Tom Howe’s Ernie Project continues to attract attention. The latest two posts on his blog include a high level Ernie Architecture, and some cool brainstorming ideas he’s received by email. I think the PayPal PIN idea is pretty cool. What I want is *P on my phone. The scenario: I am driving somewhere, and need to make a quick purchase. For example — let’s pretend I’ve forgotten my mum’s birthday. So, I call 1-800-FLOWERS, and order a bouquet to be delivered and press *P, plus a short PIN code, to securely transmit payment. This actually happened to me (forgetting her birthday) a couple of years ago, and I actually did this, but instead of *P I had to dig my credit card out of my wallet and dictate the number over the telephone while clutching the card in the center of my steering wheel, and driving on an icy street in the middle of winter.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
