Android phones to substitute credit cards says Google CEO
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 17 November 2010, 08:36 IST   |    2 Comments
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San Francisco: The imminent Android 2.3 operating system will support near-field communication chips for mobile payments; a development that will lead to the launch hundreds of mobile payment startups and replace credit cards expects Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google addressing the Web 2.0 summit as quoted by Information Week. Addressing the summit at Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Schmidt said that the next version of Android, version 2.3 or "Gingerbread," is coming in a few weeks. The gadget appears to be the Nexus S, Samsung's successor to the HTC Nexus One but Schmidt demurely avoided identifying the device, allowing only that Google would not make a Nexus 2, even as he acknowledged the vague similarity between the letter "S" and the number "2." Schmidt along with others in the tech field currently, expressed optimism about the revenue potential of mobile devices and applications, particularly in the context of location-based services. "I don't think people understood how much more powerful these devices were going to be than desktop computers," he said, adding that autonomous search on mobile devices, whereby information is simply delivered to mobile users based on preferences, represents a significant opportunity. However, he restated that in the near term display advertising and mobile advertising represent Google's next billion dollar businesses. Schmidt covered a wide range of topics with conference co-chairs Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle and said that it's fundamentally about the math of the platform when it comes to establishing volume. And now that quantity is assured we see concerns about quality. Schmidt's interest in improving the application layer appears to have been anticipated by the Android developer community. Android evangelist Roman Nurik last month published a blog post in which he urged Android developers to take steps to produce higher quality applications. Schmidt also acknowledged the importance of social data while speaking to the audience hinting that competition with Facebook to become the dominant online identity and communications service provider will continue.

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