From the series “I wish that was my idea”:
1.Square up

It’s hard to find creative people admitting others have better. I’m no different, but now and again the pain is strong and I end up saying out-loud: this is genius. Reaching a professional maturity (?), I believe the time has come to register here some of my recent favourites; it will help my recovery the shock/envy, and you will get a gist of what inspire us these days.

Square

I’m obsessed with financial services these days. It might have to do with the direct connection it carries with the one thing I research lot these days – mobility –, or maybe because it is one of the truly universal (in all sorts of different level) service.

My first praise goes to Square, the latest venture from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. It combines a small hardware hack with a system complex on the background but beautiful on the front-end. You connect the little square to the audio input jack of a mobile device, install the app, create an account and you’re done. It is now possible to receive payments from anyone carrying a a credit or debit card. It works almost like a Paypal for the masses, as ‘everyone’ carries a mobile and a payment card these days. The elegant idea of using the audio jack (data is transferred via audio) allows for the system to be integrated to any device. Of course these are still baby steps but the service, which was available only for the iPhone at launch, now runs on Android two. Definitely a great solution and I’m sure it will still create much noise.