In lieu of the potential disruptions to the global economy corporations like Defkalion might eventually unleash across the planet, I have a more personal story to tell of the economic disruptive kind. ...Another sign-of-the-times.
A couple of weeks ago I bought an Apple i-Pad for, ahem... business reasons. My wife and I go to science fiction conventions, and we needed a practical way to accept real-time credit cards charges from customers interested in purchasing items from our inventory of goods. The i-Pad, i-Phone (as well as Android compatible devices can now accept Credit Card charges real-time with the use of a tiny little device called "The Square". See: https://squareup.com/ All one needs to do is set up an account with Square. They charge 2.75% based on the total amount charged to the customer. Moneys go directly to a designated bank account of your choice. The service is easy and a lot cheaper to use than previous Merchant Card services I had been forced to use for years. I would call the Square a major economic disruptor within the Merchant Credit Card Services Industry. Most of these other services charge a lot more than what the Square charges. The Square is ideal for small and medium sized mom & pop business enterprises, especially highly mobile ones. Meanwhile, my wife, who had until now always been low-tech, slow-tech, and no-tech, has become completely enamored with the i-Pad. She has finally learned to surf the web via Safari. He is perusing garden & art supply catalogues. She is even asking me to help set her up with her own eMail account. But that's not the worst of it. We subscribe to the Netflix service and I have installed iTunes and the Apple TV "black cube". Both services are accessible on the i-Pad screen via the household WiFi router. My wife is rapidly turning into an i-Pad video junkie. She is currently main-lining the entire science fiction series of FarScape... at least 3 episodic (fixes) per day. We are now fighting over who gets to use the i-Pad. Sigh... guess I'll have to get my own. A Pox on you, Mr. Jobs! Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
