Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge: Become a Museum of London expert

Today I visited the Museum of London as part of the Gemalto Contactless Challenge to complete the 'Become a Museum of London expert' challenge. Our task here is to use NFC to learn about the exhibits. Believe it or not, despite living in or around London for close to a decade, I have not once visited it, so for me this visit is more than just testing out the NFC tags dotted around the museum.

It is about learning more about the history of my home, this amazing city Londontown. Every significant event that ever transpired in London, from prehistoric times before Londinium was even founded by the Romans to the Blitz of World War II to last year's Occupy London movement, are recorded here. It was a fascinating visit.

Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge: Day One: Adjusting to life with contactless

Today is the first day of my Gemalto Contactless Challenge and I almost did not go contactless. It isn't so much as not wanting to go contactless, but being prevented to do so. Nevertheless, after a rocky start, I was soon swiping like a pro.

My typical day begins at St Albans. This is where I live. The main railway station is manned by First Capital Connect, also known as one of the worst railway network in Britain, but never mind that. Here, anyone who doesn't own a season ticket but wishes to go into London has to buy their tickets from either the few self service machines dotted around, which does not accept contactless payment yet. Mind you, with the daily peak time travelcard costing more than £20 so you wouldn't be able to pay using contactless anyway.

So I went to the counter and asked the gentleman behind if they accept contactless payment. Blank stares. Uhm, wireless payment, NFC etc.? What, he quipped? Finally, I whipped out the phone and waved it around the payment terminal (I will be doing this a lot this week). His facial expression changes from confusion to realisation - I guess he's probably seen one of those Galaxy S III ads - and with a firm 'No', that was that. 'Kay.

Sorry phone, no NFC here

Soko Coffee operates just outside platform four exit, which I use probably 99% of the time. It is an independent mobile coffee kiosk operated from a modified scooter fitted with an espresso machine. Oh, and they serve gorgeous coffee. Unfortunately they do not accept NFC payment. To be fair to Charlie (the owner), the amount of delays we experience at St Albans station meant that most of us who do bother to queue for Soko's amazing flat whites will have all the time in the world to fish for change.

Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge begins now

It's here! As part of the Gemalto Contactless Challenge, a Samsung Galaxy S III was delivered to me yesterday preloaded with a Barclaycard app, and some spare cash.

From today, for a week and a half, me and Ewan of Mobile Industry Review will be competing against each other in a series of challenges. These challenges includes going through a whole day entirely on contactless, taking the Thames Clipper, buying flowers for the other half using NFC and visiting the Museum of London. We will also have to do a single challenge issued by our readers, so if you feel like sending us on a crazy quest, don't feel shy and let Gemalto know.

So, is wireless payment technology ready to take off in London? I guess we will find out soon enough. In the meantime, I will be providing updates on this blog as well as tweeting our conquests using the #GemaltoNFC hashtag on twitter.

Shoot! Existential Photography

Shoot! Existential Photography is a special exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery in Soho, London. It examines a popular attraction that appeared at fairgrounds around Europe after the first World War where people would attempt to win a photograph of themselves by shooting the centre of a target with an air gun. A successful bullseye will trigger a camera nearby. It's the ultimate in self portrait photography.

The exhibition inspects the number of artists, photographers and general public who celebrates this unique game. On display are works by the Swiss artist Rudolf Steiner. Steiner would literally shoot a picture of himself, with the bullet hole being the aperture of a pinhole camera, in a series called 'Pictures of Me, Shooting Myself Into A Picture'.

In Defense of Instagram

St. Paul's from Bankside

This is a blog post I never thought I would ever write. Funny how a few months can make...

See, six months ago I was that guy on Twitter who did not get Instagram, even writing it off as a fad - a mistake that dear Mark Zuck would regret ever making. But after signing up a few months ago out of curiosity, it is now the second most used social network after Twitter. In fact, it will probably soon usurp Twitter as my favourite social network, what with Twitter clamping down on clients and other minor irritations. Proof, if you will, that one should never write things off completely or be closed minded.

Giant robots

It is actually not difficult to see how Instagram, once I had the guts to try it, easily won me over. Once I got over the initial urge to use the default and, more importantly, optional image filters, I've come to realised that if you approach Instagram as a social platform, it really isn't any different to Twitter. In fact Instagram is more or less Twitter for pictures. While Facebook and Twitter continues to grow bloated with features we never wanted, Instagram simply wins because of its ease of use and focus on visual communications.

Fcuk the Olympix

iZettle launches in the UK, hands-on

iZettle is an European startup specialising in providing small businesses an ability to use their smartphone as a conduit for allowing payments using a proprietary iZettle card reader. It's a concept aimed at providing small business and merchants the ability to charge customers without resorting to expensive solutions. This is similar to Square in US, only it's a bit more secure as it uses a chip solution rather than magnetic strip and is EMV approved. Yesterday, iZettle, alongside their partners at Mastercard, American Express and EE, announced their entry to the UK market.

According to iZettle, 50% of missed sales by merchants are due to their inability to accept plastic. This is true even in build-up areas in London - I can hardly remember how many restaurants and coffee shops I had to give a miss because there was a 'only cash' sign. There are a million card payment in the UK, but 12-15 million iOS devices plus a heck lot more Android smartphones, so this service will allow plastic payments for small businesses who would normally be unable to afford more expensive specialised solutions.

In terms of security, the iZettle is, on theory at least, more secure than Square as the reader is chip-based rather than magnetic. On the other hand, the iZettle solution isn't chip and pin enabled, which is technically a more secure method of making payment than chip and signature. Still, according to iZettle, apart from the UK and France, their core European market is more comfortable with chip and signature, and I know my father personally prefer chip and signature payments.

An Android iZettle terminal

At the iZettle launch in London yesterday, we were demonstrated by actual merchants who has been using the device for the past few months. Using it couldn't be any simpler, the merchant selects the items you have purchased, insert the card payment and after the app makes a secure wireless connection with the bank, remove the card and the customer is asked sign the screen. An email receipt (complete with geo tagging) will then be sent to the customer. In all it took about a minute from insertion of the card to confirmation message.

Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Concert: London

The Royal Albert Hall hosted the first of this season's Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy orchestra, a worldwide event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the series. The first game was released in Japan on 18 December 1987 by Square on the Famicom (NES) platform, popularising the RPG genre. Since then, 13 main numbered games within the series has also been released, including various none-numbered spin-offs and sequels. The next game in the numbered series would be Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and is a further sequel to Final Fantasy XIII.

It was a great evening, and I have always enjoyed concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. The famous Kensington venue, while traditional in architecture, seems apt for a wide range of performance styles and music genres. In fact, the last time we were there was last year for the BBC Radio 3's Big Red Nose Snow and, before that the Cirque Du Solei's Totem (thanks London Midland!) circus!

Science Museum Lates

Science Museum does a neat free event at the end of the month called the Science Museum (duh) Lates. It's an evening dedicated to all things entertainment and science. Best of all, it's adults only, meaning, no pesky things known as kids are allowed in. Rejoice!

We and a couple of friends decided to check out October's Science Museum Lates, which happened to coincide with Halloween. After braving the freezing October evening and large queues (who would know science would be so popular?), we got in all excited. In addition to the normal Science Museum stuffs, the day also hosted special science of alcohol events and lectures where visitors learned about this history of gin, sake tasting and brewing your own ginger beer.

It's not all just fun though, visitors also got to learn about how a typical Friday night is like for London ambulance crew having to deal with alcoholics who don't know when to quit. The resident IMAX theater also featured the Punk Science comedy routine behind the phenomenon known as beer goggles, but we sadly had to skip.