What keeps anybody from starting a cash card? You give me the money, I issue you a card that draws the money from the account. Don’t have to be a bank or a credit card company.
What keeps me from selling cash for you to install in your mobile phone?
Maps with an overlay of the mobile phones in an area show the density of people and their movement. An over lay of a city shows where everybody is and how they are moving about. The Economist even brings up the idea that countries interested in tourism can see which countries visitors spend the day lying on the beach and which ones are in town spending money. Then advertise more in the countries with the higher spenders. M.I.T. appears to have the lead in this technology and is testing it in Rome.
The phone is becoming:
Credit card, carries your cash, your identity, security, ability to make contact, music, access to the WEB and all it’s knowledge so we will say knowledge base, locater (of you or who you are looking for), civic planner……