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PYMNTS Intelligence research also found that a significant share of consumers are eager for VR to replicate the experience of brick-and-mortar shopping. Specifically, among the 95% of consumers who own or have access to at least one internet-connected device, one-third expressed a high level of interest in using VR technology to shop and buy retail products available in physical stores from their home or office.
From: How Big Tech’s XR Push Could Redefine Both Payments and AI.
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On Thursday (Dec. 12), Google introduced a new Android operating system (OS) built for extended reality (XR) devices like headsets and glasses, citing “years of investment” that will “transform how you watch, work and explore.”
Extended reality (XR) — an umbrella term encompassing virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) — continues to redefine how digital and physical worlds interact.
Google’s XR OS was created in collaboration with Samsung and will first launch on headsets built by Samsung code-named “Project Moohan,” taken from the Korean word for “infinite.”
Project Moohan joins the ranks of multiple XR headsets already available to consumers and businesses, such as Meta’s Quest 3 headset and Orion augmented reality (AR) glasses, the Apple Vision Pro headset and other products such as the XREAL Air AR glasses.
On a fundamental level, the XR landscape presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for payments innovation. XR applications in gaming, eCommerce, healthcare, education, the workplace and beyond will all demand seamless and secure payment solutions that match the promise of these technologies.
From: How Big Tech’s XR Push Could Redefine Both Payments and AI.
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In a February 5 post on X, Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison wrote: “We expected Bridge (go follow them at @stablecoin) to grow very quickly, and we’re nevertheless shocked at just how rapidly adoption is exploding. In the coming years, everyone programmatically moving money will likely want a stablecoin strategy.”
From: Stripe makes $1.1B crypto bet as it closes on Bridge acquisition | TechCrunch.
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Access to financial goods and services is typically correlated with greater financial well-being, as greater access leads to less poverty, lower inequality, more savings, and greater investing [19]. However, increased access, particularly increased access to credit, is not always a net positive as some consumers might be harmed by having more (vs. less) access to credit [20]. For example, a 20-year-old who invested on margin on the Robinhood app died by suicide after seeing a negative account balance of $730,000 [21].
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Mike Orcutt, writing in the MIT Technology Review a while ago noted that opponents of a (currently hypothetical) CBDC cast it as a solution in search of a problem. Their view is, broadly, that dollars are already digital: if you use your debit card, are you not paying with digital dollars? Well, no. You are not. You are paying with a claim on a commercial bank, which is not the same thing at all.
Digital wallets continue to grow in popularity, storing payments, loyalty cards and credentials, but they remain limited in functionality and interoperability. AI-driven personalization, and integration with identity and financial management tools, are transforming wallets into command centers for daily life. Between now and 2030, digital wallets will evolve toward intelligent, proactive assistants capable of managing finances, travel, health records, subscriptions and more, seamlessly integrated into both physical and digital worlds.
From: Racing towards the future of payments from Mastercard Signals | Mastercard Newsroom.
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Mastercard say that digital identity will become “the master key” to a connected world, unlocking access across platforms and borders without exposing personal data, enabled through innovations in biometrics, tokenization and AI.
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Anthropic, the company that made one of the most popular AI writing assistants in the world, requires job applicants to agree that they won’t use an AI assistant to help write their application.
From: AI Company Asks Job Applicants Not to Use AI in Job Applications.
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In theory at least, it seems like a near-perfect business model: airlines can create as many points as they like out of thin air, and then sell them on to banks and credit card companies. They can also sell miles to partner hotels, car rental companies or shops, in effect becoming the central banks of a lightly regulated financial ecosystem.
While airlines can enjoy instant revenue from selling air miles to banks and other third parties, the cost of customers redeeming their points through booking seats is deferred into the future, says John Grant, an executive at airline data company OAG.
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Now the general public may finally be getting access to devices they can use. The AI world is abuzz over agents, which augment large language models (LLMs) with the ability to carry out tasks by themselves. The past 12 months have seen huge leaps in AI multimodal LLMs’ abilities to handle video, images, and audio in addition to text, which opens up new applications for smart glasses that would not have been possible previously
From: What’s next for smart glasses | MIT Technology Review.
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