It's interesting how their homepage design 'looks japanese'. The woman's shoes; squeaky clean, almost artificial skin in the hand portraits; the tiled colorful boxes; flat buttons & footer. Something reminiscent of Uniqlo.
"almost artificial skin"?
Square now in Japan
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: Square now in Japan
#32At the HN meetup in Tokyo just last week people were complaining about the lack of something like Square in Japan. I guess things will get better now. Transforming your iPad/iPhone into a register is also pretty neat. I wonder if they'll look into putting an NFC reader in there and interface with all the IC cards here. Most people don't pay for their coffee by credit card.
We were complaining about the lack of Stripe. There have are some Japanese startups, such as Coiney ( http://coiney.com/ ) who are already doing the same thing as Square.
Oh right, Stripe. I was thinking of the payment processing service, and somehow looked at this page and was able to keep cognitive dissonance that that and this POS tool was the same.
Re: Square now in Japan
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coming from somebody who has always wanted to visit Tokyo, I can only imagine what the HN meetups are like.
The HN meetups in tokyo might not be as you imagine. :-) Japan is not as startup-friendly as you might suppose based on the amount of technology that comes out of the country, but things are changing here. In the past few years we've seen a lot more interest in entrepreneurship and startups, VC's, and incubators. We run a casual, low-pressure mixer kind of event about once a month. If you come to Japan, you can follo…
How's the tech meetup scene in Tokyo these days? I'm there 3-4 times a year, but in previous years, I haven't really found much to crash.
Re: Square now in Japan
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is curious, why can it only be entered in hardware? Is it a safety precaution?
Yes, if the pin number is entered into the software running on the phone then that software can easily be changed to log people pin numbers.
True, but eventually the hardware PIN has to become a software PIN that will be transmitted. Why is it more difficult to sniff out hardware PINs?
Re: Square now in Japan
#35It's interesting how their homepage design 'looks japanese'. The woman's shoes; squeaky clean, almost artificial skin in the hand portraits; the tiled colorful boxes; flat buttons & footer. Something reminiscent of Uniqlo.
"almost artificial skin"?
Yeah, look at those last two shots. Lots of retouching, no human hands look like that.
Re: Square now in Japan
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, if the pin number is entered into the software running on the phone then that software can easily be changed to log people pin numbers.
True, but eventually the hardware PIN has to become a software PIN that will be transmitted. Why is it more difficult to sniff out hardware PINs?
The PIN is only transmitted to the chip embedded in the card. If the PIN matches, the smart card chip authorizes the transaction. So the PIN is never transmitted to the card processor, just the authorization message from the card. They only allow specialized tamper-proof terminals for Chip and PIN cards as that's the only place you could sniff the PIN.
Re: Square now in Japan
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
The HN meetups in tokyo might not be as you imagine. :-) Japan is not as startup-friendly as you might suppose based on the amount of technology that comes out of the country, but things are changing here. In the past few years we've seen a lot more interest in entrepreneurship and startups, VC's, and incubators. We run a casual, low-pressure mixer kind of event about once a month. If you come to Japan, you can follo…
How's the tech meetup scene in Tokyo these days? I'm there 3-4 times a year, but in previous years, I haven't really found much to crash.
As I said, it's starting to get more interesting. Sign up for our meetup newsletter and you'll get emailed about events and/or look me up when you come though.
Re: Square now in Japan
#38I'm looking forward to having them launch in the UK! Does anyone here have access to the beta?
I don't think Square can come to the UK in their current form. The card reader, although could technically work, will not be allowed by the credit card companies here. Square would need to make a small chip and pin reader for phones, similar to what PayPal have done. Are confusing Square with Stripe? If so I am in the beta and its brilliant. You can get in the beta by emailing them.
I was indeed confusing the two! Thanks!