Author Archives: talgolan

Magensa.net eTailer Advisory Board

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Excellent news… Tom Patterson (CSO • MagTek, Inc.) has invited me to join the Magensa.net eTailer Advisory Board. If you don’t know Tom Patterson and/or MagTek you should take a moment to check them out. Needless to say, I have accepted the invitation.

It is clear how MagTek’s MagnaPrint technology can, and will, make counterfeit credit card fraud a “thing of the past” for traditional “brick & mortar” merchants; you know, the folks like Target, WalMart, BestBuy, etc. who do the vast majority of their transactions as “card present.”

However, let’s not forget how important eCommerce has become over the course of the last decade. Did you know that Amazon.com did almost $19B (as in billion) dollars of transactions in 2008?

The Magensa.net eTailer Advisory Board has been established by Tom Patterson (CSO • MagTek, Inc.) with the expressed mission to work with eTailers; those of you who don’t currently get the benefits and reduced costs of “card present” transactions, to help bring MagnaPrint technology to your businesses. We are here to help reduce your transactional costs and eliminate the scourge of charge-backs caused by counterfeit credit card fraud.

[Originally posted by Tal Golan @ Security.MagTek.com]

Apple is getting into the map business!

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Thanks to some good detective work on the part of Seth Weintraub from ComputerWorld, it looks like our friends at Apple have spent some of that cash they have sitting around to get themselves into the map business. What’s particularly interesting, and perhaps important/significant, is how this move clearly puts Apple and Google at odds over who should provide mapping software/data on the iPhone, iPod Touch, etc. Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last couple of years, you know the business of mapping has become massive. Mapping software and the tiles (a.k.a. the maps themselves) not only help people get from point-A to point-B, they are key when it comes to driving local commerce.

Here is some background from CNet (http://bit.ly/apple_placebase_20091001) on the Apple acquisition of Placebase.com.

I don’t think it takes a genius to see that Apple wants Google’s mapping software off the iPhone platform. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aside from Google Maps, does Apple have anything from any other company that comes as part of the base/default application set?