Mobile Wallet Changes default card based on Location/Store/Specials/Business

Many people are using mobile and digital wallets to use their credit cards and discount cards. I'm not currently a user but would become a user with the value add described below.

Some popular mobile and digital wallets include:

• Google Wallet
• Android Pay
• Samsung Pay 
• Apple Pay 

One of the features of the digital wallets is to define a default card. One problem is you can only select one default card which is not a solution to the bigger problem. You want to select specific cards for specific stores, store types, foreign currency, for a given period of time, until a dollar amount is reached, business expense, and many more variables. It is time for the wallets to make this process easier.

Here are some examples of cash back rewards credit cards which you might use for different purposes. Some cards have annual fees and others do not so I won't go into that detail. Also, the cash back has changed over time on the cards. The following are the % of the reward based on category and foreign fee is % you pay for using the card in another country/currency:

 

Credit Card	Foreign Fee	Default	Gas	Restaurant	Entertainment	Groceries	Home Improvement Stores	Airfare	Office Supply Stores	Wireless Phone Service
Amex SimplyCash	3	1						3	5	5
Citi Double Cash MC	3	2
Citi Costco Anywhere Visa	3	1	4	3				3
Chase Business Ink Visa	3	1	3	3			3		3
Amex Blue Cash	3	1	2			3
CapitalOne QuickSilver	0	1.5
CapitalOne SavorOne	0	1		3	2	2

Now that you have all this information and have a few of these example cards. Why should you have to remember which card to use at each location. Instead when you walk into an office supply store the default should be your Amex Simply Cash, then you go to the grocery store and your Amex Blue Cash is your default, and when you go for a fill up on your Gas powered vehicle (if you have one of those) then the Citi Costco Anywhere Visa would be used. When no special case is found then the Citi Double Cash MC would be used and the CapitalOne QuickSilver when paying in a foreign currency. There are exceptions, for example Citi Costco Anywhere Visa gas does not offer 4% at supermarket/superstores (except at Costco). You might have multiple employers or be self employed and need to switch between these modes based on the situation.

You would rather not have to remember all of this and instead have your mobile or digital wallet give you a little help.

 Here are solutions to incorporate into these wallets:

• When in the store, save your default card and  that card will be used in the future in that store. Can use location based information to save the default card. Can go a step further and ask if you want that to be the default for all stores with that name (chain of stores). Can ask if you want it to be the default for all stores of that type.
• When at checkout for a new store, identify the store type (gas, restaurant, groceries, etc), check  against the various cards in the wallet and suggest best card to use. Can lock in a card as your default for that store, that store type, or accept the card selected by the wallet so it can change over time. Some cards offer special category discounts for a small window of time (a month) or dollar amount ($2,000 per year), the wallet can see that special temporary offer and make that card the default for that store type and then switch to a better card when that offer expires.
• You specify which card to use for each store type with overrides when needed and expiration dates when a card has a short term special or dollar amount for a given store type. Sometimes cards have a discount at a specific store for a short period and you would make that card the default for that specific store over that given period. Some cards have a maximum spend per year on a given category and then the reward rate drops, when the reward drops, a different card with a better reward rate would be made the new default until the new year begins.
• There are also non-reward issues to address. Some cards have car rental insurance, extended warranties on purchases, travel insurance, etc. Those need to be taken into account when selecting a card or default card for a given purchase type. 
• Some cards give discount at specific stores or uses - Costco, specific Airline, specific gas station card, etc. Ex: CapitalOne SavorOne has a 5% on Uber Eats through until February 1st 2021 and that same card excludes superstores from the grocery stores.
• A mode selection feature to select when in personal mode, business mode (more then one business supported to select).
  

These are complex problems to solve while keeping the user interface simple, yet flexible. Hope this is helpful to the digital/mobile wallet companies to improve their products.

Google Home "Find my phone" is not working and don't use Google Workspace domain account

Do you keep forgetting where in your home you left your phone? Find my phone is a great feature until it stops working, now you have to find your phone, wallet, and car keys without any help. Yes you can use Tile, Chipolo, etc. to help you find those other things, but I digress.

Seems silly to make an entire blog post for this issue but after Google Home support was unable to help and I could not find a solution in their help center or anywhere on the internet, I figured they may be others having trouble.

Below is the link to Google Nest with the basics of getting "Find my phone" to work.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7535860?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Android

These might be of interest to you:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/thread/1886111?hl=en

https://support.google.com/googlenest/search?q=find+my+device

If you are still having trouble, you may have the same issue I was having. Before giving you my fix, here is a little background.  "Find my phone" was working fine from my Google Assistant enabled device but I was having another issue. Google Home does not like you to use a Google Workspace (previously G Suite) domain account. If you do, many features will not work including what is on my calendar.

I had been using my Google Workspace account with Google Home, so switched to using a gmail.com email address and many features started working. Calendar works but requires some fun settings if you want access to your Google Workspace calendar. Share your Google Workspace user calendar with the gmail.com user and give read/write access. Then in Google Home make that calendar the default for adding to the calendar and make sure to make that calendar visible.

Ok, back to trying to find your phone. Once I switched to a gmail.com account, the Nest Hub and Nest Minis could no longer find my device. I looked through settings and could find no solutions. I then went to https://play.google.com/settings/ and found the problem ... my Google Workspace domain account had my device listed under "My devices" while my gmail.com did not. Found no way to fix this issue, so did the old stand by ... almost like a reboot, hahaha. I removed the gmail.com account from my device and then added it back and this time it showed up under My devices in Google Play and now "Find my device" works. That easy.

Now where did I put my beer.

Direct Marketing via External Devices

It's time has finally arrived. We have seen it in the movies for decades but now it is here. This year you will finally see large screens on highway billboards supplying custom advertising. The screen in the mall and in shop windows will do the same. As you are driving on the highway or walking by a store front, the GPS on your phone will announce your presence and the screen in the store window or billboard on the highway will provide a custom advertisement to you.

Based on your shopping habits and needs it will decide what you should see. Your phone bill is too high, it will suggest a price and switch to a new provider. Walk by the Gap and it will see you last bought pants 2 years ago so time to suggest a discount on pants. Already working is your phone will receive a message with a special offer.

Try to stay calm and not get paranoid about our Orwellian existence.

storing data securely in an insecure cloud

Simple way to have secure and efficient storage in an insecure cloud environment.

If your goal is to store data files or  backups of your data to the cloud and have the security that the data is private, what do you do. There is always the option to encrypt each file stored in the cloud and hope the cloud storage provider does not crack the encryption. Some countries have laws on what data can be stored within and outside of the country.

Here is a simple solution using existing RAID striping technology across multiple cloud providers:
Whether the data is in the cloud or lives on a client user machine the solution is the same.
When the files are saved they are stripped across multiple cloud services that might be operated my various providers. The files are parceled so as to be encrypted / useless to any one cloud host server. Just like RAID protocol you can decide how many servers could be down before the data was not recoverable. This solution not only allows your data to be secure while stored in an insecure environment, off-shored, etc, but having some cloud hosts go down would not effect your ability to access your data.

Last issue, storing the secure data / key to where the pieces of the data are stored and the key to reconstituting the data. This data is small could be stored at multiple secure locations which require security but very little storage space. The result is you can have large inexpensive storage facilities for the data and high security more expensive facilities to store the reconstitution data.

See My Race

I think this invention is needed and should be built and launched. It has a market waiting to use it and the technology is currently available.

well ... what is it you may ask.

Summary: It is a SaaS website where runners and their loved ones (fans) can go to see photos of the race from various spectator and runner perspectives. During the race viewers can see race times and photos as they are uploaded to the site and later can review the days event with more photos as they are added. The site can be used for everything from marathons, fun runs, bike races, charity walk-athons, and more.

Idea: Many of us love to see ourselves and relive those special moments. You access the site and see pictures people (spectators, professional photographers, other participants) have taken of the course, the fans, you and your fellow runners. You get to see all pictures taken at the time you where at that location during your race. Pictures where you have been identified will be highlighted and you can mark and tag additional photos.

Interface: You access the site and enter the name or bib number of the person who you want to see. You are then shown the course with runner information including where they are now if the race is not completed and times they where at each place during the race. Each place a pictures of that runner was taken will be marked and the images can be selected and viewed. Similar to Google Maps street view, you can move your viewing perspective along the entire course and the time will match up with when the runner was at that location. This allows you to view pictures taken of the route at the time you where there and maybe even find additional photos of yourself. The interface also allows you to move through time at the specific location you have selected. This feature would allow a fan to see all the pictures taken at that specific spot during the race so they could watch various runners coming across the finish line or struggle up a tough hill or maybe look at pictures of themselves being spectators.

Recap User Experience: This site will enable both time and location based viewing of photos of a race and of yourself. The user can attach themselves to a participant in the race or using a drag-able icon pick locations on the course. Move the time slider to follow the racer the length of the course seeing all the photos taken or move through time in the fixed location.

Technology: Some of the technology is already in place and others need to be developed.

• Looking up participants and getting initial information as to their location is commonly used in various races using RFID tied onto the shoe laces and collection points along the route (every mile or kilometer). You can use the NYC Marathon Athlete Tracker from TATA Consulting Service to shows times at each marker and do look-ups by First and/or Last Name, Bib number, City, Country, and Team.
• Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, and other sites allow you to post your photos and videos to the internet. They allow you to share these photos with your friends and if desired, the world.
• Many of these sites allow for GeoTagging of the photos using GPS information from your camera (or phone) or enter it manually when uploading the photos.
• The photographing devices also store time information as meta-data along with each photo which is available to these websites.
• A face recognition algorithm is a feature Picasa and monitoring software already has to recognize people that have been previously identified or tagged. Facebook has also gathered a library of over 500 million people and their faces as provided by user tagging of billions of photos.
  
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the oldest technology that has been around for decades is the last piece of the puzzle that can be used to identify bib numbers. It can also aid in identifying places (building numbers, street signs, etc) as Google uses with its street view and GPS information to validate locations. Image recognition technology can also be used for identifying landmarks.
  
• Google Maps, Google Earth, or other viewers can then be used as the viewing environment. You can setup a course flyby in Google Earth and use their time slider to see photos over time.

TADA - We have the pieces, now we put them together

• Using the RFID information we have a good idea where a runner is during the race and extrapolate times between check points.
• People upload photos in real-time or post race using their iPhone, Android, Blackberry, computers, cameras, etc. If in addition to the common time stamp information the location information is also provided, then we greatly reduce the set of valid Bib numbers the OCR system can select from.
  
• Once someone has been identified via bib number or manual tagging the face recognition algorithm will aid in additional identification, increase correctness, and cross checking against the bib identification algorithm.
• As the matrix of information grows. Photos without locations can be placed in the correct location, participants identified, incorrect photo times corrected.
• Using some of the interoperable applications, you'll be able to log into your Facebook account and see all the pictures people took of you during your race.
• Lastly, I tried out the low tech version manually and what fun. I had taken some great photos during the NYC Marathon and was able to lookup the runner by Bib number. From that information get their name. If their name was not too common, find them on Facebook or LinkedIn and contact them to share your photos with them. Like all information in our current age, use it for good. Does contacting some you thought was cute to ask them out count as good, I leave that decision to you, your peers, and match.com.
  

There you have the technology and the long awaited user experience. These images can then be explored through time and space.

Notice we have sponge-bob at two locations 40 minutes apart.

Camera lens shmootz cleaner for news and sports coverage

Many of you have been watching the 2010 winter Olympics. You have probably noticed the times the camera gets shmootz (water, snow, mud) on the camera lens. The current solution appears to be a hand that sneaks in and cleans the lens, when the camera is off-line (not the select shot for the network, between riders for snowboarding, etc).

This invention will save the day and work great for that automated camera that goes on a track and follows the event. Can also be used for those floating stadium cameras that are out of reach of a human wiper. It is a windshield wiper of sorts but with better cleaning and without the a wiper blade showing up in the screen view. A high speed wiper that goes by in under a 1/30 of a second to hide between frames is just not practical and won't do as good of a job.

Design
2 layers of lenses mounted in front of the camera's lens. Often cameras are already placed inside a box to keep them dry and protected from the elements. These 2 lenses are on a pivot and swing out of the way into a cleaning solution tank or sprayer. The exit from the tank has a squeegee on both sides that the lens passes through. This cleans off the lens upon swinging back into position. No blade passes in front of the camera view and the lens has no boarder so clear view during the short pivot process. The cleaning solution tank is optional but will produce better cleaning.

Why 2 layers of lenses, here is the best part of this design. As one lens is being cleaned the other is blocking new shmootz from getting on the actual camera lens. Once the front lens returns from cleaning the second back lens goes through the process and back into place waiting for the next time the front lens requires a cleaning.

System can be controlled manually by user trigger or automatically based on the patented laser guided shmootz sensor. OK, unpatented shmootz sensor but you get the idea. Record use of Yiddish for this post, just like saying shm... and ootz

PDA Smart Phone Stadium Size Display App

The Stadium Size Display App

Here is a great app to add to your various smartphones and PDAs. I'm sure we will find other uses for it but the initial idea for this application is to use to create a stadium size display. Each person in the stadium with this application installed on their phone / PDA will act as one pixel of this large display. They hold there display over their head or facing desired direction depending on the desired viewing (overhead camera for televised, across the stadium for live viewing, etc). Software is then used to change the display color of each phone individually. Can be used to do the wave, show images, and maybe even live video with frame level time sync accuracy.

Details of the application:

• The client application is downloaded and installed onto the PDA / smart phone (iPhone, Android phone, etc).
  
• The client application has a code or url data entered to specify the server to control the application.
• The client app is then configured to use location information. Either GPS information which can be used if the person is part of a display on the field or in large open field or moving around, etc. For higher accuracy and static position a user id may be specific by the server with the person in an assigned position or coordinate may be entered, for example the seat they are sitting in.
• The server can then in real time send commands to change the color of the screen on each PDA creating a large mosaic / display. Another option is to send a pre-created sequence to each phone and have all the phones start based on a timer / clock at the same syncronized time.
• The server software converts the image / image sequence / video to map pixels to phones and distribute the image / pixel assigned data to each device.

Idea was inspired by great food and company on night out with Carl, Sarkis, SOs, friends, and people using their phones as flash lights to read the menus. Good food is usually a critical part to stimulating invention.

Ways to Use Your Screen Real Estate

Ways to Use Your Screen Real Estate

Using the following tools has worked well for me to add functionality and solve problems. Some funky configurations were required to get them working the way I and you might like for them to work.

High resolution monitor that you can't drive using your laptop.
MaxiVista - allows a desktop to drive the high resolution monitor and the laptop to control it and place content on that monitor.
KVM and Multi Monitor software
http://www.maxivista.com/

Can also use RealVNC to control the remote computer. Provides the KVM control feature but does not allow for displaying laptop windows on the high resolution monitor.
RealVNC
http://realvnc.com/


Want to have your screen saver turn off your monitor without having to go into power saver configuration.
MonitorOffSaver
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#MonitorOffSaver

Want to shut off your monitor and don't have a power button - for example on a laptop.
PushMonitOff
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#PushMonitOff
Uses Shift-F1 to power off the monitor. On the remote machine I set it to Ctrl-F1 so can shut that one off in Remote Control Mode, did not work when both use Shift-F1 as the key is intercepted by this program before MaxiVista can pass it on.

Or just run whatever commands you want as a screen saver
RunSaver
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#RunSaver

Extra multi-monitor features and task bar support for multiple monitors.
UltraMon
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

Virtual Desktops
VirtualWin
I tried many and this one was my favorite for usability and not loosing windows and minimum strange side effects (also tried - Reflection Virtual Desktop ,Vista/XP Virtual Desktop, and others)
The Reflection Vitrual Desktop was great but does not work with more then one physical or virutal monitor since instead of virtual monitors it really creates a virtual sized large monitor.
Check out the modules (KvasdoPager - but only shows primary display) and extra icons sets (I like 3x2)
http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/downloads.php


MaxiVista Version 3.0.28 - Extra configuration information
In the era of green most people have the monitors power off, not display pretty pictures from webshots.

MaxiVista has a few features useful in the Misc. section. One selecting "Disconnect secondary PC when" and select "Current session is locked" instead of the "Always keep MaxiVista activated" option. This will result in the features in MaxiVista that are preventing the Secondary PC from powering off the monitor to do so.

In the "Power related settings" where you would expect the feature that allows powering off the secondary PC monitors there are some features that might help as a word around.
MaxiVista behaves differently in "Extended Screen Mode" and "Remote Control Mode" for these features and expectedly so. Quick explanation, when in "Remote Control Mode" the keyboard and mouse events are being sent to the secondary PC. In these cases the secondary PC will power off the monitor when no events occur for given period, events on the primary PC are not seen by the secondary so it will do its own thing. In this mode the "Prevent hibernation/standby on secondary PC" will keep that machine from going to sleep by turning off that setting on the secondary PC until disconnection occurs. In "Extended Screen Mode", the same is true and it is important to understand that no keyboard or mouse events are going to the secondary PC and just the full size window showing the display coming from the primary PC is visible. To prevent the monitor power off or the screen saver from coming on in this mode

I also find that MaxiVista does not always find the clients when they come back from Stand By mode, so just restart MaxiVista on your primary PC.

Focus and Lighting feature for Video Cameras

Have you ever videoed an indoor performance. You probably notice that the focus is unstable in poor lighting and the lighting is over exposed on the area of interest, the subject in the spotlight. These issues are easily managed by the professional and person willing to understand the camera. It requires their attention as they manually focus and control the exposure manually as well.

Now a solution for the general public that wants a simpler solution and requiring less concentration. Many camera are coming with a touch screen. Let the user utilize the touch screen to select the spot or region to be used for selecting focus. Same technique would be used to select area to use for deciding exposure.

Turn your iPhone and other PDA into a video phone

Many of you have purchased your iPhone and other PDA devices to find that the camera is facing away from you when you are looking at the screen. This is not a poor design but instead a conspiracy by the service providers to reduce bandwidth usage. I had an old PDA that had a camera that could be rotated to face front or back and models in other countries have current PDA devices with either 2 cameras or a rotating camera.

We can wait a few years until the new models eventually have cameras facing you to allow for video chat or we can solve that problem today. This is the solution we want to help all the legacy devices and not cause current owners who are not gear heads to have to run out and buy the new model.

This is a simple device that can be manufactured to fit current phones. It can sell for $9.99 on an infomertial or a little more in stores. It is a double mirror that attaches to your phone. The first mirror reflects your image from the front of your phone, where you are looking at the display of the person you are chating with, parallel with the back of the phone to a second mirror that reflects the image into the camera lense on the back of your phone. The double mirror also has the advantage of flipping the image twice so the image is not flipped.

Facebook - searchable email and communication archive

You have your Facebook account and for many it is creating a great community and way to stay in touch with old and new and never met friends. I use friends loosely. Anyway, many people are switching from email to Facebook for communication and posting and sharing photos / videos and chatting.

For years I have kept some of my old emails and attachments of various medias (essays, notes, audio, video, images). These are an archive of letters and communication with friends. In years before email and computers this information would have been photo albums, home movies, letters, and newspaper clippings.

It is nice to look back years later and have these memories. I was just looking over my 1988 emails between college friends.

Solution - an application aka app for facebook that lets you select what information you want to archive and a local copy can be kept of the information you request be archived. Many things on facebook and other such sites flow from the top of the page to the bottom and is either deleted or simply cannot be located in the large information overflow. There also needs to be an interface to make the information easily searchable - google desktop should do the trick for now.

I believe we need such an system for all of our data since it has the words "our data" and over several decades, there is a good chance information stored on external providers could disappear or go missing. This may happen from companies going out of business or your computer savey 2 year old accidently selecting delete account.

DVD or HD TV use for extra Audio channels

DVD and HD both have multiple audio and text / subtitle channels.
Think of all the fun ways you can use these features.
Can do a mystery science theatre 3000 / MST3K voice over or subtitles during a movie.

Can get Jesse Manno, Farrell Lowe, and Beth Quist to create a musical score aka music over.
Just this Sunday we watched the Super Bowl but instead of hearing the game we had various music creating the sound track.

How about those news channels that insist on speaking during speeches. Can then decide if you want just the commentators or the original sound or a mix and the same goes for the subtitles / text.

Lets make fun use of these extra audio and text channels.

wii fit porn - humor post or ...

The wii fit porn ... okay a humor post which may actual come to fruition.
Think of bachelor parties.
Pelvic thrust and gyration - like belly dancing or hula hoop but not exactly.

new uses for the wii fit board to improve your game through more realistic training

So you have a wii fit board and new software is being released regularly for its use.
Great us for the wii fit is to go back and release many of the sporting games utilizing the board and help as a training tool for the actual sport.

• Golf - currently users often sit on the couch and flick their wrist to control the golf club. All the input is coming from this one device - fun yes - but does it improve your game. Adding the wii fit board to the golf game allows for feedback about body positioning and shifting of weight through the entire swing of the club.
• Baseball - like golf the player could swing the bat sitting down. Standing on the wii fit board gives feedback and allows for more realistic swinging of the bat.
• Tennis - can help with the swing but not as good of an application as tennis is a moving sport.

Sports and activities that involve moving in sagittal and horizontal won't work as well but still have options