Reece Martin posted an interesting video, So you built the wrong transit system, that examines the American penchant for building cheap light rail systems that don’t make long term sense. Public transit is a waste of money to Americans with money, so cheap is only way to fund and build […]
Hidden Assumptions
Jonathan Seybold said it best in his Computer History Museum interview video, many arguments can be easily demolished by pulling out the hidden assumptions. In our attention span challenged social media era it’s all too easy to believe things at face value. Few people invest time and brain energy to […]
OMNY white-label card completes the EMV only OMNY system
After a long gestation, and a COVID related delay, the mighty swipe MetroCard replacement finally shipped. The OMNY card: a white-label EMV bank payment card using the mastercard payment network, not a MIFARE or FeliCa smartcard like San Fransisco Clipper or Tokyo Suica. MetroCard missed the transit smartcard revolution of […]
Ignore NFC reader logos, advice for using Apple Pay in Japan
After the October 21 launch of Apple Pay WAON and Apple Pay nanaco e-Money cards, I updated my Apple Pay Japan chart. All I did was add WAON and nanaco logos to the official payment logos listed on the Apple Pay JP page (still not updated as of November 19): […]
Are Chinese manufactured PAX NFC readers a security risk?
Probably not, but the FBI Raids Chinese Point-of-Sale Giant PAX Technology report from Krebs on Security has some thrilling bits: “FBI and MI5 are conducting an intensive investigation into PAX,” the source said. “A major US payment processor began asking questions about network packets originating from PAX terminals and were […]