McDonald's to start accepting contactless Visa payments in all UK restaurants by this summer

The UK already has a big old investment in contactless technology with London's rather successful Oystercard travel scheme, but now the whole Kingdom can get a taste for airborne payments thanks to a new initiative from McDonald's and Visa. The two giants of commerce are uniting to bring NFC tech to all of the former's 1,200 fast food restaurants within the UK, allowing hungry Brits to pay for meals costing up to £15 by simply waving their credit card in front of the till Obi-wan-style. Of course, the real excitement of such large-scale NFC proliferation is in the potential to use those automated tills with your Nexus S (which has an NFC chip built right in) and other devices coming up this year that look set to feature the technology. So yeah, Visa had better be working hard on putting together some mobile apps.

[Thanks, Steve]McDonald's to start accepting contactless Visa payments in all UK restaurants by this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Daily Mirror  | Email this | Comments

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DownThemAll 2 download manager released, now supports Firefox 4

The popular Firefox download manager DownThemAll has finally hit version 2.0, and the new release brings a number of important changes. Not least among them is out-of-the-box support for Firefox 4, which is currently slated for a February 2011 release.

DownThemAll 2 offers even greater control over your Firefox downloads than its predecessor. Speed limits can be specified on a per-server or download basis, and you can set a global limit as well. There's also a media-sniffing feature which allows for easy downloading of embedded video clips on the sites you browse -- even HTML5 <audio> and <video> tags are supported. DTA2 even plays nice with Firefox 4's private browsing mode!

Check the full list of features in DTA2, or hit the link below to install the Firefox add-on.

Install DownThemAll! 2 for FirefoxDownThemAll 2 download manager released, now supports Firefox 4 originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Curbs On Pathogens Pose Dilemma For Scientists

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government began imposing curbs on research into pathogens that could be potentially used by terrorists. That has led researchers to quietly destroy valuable specimens of some pathogens for fear of running afoul of legal restrictions.

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Nikkei: PSP2 will have 3G cellular data, OLED touchscreen

We're only four days away from a supposed January 27th unveiling, but apparently there are still more juicy PSP2 rumors left to dole out -- Japan's often-reliable Nikkei newspaper reports that the handheld machine will sport a crisp OLED touchscreen and 3G data from NTT DoCoMo when it arrives later this year, with the latter enabling multiplayer action and even full video and game downloads over the Japanese cellular network. What's more, the paper confirms that the screen will be physically larger and powered by some potent new silicon. So, how will Sony differentiate this PSP2 from the PlayStation Phone and tempt you to buy both? The game system won't make calls.

Note: In case you're not familiar, the image above is a relatively ancient reader mockup, and likely not representative of the final product. It is pretty sexy, though.Nikkei: PSP2 will have 3G cellular data, OLED touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Jan 2011 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink OLED-Display.net  |  Nikkei  | Email this | Comments

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'Sarge' Shriver Remembered For Heritage, Hugs

Shriver ? the man known as "Sarge" who married Eunice Kennedy Shriver and was the brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy ? was honored by several speakers. Shriver helped start the Peace Corps, building it into a lasting international institution.

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Jobs, Of Course, But What Else Will Obama Say?

This Tuesday, President Obama gives his State of the Union address. For anyone playing parlor games at home that night, expect words like "jobs" and "competitiveness," but not as many like "Iraq" and "Afghanistan."

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Google Voice will let you port your current phone number for $20 -- soon

One reason users shy away from Google Voice -- or any alternative calling solution -- is because they can't bring their existing phone number with them. That could all be about to change, however, as several users happened upon an option to port their number to Google Voice. After checking to make sure Google is able to port a given mobile number, a $20 payment via Google Checkout is all that's required.

The option has apparently disappeared overnight, with Google telling our friends at Engadget that number porting is currently being tested with a small group of Google Voice users. No ETA was given for general availability, but Google assures that it's part of their master plan.Google Voice will let you port your current phone number for $20 -- soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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