What is Host Card Emulation (HCE)? What you need to know.

Making financial transactions using mobile devices is considered to be the next break through in payment. NFC or Near Field Communication was designed and developed to make mobile transactions simple, secure and faster. But NFC dint quite take off as expected due to high cost of infrastructure required to implement this form of mobile payment. Here is when HCE comes into play.

The beginning
HCE was a term created by the founders of SimplyTapp, Doug Yeager and Ted Fifelski, in 2011 to describe the ability to transact with remotely operated smart cards.  They launched their Tapp Near Field Communication payment wallet for the CyanogenMod Android community.

What does it do
In Layman terms, HCE is a technology built into the mobile operating system which is the virtual representation of a smart card using only software. It allows a mobile device to emulate a NFC card to make NFC payments. The benefit of this being the transaction credentials no longer required to be stored within the device, but instead get hosted remotely in the cloud. With HCE, any application on an Android 4.4 device can emulate an NFC smart card, letting users tap to initiate transactions with an app of their choice.

Android and HCE
Since the release of Android 4.4 version, Google has implemented HCE within the Android operating system. Google introduced a new platform support for secure NFC-based transactions through Host Card Emulation (HCE), for payments, loyalty programs, card access, transit passes, and other custom services. With HCE, any app on an Android 4.4 device can emulate an NFC smart card, letting users tap to initiate transactions with an app of their choice. Apps can also use a new Reader Mode so as to act as readers for HCE cards and other NFC-based transactions.

What does this mean
This means that HCE is no a viable alternative to thousands of card emulation projects since no physical secure element is required in the device. This offers more control to the application issuers. Service providers have more business model and partners to work with.

Early Adopters
UKraine's PrivatBank is to launch a cloud based NFC payments service using HCE. The new application namely LiqPay will be available to customers with NFC smartphones running Android 4.4. They will be able to link any Master Card or Visa card to the app to fund payments and make purchases with the tap of their phone at any MasterPass terminal.

Break free with HCE
HCE is the magic that has helped breaking Google Wallet free from carriers and their control over your phone’s secure element. That really gave Wallet the freedom to expand.

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Mergers and Acquisitions. The basics.

In the last few years you would have heard of some major acquisitions by tech giants like Google, Yahoo, Apple and the latest being Facebook. Like always consumers want something fresh every now and then. This generation of tech giants eventually acquire younger more innovative start ups to keep themselves alive. More like a fountain of youth for these old Geysers, which bring us to the topic of M and A.

What is M and A?
M and A or commonly know as Merger and Acquisition, are both aspects of corporate strategy, finance and management dealing with buying, selling, dividing & combining of different companies and similar entities that can promote rapid growth of the enterprise.

In various respects Merger and Acquisitions are quite similar. AS in from a legal point of view, a merger is a legal consolidation of two organizations into one entity where as a acquisition is the process when one organisation takes over another and completely establishes itself as the new owner. In this case the acquired organisation still exists as an independent legal entity although its controlled by the acquirer.

Read more on: Facebook's WhatsApp Acquisition

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Why Facebook purchased WhatsApp? The Real Deal!!!

As you know Facebook stunned the tech world by acquiring WhatsApp for a whooping $16 billion (€ 12 billion approx). An no it wasn't because Mark Zuckerberg's subscription to WhatsApp ran out.

The real real deal behind Facebook taking such a shocking decision would lie in the hands of the youth. Facebook has been facing a issue of declining of pre-teen & teenagers. When Facebook CFO David Ebersman announced a decline in the daily usage from its teen market segment in October 2013, investors showed a loss in confidence in the company which resulted in volatile share prices. Since investor confidence hinges on the revenue potential from all demographic segments; the youthful consumer spending is a large source of earnings for any online platform.

Facebook builds its credibility by promoting products such as fashion, technology and other lifestyle brands on its platform and since the youth consumer spending market make up for more than $200 billion alone in the USA, this causes significant interest to investors and companies the world over. Of lately the grey haired socity encroachment on Facebook has led to a loss of its "being cool" among the youth and there by making WhatsApp a more convenient and "cool" mode for instant communication. Keeping all this in mind Facebook decided to acquire WhatsApp as a part of its plan on M and As.

Got more dirt on this deal? Post it as a comment below.

What is a CMS?

CMS or Content Management System is a program that helps you modify, edit, publish and perform the overall management and maintenance can be performed from a central interface. CMS allows you to manage workflow in a collaborative environment.

Main Use
CMSs are mainly used for Websites involving shopping, blogging, news etc. They can also be used to provide content to certain applications. A CMS can serve as a central repository for storing files like document, movies, audio files, images, phone numbers, scientific data etc.

Simple and Complex CMS
Simple CMS systems have a handful of features while Enterprise (or complex) CMS offer more powerful functionality.

Elements of CMS
Any CMS consists of two parts:
1. CMA
2. CDA

CMA or Content Management Application, is the front end user interface where even a novice user can make basic changes (add, edit, delete) without the help of the web master. A novice user would be one who does not know HTML or any other form of mark up language.

CDA or Content Delivery Application, compiles this content and updates the front end.

Types of CMS

1. Web Content Management System
2. Component Content Management System
3. Enterprise Content Management System

1. WCMS or Web Content Management System manages the can be a stand alone or bundled application to create, store, manage and publish content on web pages. As you all know web content can include image, text, graphics, audio, video and code (as in applications), a web CMS displays this content and interacts with the user. WCMS may index and assemble content at run time. It can even deliver content to specific users/ visitors in a requested way for example in other languages. WCMS allows client control over HTML based content, files, documents and web hosting plans based on the system depth and requirements.

2. A CCMS or Component Content Management System manages content at the lowest and finest level (ie at component level) rather than at document level. Each component represents a single asset (eg: image, table, procedure etc). Components can be as large as a chapter or as small as a definition or a word. The CCMS must not only be able to perform its prime task of tracking  version of topics and graphics etc but also relationships between them. CCMs follows DITA XML standards.

3. ECMS or Enterprise Content Management System organizes documents, contacts, records etc related to commercial organizations. It structures the enterprise's information, manages locations, streamline access by eliminating bottlenecks and optimizes security and integrity.

Best Content Management Systems
1. Wordpress
2. Drupal
3. Joomla

Know more on CMS? Post your knowledge as a comment and we will analyse it and add it to our post.