When looking at how people use money in today’s world, we thought to ourselves, how can we make it better? Circle was started because one day, on the mean streets of New York City, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Stefan Constantinescu could not sell a teenager a dime bag of marijuana because the poor bastard didn’t have any cash. The academically challenged High School student only had a credit card tied to his parent’s checking account. Right then and there, a lightbulb, or more likely an LSD flashback, burned bright over Stefan’s head and he booked the next plane to Silicon Valley where he successfully conned several men out of $10 million in venture capital funding to start Circle.

Circle is a mobile, peer to peer, cloud based payment platform. We looked at what the device landscape was like today and realized that all mobile phones had three things in common: they could send text messages, they had cameras, and they could connect to the internet. Using this knowledge we developed a system similar to Square, but without the need to purchase an extra proprietary accessory. After all, what if Stefan woke up one day with a vicious hangover and left his Square Reader at home? By the time he reached the local High School, full of eager customers, he would not be able to accept their credit cards.

To use Circle simple go to circledown.com and register your name and credit card. Then download our application, available for iPhone, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), Windows Mobile, or Symbian. We even have a J2ME client for all you poor people who can’t afford a smartphone. When you want to accept a payment, simply open the Circle application and enter the amount you wish to collect. An encrypted QR code then appears on your screen. Ask the person making the purchase to launch the Circle application on their device and then snap a photo of the image on your screen.

This is where the magic happens. If your customer has a smartphone then we take that image and transmit it to our servers. After it is decrypted the transaction takes place and both clients receive a notification. If your customer doesn’t have a smartphone because his abusive cocaine habit has left him penniless, then he can still use Circle, all he has to do is snap a photo with the J2ME version of the Circle client, and then the decryption occurs on his device, resulting in a specially formatted text message that is sent to our servers.

We’ve worked hard to made Circle as secure as possible. Unlike Square where you have to physically hand someone your credit card, with Circle you simply snap a photo. If the Russians or Chinese ever decrypt your QR code, then don’t worry about it since each generated QR code is valid for only 30 seconds. If you can’t complete a transaction in 30 seconds, then you need to lay off the smack for a while. Using peer to peer payment models with Circle is safe because both the customer and the seller have devices connected to the cellular network. When conducting a transaction above $20, we check that both of you are in the same location so that no fraud has taken place.

Circle also has rewards. For every transaction that takes place, we’ll donate money towards a charity of your choice. We’ve partnered with the Legalize Pot Now Foundation, Vegetarians Will One Day Rule the World Foundation, The Association of Ridding Silicon Valley of Shitty Startups, and NAMBLA to offer you a wide range of charitable organizations.

We hope to see you using Circle soon, because anything else is just for squares.

Rumor has it (via engadget) that certain Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Motorola DROID customers are receiving the above T-Shirts in the mail today. How cool is that? Moto DROID users, be sure to let us know if and when you receive a T-Shirt… I want to know if this is the real deal, or just a one-off ‘hoax’. Whatever the case, the shirt does look sweet… and I want one

If anyone at Verizon is reading this… Hit me up, my December will not be complete until I get a DROID T-Shirt

Welcome to December everyone… Let’s have a great month.

I promised myself I would keep my laptop shut off this weekend so that I could do some actual reading, as in you know, from a book, but after reading MG Siegler’s piece in TechCrunch titled “In The Age Of Realtime, Twitter Is Walter Cronkite” on my mobile fone, I knew I had to post a response.

Some back story: Tiger Woods, the professional golfer, was involved in a car accident. The news of this incident was first reported by the @BreakingNews Twitter account in a message that said: “BULLETIN — REPORT: FAMED GOLFER TIGER WOODS SERIOUSLY INJURED AFTER CRASH NEAR FLORIDA HOME.” Less than an hour later CNN.com posted one sentence on the subject, saying: “Golfer Tiger Woods was injured in a car accident near his home, Florida officials say.” After some time passes it is revealed that the accident was minor and Tiger Woods is fine, in fact his “injuries” are so insignificant that he walks out of the hospital.

These events inspired MG Siegler to write his piece, arguing that Twitter is the Walter Cronkite of the real time web. He uses the assassination of former American President John F. Kennedy, which took place in 1963, and the method of how Walter Cronkite reported it, bit by bit, as a comparison to the Tiger Woods incident that took place on Twitter less than a few hours ago.

The people in America in 1963 who found out about the assassination of JFK first were the people who were watching one of the three television channels (ABC, NBC, CBS) available at the time. The show they were watching was interrupted with a special report. Walter Cronkite appeared on their television sets, and people started paying attention because the man was trusted by millions during those days. People took what he said as fact because he had integrity. Earlier this year Barack Obama gave a speech at a memorial after the death of Cronkite. He told the story of how Cronkite once worked at a radio station in Kansas City. His boss just received word of a huge fire at City Hall and told Cronkite to report it on air immediately. Walter, being the man he was, went straight to the telephone to contact the fire department and confirm the story, which turned out to be nothing more than a garbage can that caught fire. Because he decided to get the story right, versus getting the story out first, he got fired.

Twitter is Cronkite’s old boss. The information he received about the fire at City Hall was from his wife, and he was just passing it along thinking it was the truth. The people who found out about Tiger Woods’ accident read it because someone, just like Cronkite’s old boss, hit the retweet button. On Twitter, and in today’s world, people tend to believe what their friends say. Everyone is communicating with everyone. Those 3 channels airing in 1963 are now tens of million, blathering on Twitter.

Twitter is just a tool, just like email, just like the telephone, just like the telegraph. The tools people use are insignificant, the people who use the tools are the only thing that matter.

Why am I writing about this? Because everyday we’re making interacting with more and more content, and upon consuming said information we all have to make a decision as to the credibility and importance of that data. In 1963 when Cronkite hit the television waves he understood he was being watched, and depended on, by an entire nation to get the facts straight. The people chose him as an authoritative source because of his reputation, and because he was competing with only two other programs. Today we’re in a strange new world, and we don’t know what information to trust, much less who to trust since we’re interacting with a far greater number of people than in any point in our history.

Thinking critically is a skill, and you’re better off learning how to do that properly than wasting your time on Twitter. Keep that in the back of your mind this weekend and start asking yourself who do you really trust for news, and why?

It was my mom’s birthday the other day. I made my way over to her place to share some after dinner cake and coffee… and of course there was the opening of presents. One curious thing I noticed when she was opening her first gift was something that looked like, well… it looked like a Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre. Upon opening the gift, I kind of raised my eyebrows and asked (like a goofball) ‘Is that a Palm Pre?’. Everyone had a good chuckle and my comments were returned with ‘No, it’s an ink pad you idiot’. Oh.

Judge for yourself. From across the table I thought my mom had received some webOS goodness. Turns out, it was just a black ink pad. Oh Martha, way to take those design cues from the Pre!

Welcome to the last 35 days of 2009. The economy looks like the shit you took when you woke up Sunday afternoon after a weekend of heavy drinking and late night snacks at the kebab stand around the corner, the one owned and operated by the illegal Turkish immigrants living in your neighborhood. American unemployment is in the double digits, and you’ve already stopped complaining about your job since this Thanksgiving you’re thankful that you even have one. How much has technology progressed over the past year? Be really honest with yourself. Except for the iPhone 3GS released a little over 5 months ago, the first device to bring ARM’s latest Cortex A8 processor to market, what has stopped you in your tracks and genuinely impressed you?

Chances are the device in your pocket already does a lot of what the latest high end glitzy smartphones do, albeit a bit slower and on a screen not as nice. If you purchased a smartphone in the last year, it probably has GPS. Go ahead and download Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Maps, which is available for Symbian, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), Windows Mobile, and even Java phones, by typing m.google.com/maps into your mobile browser. Even if your device doesn’t have GPS, cell tower triangulation has become so accurate over the past few months, thanks to the database Google is building of every cell mast on the planet, that you can get by without a GPS enabled handset.

What about email? I bet a majority of you use Google Mail. Type gmail.com into your mobile browser and download the Java client. You get the ability to check multiple accounts, and while it isn’t really push enabled, do you really need to be instantly notified when someone is pokes you on Facebook or left a comment on your wall about how hammered you were on Saturday?

What about web browsing? Opera Mini will breathe new life into your device, I promise you. Go ahead and type in mini.opera.com to grab the latest stable version, or m.opera.com/next to get Opera Mini 5 beta. Opera Mini works by rendering the website you want to visit on a server somewhere in Norway, then it compresses that website by 90%, and finally beams it to your device. It’s fast, really fast, so fast that I use it as my main browser and evangelize it constantly.

But are people going to think I’m out of touch because I use an old device? First of all, fuck people who judge you based on the mobile phone you use. I used to be one of those condescending pricks, but I grew out of that after the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N97 came out. A lot of people I know purchased that piece of junk and made fun of me for sticking to my banged up, but trustworthy, Nokia E71. Many of those people are now regretting their purchase, and I’m just laughing at them, while also enjoying an extra 500 EUR in my bank account.

The first year of the new upcoming decade will be littered with attractive devices, mark my words. Today there is only one device running Android 2.0, and that’s the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid. During February, in Spain, Mobile World Congress takes place, and you’ll see a lot of devices being announced. Devices that pack modern processors, devices that are sexier than what is out today, and devices that will make your friend who got himself something for Christmas on a 2 year contract want to kick himself in the face.

Skip buying yourself a new smartphone this holiday season, unless you have a Motorola RAZR or something. The type of people who read IntoMobile are the people who get a new device every 6 to 12 months. If you want my honest opinion, the best device for you to own this holiday season is the one you already have.

Now turn off your computer, eat some turkey, and go hug your Mom!

I couldn’t resist. A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends and colleagues. Gobble, gobble!

Am I seeing things here? Is that really a laptop stand designed to clip to your steering wheel? Yessir, it is. What you’re looking at is the AutoExec WM-01 Wheelmate. This product was designed as a ‘tray’, but you’ll surely notice how well the thing doubles as a laptop stand.

Of course, this product could never be used while driving… and if you did use it while on-the-move, consider yourself a royal dirtbag for doing such a thing.

A little offbeat I know, but it’s late and I had to share. Steering wheel laptop stand FTW? Not a chance!

[Via: GeekWithLaptop]

Okay, so the question was going to get asked sooner or later, and given we are only a month or so out from the big day, I thought I’d jump in with it:

What Mobile devices/accessories are you planning to buy this Christmas?

There are a few reasons behind me asking the question – one is of course, that this dilemma is faced by many with some kind of gadget-fetish, but also perhaps from a more altruistic perspective, we might be able to help each other with suggestions, if we ‘crowdsource’ everyones plans together! I’ll get it going with some suggestions:

• Devices: The HTC Hero, which I thought was a very good device when I had hands-on time with it, should now be doing the rounds with the Operators at a slightly reduced price, compared to when it came out – that would make it good value if you fancy some Android goodness! Alternatively, if you want Maemo in your life, then the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 is going to slip in to the market just before Xmas it seems. The eponymous iPhone 3GS is also now becoming more widely available (in the UK at least) with Orange now selling it (and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) to join shortly after Christmas).

• Accessories: 2009 has really been a year of Mobile speakers as far as I’m concerned, and Altec Lansing are as good as any. Particularly for me, their Orbit-M speaker was a breakthrough combination of portability and high fidelity. Other accessories I like are cases, and in that respect the recent addition to my accessories grotto is the iPhone 3GS variant of the Beyzacases Slimline Vertical Leather Case.

But never mind me – what are you planning to purchase within the mobile sphere, in the next month or so? It doesn’t have to be for you, it can also be a gift for someone near and hear – but hit us up with a comment and let us know where your hard earned moolah is going this Christmas!

So I was typing away this evening, and thinking about the movie Swordfish – an enjoyable romp featuring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, and of course (who could forget) Halle Berry

There are several priceless moments in that film where the lead characters are spewing techno-babble that is devoid of any joined up thinking – trojans, firewalls, ciphers, you name it – all mashed together in meaningless, cringe-inducing, gibberish. But that’s kind of what makes the movie good!

It got me thinking, there must be some of these types of moments involving mobile devices – and then suddenly a couple hit me – but before I name them, feel free to zing a comment on the end of this piece if you can think of others – as I said, there must be lots, right?

Great moment #1: Die Hard 4.0 (2007) - Justin Long is using a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Communicator, when the mobile networks all drop (as the bad guys are busy taking them down). He turns to Bruce Willis and says something along the lines of surfing the military satellites, and lo and behold, one dodgy cable later, he’s up and running with a mobile data connection!

Great moment #2: Cellular (2004) – a thriller movie, with Kim Basinger and Chris Evans. There’s not a specific moment as such in this film, but they sure do eke out the moment the battery on the mobile phone is running down – it goes on for seemingly forever. As we all know from the irritation of real-world calls, once the battery bleep comes on in-call, you are very soon going to be out of juice!

So what moments can you think of – and no using ‘The Matrix’ as an example please, although there are some quality moments in there too

I’ve reported on the Amazon Kindle International Edition before (here), which is an interesting device, because its packing a SIM card in it that can roam seamlessly across network in Europe – in fact you could argue it’s the main way of acquiring e-books for that device.

Well now there’s another (yes, another) e-book reader, the Bookeen Cybook Opus, which has a couple of interesting traits:

1. Some kind of landscape mode
2. A price-point that is worryingly close to the Kindle

Yep, that’s right, this bad boy isn’t packing 3G data, yet it’s only $40 cheaper – that’s not good, is it?

Right now, from a mobile data connection perspective, Kindle is cream of the crop – but could we see a newer revision of the Opus coming soon, with 3G or WiFi data? Quite possibly.

[Via: e-reader-info.com]