Mobile payment systems are about to become real as companies introduce their offerings and technology to the world. Buying goods or services with your smartphone is almost second nature. We’re all getting used to searching and tapping or scanning to pay.

Scan and pay will be the paradigm shift that transforms mobile commerce. Combine scan and pay with intelligent apps and you have a powerhouse waiting to be unleashed: If you’re paying for something at the register with your smartphone, the retailer may offer you 25% off if you immediately sign up for their credit card, or offer you a heavily discounted scarf to go with your new fall coat. Impulsive shoppers better destroy their smartphones now and pull out the old flip-phone from 2001. The key to merchant success is instant analysis of what you’re buying so they can offer you a complementary or similar item to “buy now”.

Visa, PayPal, Square and Google have been tinkering in this space for quite some time and it looks like their offerings are about to show some fruition. Mobile transactions are already totaling $240 billion annually, but a recent study by Juniper Research reports that by 2015, the transaction totals may reach over $670 billion.

Smartphones, with their built-in carrier service and vast library of available apps, are perfect “wallets” — you always have it with you, and it can securely store your financial information. Some carriers in the US are beginning to test systems that will allow consumers with smartphones that have NFC (near field communication) chips to make purchases by touching the device to a merchant payment terminal. You may be wondering: what is NFC? NFC works like this:

1. A simple connection between two devices is initiated with a physical touch
2. There must be an “initiator” and a “target”. Your smartphone would be the initiator when making a purchase
3. The initiator generates a radio frequency (RF) field with a range of about 4 centimeters
4. The target picks up the RF field and receives the data completing the payment request

But your smartphone is not simply a payment mechanism. Remember the word “smart” connected to the word “phone”. Retailers will be able to offer you loyalty points, coupons, and redeemable items via your smartphone directly before or after your purchase. Starbucks is already doing this with their updated app: buying a latte earns you points that add up to free items.

As is typical in the tech industry, the different players are fighting it out for dominance. Verizon Wireless won’t allow Google’s Wallet on any of their devices, and AT&T was disabling NFC on phones to stop them from using Google Wallet. T-Mobile is piloting its own Isis payment system in Salt Lake City and Austin.

The tech wars will ultimately provide a winner — more than likely multiple systems for quite awhile. Once there is convergence, however, you’ll be the actual winner — and from then on you can leave your over-stuffed wallet with all that old-school paper money at home.

Popchips  the top selling line of popped chips and one of the fastest growing snack brands in the u.s., today announced a month long mobile fashion truck tour, giving snack fanatics the opportunity to dress like a popstar, and snack like one too.

Following the lead from the gourmet food trucks that brought high-end eats to the masses, PopChips teams up with the Bay Area’s first fashion truck, topshelf boutique, to add some flavor to fall for fashionistas of all ages. just in time for the holidays, PopChips presents an exclusive pop-up mobile fashion truck shopping and snacking experience. snackers are invited to pop over to one of the 34 local stops and check out nor cal’s premiere fashion truck, get the popstar look with hand selected affordable styles, get poppin’ with music and prizes all while snacking on complimentary popchips, of course.

The PopChips pop-up fashion truck will make 34 stops throughout northern california including a launch event at BloodHound in San Francisco on Thursday, November 1 from 5-8:00 p.m. During the month of November the truck will pop up at local retailers like whole foods and nugget markets, college and corporate campuses and local neighborhood hotspots from San Francisco to San Jose to Sacramento and beyond. The last two days of the tour are reserved for a “people’s choice pop-up” where fans can suggest the final three locations. for an up to date schedule of where the pop-up fashion truck will be, visit popchips.com/fashiontruck; to view popstar inspired looks by topshelf, visit flickr.com/photos/topshelf_boutique.

what: popchips northern ca pop-up fashion truck tour

when: kicking off on thursday, november 1 from 5 – 8:00 p.m.; additional events extend throughout the month of november

where: kick-off party at bloodhound
1145 folsom st at 7th
san francisco, ca
www.bloodhoundsf.com

who: www.popchips.com/fashiontruck and www.topshelfboutique.com

cost: free

The social business workflow is based on people being able to connect, communicate and share information more efficiently. Collaboration platforms such as Jive, Salesforce.com, and others have not been flexible enough to properly support the rapid transformation to mobile that is occurring in the workforce.

But there are some bright lights on the horizon. At its annual gathering in Las Vegas this month, Jive introduced an extension to their social business platform called Jive Present.

Jive states that “…it’s become a business imperative that teams have an easy, intuitive and controlled way to receive information and leverage social tools to interact with the right content and people. With Jive Present, organizations now have a powerful tool accessible anytime and anywhere.”

Since mobile devices, especially tablets, are entering the business workflow faster than any technology device ever, it’s imperative that companies keep their mobile workers connected to their internal networks. One of the biggest challenges that CIOs face is ensuring that their mobile workforce can seamlessly access important data while keeping that data secure.

By extending their platform beyond the desktop companies like Jive will offer more relevant solutions for collaborating. It’s about time that the burgeoning mobile workforce has the ability to collaborate regardless of their location.

With Halloween less than a week away, this weekend will likely be a big hit amongst costume, candy and party lovers. When you’re out and about celebrating, don’t forget to check-in to your favorite location based application.

Foursquare launched a series of badges, pictured below, that encourage users to check-in to the Halloween festivities they participate in. In order to receive a badge you need to wish friends “Happy Halloween” when checking-in and are welcome to share a picture while rocking out Gangnam Style, showing off your Katniss inspired look or any other costume you choose to wear this year. The company is also offering an extra treat if more than 10 friends check-in together at one location.

Although not all users are incentivized purely by pretty badges, those that are will enjoy the latest additions to their badge collection over the next few days. Have a safe and happy Halloween!

This last weekend, the San Francisco Giants played their hardest and entered into the World Series running.

Monster Products loves the Giants so much, they created limited edition Inspiration Orange headphones and gave them to the players.

As you can see (left) Gregor Blanco, Angel Pagan and Joaquin Aris couldn’t leave the locker room without tweeting a picture of them in the locker room!