smartphones

In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether....

Vodafone has unveiled the next ‘revolution’ in smartphones that will see shoppers use their handsets instead of cash or cards at the checkout. A special chip called a 'tag' is planted in phones. Using near field communications (NFC) technology, details of the purchase are transmitted wirelessly to a central...