Google Wallet Now Available For Use--But Only For Some

Google has been opening up its wallet a lot lately, but now it is opening its Wallet with a capital W: that is, Google Wallet has officially launched.

In a post for the Google Blog, Google Vice President of Payments Osama Bedier officially announced the release of Google Wallet, the company's mobile, tap-and-go payment system. For now, the service will only be available on the Sprint Nexus S 4G, the most recent Google flagship phone. Nexus S owners should see the Wallet app appearing on their phone via over-the-air update and can start paying through their GWallet's Citi MasterCard or Google Prepaid Card very soon.

Google Wallet works using the nascent Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, which not all smartphones have been equipped for (sorry, iPhone owners). NFC-enabled devices can transmit small amounts of data simply by being in close proximity with another NFC-enabled device; the technology has been heralded for its convenience and safety and is expected by some to become the standard for all payments in the future.

The "Wave and Pay" method of payment was unveiled as a feature of upcoming Windows 8 phones and has long been rumored as a feature to the iPhone 5, and though only the Citi MasterCard is currently available in Google Wallet, the company's blog post on Monday indicated that support for Visa, Discover and American Express could be right around the corner. A full list of smartphones with NFC capability is available here.

Google Wallet currently works wherever the MasterCard bump-and-pay PayPass is accepted.

For a detailed explanation of how the George Costanza-approved Google Wallet app works and why it exists, watch the Google-produced video below:

Comments

[garumphul]

06:54 AM on 09/20/2011

Yeah, well, Google launched a Facebook-killer, and a this-killer and a that-killer, and guess what? Facebook, this and that are all still here and going strong.

It's worth noting that when you use your credit card at the store, the card company only get which store and the amount. Google, with this system, will get a line-item list of everything you buy.

It's true, go look it up.

Is it really a great idea to let a search company, whose entire business model and only profitable enterprise is to collate everything about you in order to target advertisements, have a record of every single thing you purchase?

[cedy]

07:54 PM on 09/19/2011

No doubt this type of technology is going to be the future, security as usual will be a big part of the tech. I am reminded of a few of the innovative things that are so common anymore. Stereo on televisions, the multimedia computer, hard drives (I came from the world of floppies and first thought the hard drive was stupid).

Floppies and memory are a perfect example of how tech changes. The first floppy I saw was the 5 inch ones. I was in high school and it was way cool. I later went on to a tech school that had these giant foot or so wide floppies. Life went on to those smaller floppies (3.5 inch?) and super disk, and the hard drive, now it it looks like we are going to solid state drives, but I fear they will come to a bad end at least on the personnel side. The cloud is coming and it looks like memory for the end user will just be a distant "memory". This was all new stuff in the last 25 years.

[anthonytaurus]

07:07 PM on 09/19/2011

NFC... I am just waiting to see how this technology gets exploited and it WILL get exploited. Sure, you can shut it off. You can shut your phone off too. BUT, we all know by now, there are little tricks government agencies can do to turn your phones on. This knowledge is not the sole property of these government agencies. The same went for bluetooth. The same will be for NFC.

I just imagine someone standing on a crowded train in NYC and collecting money by just standing by the door of the train as people on 96th street push and shove their way in... cha ching, cha ching, cha ching... NFC... I'll wait!!

[cedy]

07:58 PM on 09/19/2011

I'm pretty sure they have thought of this too.

[Jim Marusak]

05:57 PM on 09/19/2011

so wouldn't this make your phone a bigger target to be stolen? and also couldn't this make it harder to prove you got something like your identity stolen?

[anthonytaurus]

07:08 PM on 09/19/2011

Doesn't even need to be stolen. Just have to get close enough to it. Hackers will figure out a way to do the rest automatically.

[E V]

07:38 PM on 09/19/2011

This is already true if you have a pay pass feture on your card. Though I personally think your phone is far more secure than a paypass card considering you can lock your phone etc. It probably won't work unless that app is actually running etc. Whereas there is no way to secure a paypass card short of wrapping in in tin foil or having a metal wallet.

[E V]

07:46 PM on 09/19/2011

Why would it? My phone is locked with a code. You can only use it for emergency calls if you don't know it. Not to mention that to access just about any app with private information requires yet another password.