Square launched its mobile payments service in Canada yesterday, its first market outside the United States. The company’s credit card reader is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones. Square charges a per-transaction fee of 2.75 percent, and the company says it processes more than $8 billion in payments each year.
Some Sprint Android smartphones are getting push-to-talk capabilities through the carrier’s new Direct Connect Now app, which works with both Sprint and Nextel Direct Connect, allows group calls with up to 21 participants and synchronizes contacts with the device’s address book, among other capabilities. The app enables the service on the Kyocera Rise, the forthcoming LG Optimus Elite and unnamed additional devices.
NFC Payments USA kicks off its conference next week from Oct. 29-30 at The Revere in Boston. The event is designed to be a forum on the future of NFC payments, with discussions on the technology’s ability to compete against other payment methods and whether Isis will succeed in spurring consumer adoption of the mobile wallet. Attendees include representatives from American Express, Bank of America, Barclaycard, Best Buy, Bose Corporation, Capital One, CIBC, Citigroup, Diners Club, Entel, Gemalto, G&D, MasterCard, PayPal, Raley’s, Samsung, T-Mobile, Verizon and Visa. Those interested in attending should contact Emily Assender at emily@mformobile.com.
T-Mobile USA plans to preload Lookout’s security app on Android smartphones and tablets. The installations will begin this year on some Android smartphones including the LG Optimus L9 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. Next year, most of T-Mobile’s Android phones will come with the app. The basic version of the app is free, or customers can upgrade to a premium version for $3 per month.
Samsung has updated its TecTile NFC stickers app with new programming options. TecTile Version 3.0 allows users to program multiple actions to a single sticker, customize profiles, create a log of all programming tags, create private tags only accessible to the programmer’s device and unlock a previously locked sticker. The stickers work with several of Samsung’s NFC-enabled Android smartphones including the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S III.