NFC potentates payments in Near Future

In the E-commerce world ,NFC in the pool alongside many other payment technologies , we explore a fresh, innovative standing point through a stark comparison of NFC Payments versus all other types of technologies, to measure and plan your future strategy. Originally mobile payments and other mobile services, like mobile banking, relied on text messaging to complete transactions.  NFC offers the best of both worlds. Smartphones let a customer store multiple credit cards and other payment methods all in one device that the customer is likely to carry everywhere with them already. It cuts out the unnecessary hassle of texting or swiping through menus to make payments and yet still offers the security of a credit card. By offering a high level of compatibility with different companies and technologies, NFC can evolve into a one-step payment method that works anywhere the customer wants to make a purchase.

Comparing cross platform development tools

Apache Cordova (Phonegap)  VS Appcelerator Titanium 

The prominent leap in the world of development is cross platform development. The code written once can be built and run any where.  This is greater advantage for both an developer and an business customer. From an business perspective, it saves the development cost and the time to release their product in all platforms . In the desktop application development Java played an very important role in platform independence. Now for the mobile development  there are two solutions that provide their unique way for the cross platform development.They are Phonegap and Titanium Studio . 

Phonegap 

Phonegap is an opensource framework , which helps to develop cross platform apps using HTML,JavaScript and CSS. It supports nearly 7 platforms to build the app with. It also supports many tools and frameworks to develop the User Interface. The best ones will be sencha because it gives you the look and fell of a mobile application. Phonegap also allows you to use the phone features with its in-built API'S and enhance your application.

Appcelerator  Titanium 

On the other hand the Appcelerator Titanium develops native apps using JavaScript . It doesn't support CSS3. Without these two it gives a good performance . It compiles the code with their native IphoneSDK or JVM for android. It also supports more than 15 cloud services to connect your app .

Comparison between both 

	Titanium	Phonegap
Java Script	Yes	Yes
HTML5	Yes	Yes
CSS3	No	Yes
DOM based JS	No	Yes
Native Code	Yes	Yes
Native UI Performance	Yes	Yes

Android Application Security

Application Security Tips 

       The android architecture is a successor of Linux architecture, it uses the same security model. The android architecture has got several levels of permissions to which we can secure our application. To start with every application will have a unique id called user id (UID), created when installing an application. The applications run only on that UID. All permissions, data access, intent messages were sent using UID.  We can configure the permissions to accept or reject the actions done by the application using the UID. The UID is unique and never gets repeated even when you install the same application in any other device.

  The application also has a share user id which helps share the data of the application with other applications developed by the same developer. Each developer has got a digital signature and it bundled when you pack an application. The share user id uses the digital signature and verifies it and shares its data that application.

Configuring share user ID in   Androidmanifest.xml

            <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

       package="com.sencha.portfolio"

       android:versionCode="1"

       android:versionName="1.0"

       android:shareUserId='com.sencha.portfolio.sharedUID"  >     

            </manifest>

Adding the various permissions that your App can use can be determined in the following permissions tab.

Each activity or a process that an application runs can be made private to that process. By default that application will start that process with reference to the UID of an application. If two applications run a same process, to save time and memory we can share it using the share user ID concept.

each activity of your app can be secured in the same GUI 

<activity

 .

 .

 android:name="ActivityNumber95"

 android:process=”com.sencha.portfolio.ShareProcessIDnumber”

       

      </activity>          

Android File system:

    The application runs with its own UID and uses the same for the data storage as well. This design prevents the other applications to access this applications data. It creates the path of storage with the package name and the directory is assigned to the concern UID. This makes the data inaccessible to other applications. The assigned UID act as owner and has got all permission to read or write.

       The application creates the files in the directory assigned and android allows specifying the permissions for the same. This can be done using the function call openFileOutput().

There are three levels of granting access to the files

1)MODE_PRIVATE

2)MODE_WORLD_WRITABLE

3)MODE_WORLD_READABLE.

To make your application more secure we need to use only private mode so that it can be accessed only by the concern application. 

Barclay's Pingit Review

First of all kudos to the app developers.  The idea of making a common app for any bank access is a very innovated  development in the integration of various banks and their accounts. Barclay's  have taken a wide step in this development. Lets move on to the app, The Barclay's Pingit has given a very rapid development in the recent days. Initially it had very limited facilities like checking balance and sending money,but now they had enabled the view to show the various transactions done with the accounts and a separate view for Pingit transactions. 

           

                  The Version 1.2 of Pingit has improved a lot in the various options to see the bank transactions, local branch and share it with various friends. The GUI of the individual views (Bank transactions,show balance, Pingit transactions and other options ) were designed very well but the home view to all these options wasn't impressive. The user wont be given a clear view of various options available in the app.Couple of the options are hidden from the main view but still connected via the main view. The real estate of the user screen hasn't thought properly before the design. On a whole the views were assorted and user needs ample of time to understand the culture of the app. 

With respect to the performance the app  has given its best where it can. The transactions made through the Pingit is ultra fast and it reaches the receiver the next moment. The transactions are made through the mobile numbers connected to the respected accounts and bank. It has made it very easy and secure ,faster than anything. But often the app gets an error because of no connection with the server. Though the device has got enough of service provider signal it fails to make the connection with the server. The app works even in GPRS connections. 

The Pingit app has got enough of security features enabled. It wont store any data in the card . All data directed to device memory . It just store the policy, phone number and app UID. In the latest version released it has crashed the whole app in blackberry device. and it holds up lots of memory. The App also runs in background which is major flows in the security. Any secure App will never be given permission to run in the background.This causes information threat.Even you dont exit the App it has to auto-close itself so that the data security can be maintained.