies decided to start marketing the credit card apps on their phones. The two cell phone companies were AT&T and Verizon. Both companies, as well as many other who have jumped on the bandwagon since then, have more or less specifically stated that they wish to replace credit cards entirely, which most credit card companies may not be too thrilled about, although they will still be the only game in town as AT&T and Verizon do not run their own credit institutions, but maybe that is another plan for another time and they are just biding their time until then.
Either way, the safety precautions associated with these credit card apps is obviously alarming. It seems pretty commonplace for people to lose their phones, and it seems pretty easy for a person to just pick it up and go on a shopping spree. It seems much easier to do than it would be with a credit card. With a credit card, you at least need a pin or something. The advances made in cell phone hacking also raise some serious alarms about the safety of using a credit card via a smartphone, because it seems as if hackers are two steps ahead of the cell phone security game, and the cell phone companies are just playing catch up.
So, what needs to be done is that cell phones essentially need to become as secure as the very software that handles credit cards and other financial transactions. In the future, smartphone users will have to adopt many of the safety measures and practices that up to this point have only been used by corporate offices and institutions. There will be a wipeout setting, which will allow a user to remotely erase their phone’s entire memory in case they lose it. The technology is already in the works, and is even up and running for some people- although there are undoubtedly some bugs that need to be worked out. Blackberry, Apple iPhones and many Android devices already have some kind of wipeout technology in use, and they also have apps that allow a phone to be tracked when stolen. Thus it at least becomes easier to track a person down, if they did steal your phone.
But, the biggest problem remains with malicious software and hackers. This has been the smartphone’s foe since it was invented. In some cases, the smartphone is just too easy to hack. This can be seen through the celebrity scandals involving their phones being hacked as well as other cases. In the end, the smartphone is safe, but not safe enough to totally replace a credit card altogether. The technology seems to need another year or two to work itself out. Until then, stay safe!
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This article was written by Karl Stockton for the team at PC Wholesale. Contact them to view the Largest Transceiver Inventory.
