Mobile Commerce Insider Week in Review

I suppose that you do have to give criminals their due. As technology becomes more sophisticated it seems that hackers and people who want to cause problems always seem to be one step ahead and possibly just a little smarter than the countless number of people trying to prevent them from applying their illegal trade. Case in point is a Russian hacker who figured out how to lock iPhones in Australia. The latest form of attack is a Trojan directed at mobile banking in the U.S. and the U.K.

I guess that the Canadians were waiting to see how their neighbors to the south (that would be us in the U.S.) felt about mobile banking apps before they made a decision. It looks like at least one bank, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, has decided that it is a good thing. The bank is getting ready to introduce a mobile payment app of their own.

Same-day grocery delivery services from Google (News - Alert), Instacart and Postmates are expanding into more cities around the country. They deliver pretty much everything from cereal to bottled water to toilet paper from nearby stores. Instacart recently completed a round of Series B funding which brought in an additional $44 million. This seems to be a service that is quickly gaining in popularity and was a major decision for some of the investors.

Having just watched a 1948 western where people were working on a silver mine and digging for ore, I find it a little difficult to consider the concept of mining for Bitcoin. In any event, there are several companies that are mining sites, one of which is GHash. Something that Bitcoin enthusiasts have always claimed is that due to its decentralized structure, no entity, public or private can gain control over it.  It seems that GHash may be proving that statement to not hold as much weight as everyone thought.

It was not too long ago that Apple (News - Alert) had decided to remove Bitcoin Wallet apps from its iOS App Store. That did not seem to last too long. Coin Pocket, made its debut, or more like a reappearance, this week and has since rose to the number 74 ranking on the list of top free iPhone (News - Alert) apps in the finance category. At the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple quietly updated its App Store guidelines allowing apps that enable the transmission of "approved virtual currencies." Coin Pocket, which lets users send and receive bitcoins, was originally removed from the App Store.

These are just a few of the stories we worked on this week. The best way to stay current is to keep checking in with us. You can stay current by checking out the details to these stories and many more by going to Mobile Commerce Insider and keeping an eye what is going on in the mobile world of commerce.