26/11/2011 Click

turbulence in North Africa. Now, it Where's my wallet? Where's my

wallet? Where's my wallet? There's Welcome to Click. I n Spencer Kelly.

There is only one city on earth which spans two continence and this

week, that is where we are. I am standing in Europe and that is Asia.

They are both Istanbul. This week, Click is in Turkey to check out the

checkout but would you be happy to kiss goodbye to your cash and load

all your credit cards on your mobile phone? Plus it's a big week

for internet freedom in the country and we ask whether the Turkish

government's attempts to offer safer surfing are actually a step

backwards. All that plus the latest to take news and some sharing sides

that maybe music to your ears in Webscape. I'm on my way to one of

the Istanbul's more trendy shopping malls to do was spot of shopping.

Come on, I am paying. The reason I have come here to do what is

because Turkey is one of the first places in the world where you can

go into a shop and make a purchase using just your phone. You select

your purchase, you handed to the cashier - thank you - and you

choose which credit or bank card you want it to charge it to on your

phone and just a touch it to the device on the cashier desk and

you're done. And you very much. Decided uses a technology we've

seen before. It is called Muirfield communication. NFC. And it used a

chip which is activated by radio signals when it is played at near a

reader. You might have seen these used to make a quick low-cost

payments on transport systems of vending machines. The bank and

credit card companies behind the in Turkey up your phone will become

your mobile wallet and charge small purchases to any account you choose

without having to produce a card or enter a PIN number. Those pesky

paper receipts will also be replaced. Each time you make a

purchase, the receipt will be stored digitally on your smartphone

instead. You can also set one of your credit cards as the default if

you do not want the hassle of choosing from your selection each

time. Sounds fast, sounds convenient but despite being around

the years and continually lauded as a replacement for everything from

cash to barcodes, so far, NFC has not taken over the world. But it is

becoming popular in some countries, including here in Turkey. I love

Istanbul. It is such a vibrant place and you really do feel like

you're in a big mix of continents and cultures. Take the signs, for

example. The letters looked European but the words themselves,

not so much. A dry through rush- hour, even in the European part of

the city, and you feel like you're in Asia. -- drive. Sometimes at

technology needs a little chaos to get going. Here and a country which

is still classed as a developing nation where no-one system has yet

become established, new ideas have less of a problem getting excepted.

In the UK orange Germany, banks have a very high penetration rate

in terms of blotches and customers in England, in Germany and other

western European countries. -- branches. They are used to

traditional banking methods so I can go to my right and set up a

direct debit, even online banking. Because in Turkey, the steps that

happen so quickly, customers it didn't need to really get used to

it. And when people use cash, banks and credit-card companies don't get

a look-in. That is something that this replacement for low-cost quick

transactions is designed to address. People can go into the banks to

open checking accounts. We did not have cheques. We moved from Cash

into credit cards. Not everybody can get a credit card because of

credit worthiness. Income Documentation and so forth. Now

what is the time for us to look at youth and women who do not work so

that is one of the reasons why we are trying to utilise NFC contact,

to go into pre-paid cards and debit cards and make those products

attractive for those segments to don't get a credit card but you

still want to do modern banking. Quick transactions like buying a

popular newspaper just by tapping the phone, that is an area where

PayPal helps tremendously because you do not need to take your card

out to pay for something. That is an area where as a business and

financial industry we are not exposed to run that is a big market.

Over the last 20 years, Turkey has developed a love affair with credit

cards. Shops are awash with advertisements for loyalty schemes

for customers to use particular cards for particular purchases. You

hit even use your credit card to send cash to someone else via your

mobile phone, using a function in your Sim menu, you choose the

mobile phone number of a friend in need and a choose a text message

with a special code. They enter that code at any cash machine and

out popped the emergency funds which are charged to your credit

card. You could even use it to text yourself some emergency cash should

you leave home without your wallet. So as NFC struggles to become

accepted in many countries, but did the technology has found a home

here. Shopping for groceries, buying a coffee or a cinema ticket

can be a matter of wafting your contact plus card in the general

direction of the till. In fact, banks loved her convenience of NFC

that they will send you an NFC key ring, as Deagon contact plus card

and would you believe, you can also get an NFC watch. Each of these are

tied into one of your credit cards and they are designed to make

payment that little bit quicker and more convenient. Countries like

Japan and Singapore have been using an F.C. For years. In the US,

Google is hoping its wallet service will become a one-stop shop for all

payments were online or off-line, storing everything from your credit

cards to your loyalty cards. While a new report suggests that contact

list technology will reach a critical mass by 2016 in the UK,

Turkey is Devon at the leading the charge and the West. Now here's a

funny thing. Although NFC is already really well established in

Turkey, it is the mobile phone industry that is having to play

catch-up. There are currently hardly any mobile phones on the

markets that have NFC chips built- in. In order to kick-start that

industry in Turkey, you can retrofit any old mobile phone with

an NFC chip. What you do is get this annexe adaptor and you fitted

behind the Sim card in your phone. -- and F.C.. You can see here is

the radio antenna which works with NFC and on the adapter is a little

bit of software which adds a menu function to your phone. So for

example I've got a pretty basic feature phone here. It does not

have an FC. It has the adaptor racked by but factory which means

if you go to the menu and you scroll down to some functions and

there you can see the option to make the payment to any of the

cards you have linked to your account. But how secure is this

system? After all, if someone steals your cash, at least you know

how much you have lost but if they steal your card, what is to stop a

pickpocket using it over and over again? If someone steals your card

and uses that card to tap into purchases, you only have a limited

number of transactions you can do and also a limited number of

control a match you can spend. That is a risk that the banks are

willing to take because it provides a convenient solution to the

consumer. So will it work? While the older generation may be

reluctant to trade and their cash or plastic, silicon and class, it

is the younger, international- thinking, cinema-going tweeting and

Facebook going population which may help NFC catch on.

What do you think? Will NFC catch on globally or will it always be

confined to individual markets all countries? Let us know. Next, a

look at this week's take news. Pakistan's telecoms agency has

backed down over a proposal it made just a few days earlier banning

hundreds of words including nude, gay and devil. Under heavy public

criticism, it now says it will consult with mobile operators

before deciding whether or not to proceed with the ban. Microsoft's

motion-sensing device Kinect is to receive a makeover. It's being made

available for PCs and will allow gamers in confined spaces to stand

closer to the device. Meanwhile, its voice-activated capabilities

will be far better integrated into the Xbox itself through Bing,

Microsoft's search engine. It's part of an overhaul to the user

interface expected in a couple of weeks' time. Yet more trouble for

RIM as a new study reveals even its core business customers appear to

be abandoning their beloved BlackBerry is in favour of the

iPhone 4S when they upgrade. -- Blackberrys. Meanwhile,

disappointing sales of RIM's PlayBook tablet have prompted a

fire sale in the US, slashing the price tag by more than half to $199.

Still, it's in good company. Google's much-derided Chromebook

has also been discounted by more almost 20%. On which note, this

cupcake maker found she bit of a bit more than she could chew after

she registered an off from that world's biggest daily deal site,

Groupon. Rachael Brown, who own Need a Cake bakery, underestimated

the number of buyers it would attract and found herself baking

8,500 instead of her usual 100 orders. After hiring extra staff to

work extra hours to fulfil the order, she ended up wiping out an

entire year's profits. There's a We have trouble to a lot of

countries on Click and every so often, we find ourselves in a place

where internet access is not as free and easy as we are used to and

not because we cannot get a connection but because access to

certain parts of the net is censored. Turkey is one of those

countries and this week, that censorship is getting much tougher.

These were the scenes back in May, when the Turkish Government first

announced its plans to change the way it altered the web. -- filtered.

Taking the lead from other protests around the Middle East, Turkey's

netizens were encouraged to join the protests which focused on an

upcoming date, 22nd August, a date the media labelled the death of the

internet. The Government was proposing that all net users sign

up to one of four packages offering various levels of filtered access

to the Web. In keeping with current restrictions, even the most liberal

wasn't to be that open, banning erotic sites as well as certain key

words. Anyone trying to circumvent the system by using, for example,

proxy servers would feel the full force of the law. But just months

later, amidst mounting public pressure, the government has

partially backed down. As of this week, the new regulation asks users

if they want to sign up to a safe internet package or carry on

surfing the Web in the same way they'd been used to. Still, that's

cold comfort to its critics. They say as many as 20,000 sites are

already blocked, not just at home but at internet cafes too, and not

just porn but also political sites hostile to the government, as well

as sites offending the sensibilities of the nation. In

2008, YouTube famously felt the wrath of the authorities. The site

was blocked for more than two years after it hosted videos insulting

Ataturk, Turkey's founding father. But the critics argue that until

now, at least banning offensive Turkish sites required that the

government apply through the courts in an open and transparent process.

Under the new measures, that authority will rely solely in the

hands of a small executive committee in the Turkish

communications agency, the BTK, who can simply censor sites at will.

It's a measure now facing strong opposition from a group of

academics. We caught up with one of them, Dr Ozgur Uckan, about his

What concerns you about the new system? The internet is already

censored here in Turkey. Centrally filtering internet, you need a kind

of global system. You need to monitor everybody. We think it's

some 30 million internet users here. The BTK had 200,000 ask them to

filter internet. It is something, 2-2.5% of all internet population

of Turkey. And why they should monitor everybody for this minority,

OK, because they will monitor everybody. They will monitor our

internet use, etc, and it's against law, it's against the constitution.

Because privacy is a constitutional right. The government here disputes

this and says it won't be able to prosecute anybody it monitors as

gathering data is against the law. What kind of sites are we talking

about that you're worried will be blocked that are based here in

Turkey? Mostly they will block a lot of erotic sites, pornography

sites, erotic sites but also political sites, they can block.

And which they can easily define erotic, for example, a social

network of gay people. The problem is that the Government want to

impose a kind of moral value to everybody. Would the solution then

be to simply make it more transparent for the government to

publish a list of sites they've chosen to censor? No, they will not

publish at all and we ask a lot of times with them, using freedom of

information laws, but they didn't respond and it's not transparent at

all. There are several governments around the world that argue they

are simply protecting their population from seeing unsuitable

content. We have a lot of professional tools and if the

government want to protect the population, they can give money

because we have already a lot of funds with the taxpayers. They can

give the money to ISPs and ISPs can buy these professional tools and

offer them for free. Dr Uckan says the solution should not be a

universal block but better education on how to avoid the

internet's more unsavoury areas. You have the pool and you have the

swimmers, OK? You cannot create a very 100% safe pool to everybody.

You have to teach how to swim to people, otherwise you just shut

down the pool and that's all. This is the easiest way to explain.

Another thing, they use this safe internet terminology. It will not

be safe at all. Selling the system as a safe system is a PR tactic

because they will even not use the term filter in their decision.

they are asking people if they want a safe internet package? For me,

the safe internet is a more technical way. You can have

protection for trojans, you have protection about... Viruses,

malware, phishing attacks. This has nothing to do with that. This is

purely for filtering and censoring the internet. Thank you very much.

This is always a hot topic so why not tell us whether you think

governments should ever get involved in internet filtering. Or

do you think that will only ever lead to a politically motivated

censorship? Contacted Beatles coming soon. There are already a

huge number of ways to share your music tastes online. But as the

social web continues to plough through every genre like a

juggernaut Kate Russell has got even more social with her music

sharing. Facebook recently announced a music dashboard that

lets friends see and share what tracks they are listening to. The

music button should now be under your apps menu in your home page

side bar as well as your friends peaks there are songs and Minster

featured music services. It is fair to say that not everybody is a

Facebook fan. Spotify have come under fire from their premium

members for the forced Facebook time. If you consider yourself more

of a Twitter na Facebook, here is a funky tool that is used -- very

easy to use. Relive dot TV is the web address but you cannot even

need to go there to use it. By tweaking the track, the site will

build a YouTube list that can be accessed. The downside is that

there is no click through to by the track and the quality of the video

and sound can be a little ropey if there is not a decent quality on

YouTube. But it is super fast and easy to use. There is one more

application I want to show you. This is for the iPhone. It is a

free download and turns your phone into a radio station. The play list

that need to be made through sound cloud. Then are you start listening

and you are automatically broadcasting. I cannot think of a

better way of listening to the same music as your friends when you are

out and about without disturbing everybody else. No more sharing

headphones if you want to dance along to the same tracks. Sorted.

You can also choose to just listen to a broadcast happening around you.

It is early days so you might not find that much choice, especially

if you were somewhere remote. But there are options. You will always

find something to listen to. If you have a passion for the written word

and like to discover unsigned talent here is a community website

you might get a lot out of. If you have some writing to publish you

can put it here for other people to enjoy a with all the usual features

so you can get feedback. Categories and genres are wide-ranging to

cater for every need, which is great if you have just signed up as

a reader. The social aspects of the site allow you to give feedback on

works in progress. That is valuable for everyone trying to improve

their writing. Finished stories and poems are available through the e-

book store which gives a generous 77% commission. This is a community

website with a homely feel. Google Plus users might have seen their

scores go up on Tuesday as the social media ranking service has

added a Google's fledgling network to their infinite scoring

And finally, up and coming pop punk band with the King's launched a

video version of their latest track this week. The Gaming elements are

not ground-breaking, it is more pomp and circumstance, but the old

school styling might attract a different kind of audience. It is a

good example of getting technology to work for promotion. That's it

from us in Istanbul. Don't forget, everything from the programme is up

on the website. That includes the links. This week click radio

discovers how you teach computers to recognise over one million