Say Goodbye To Your Credit Cards – Android Gingerbread Gets Ready To Revolutionize Money

Remember when music was a physical thing? If you wanted to listen to the latest album you had to go to a store or order online and get a physical disk. Of course the iPod changed the world and introduced the concept of digital music and now the thought of buying a CD, ripping it to your computer, and copying it to your device sounds archaic.

Neflix and Hulu are both doing an incredible job of getting people comfortable (and fanatical) about the idea of streaming movies and television shows online. Heck – I got rid of cable television in my house – we’re 100% streaming, Netflix, Hulu, MLB.tv, etc.

Now for money. The concept of money was revolutionized with the credit card. Think of what we had to do before credit cards were invented? To buy anything you needed cash or a check. Checks were a nightmare for stores, people could write however much money they wanted and businesses had to hope and pray that the customer had that money in their account. Credit cards revolutionized it all by making access to that information instantaneous and encoded on a thin magnetic strip.

Today Google CEO Eric Schmidt showed-off an unreleased Android phone running their new OS codenamed Gingerbread. Along with plenty of exciting new features Gingerbread also introduces NFC which stands for Near Field Communication.

So what is near field communication?

Near field communication is a technology that allows you to pass your phone over (or tap it) on a physical sensor in order to complete an action. Of course the first thing that comes to my mind is payment and I wouldn’t be surprised if we are a few years away from now this becomes a new standard. There are also plenty of rumors that Apple is going to add this to their next iPhone.

Either way just like music, tv, movies and much more have evolved thanks to the Internet and and new technologies – so will money. In the end this could help people save better – just think if your credit card was directly-linked to a budget app – the possibilities are endless!

What do you think? Will cellphones be the next credit card?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton