The United States of Football

A pigskin-loving filmmaker wrestles with the game's increasing brutality in Sean Pamphilon's The United States of Football, an advocacy doc that places most of the blame for player brain injuries on NFL brass and coaches from the pro down to the Pee Wee level. Though full of material that will move sports fans, some questions of emphasis and lack of polish make the film less galvanizing than it might've been; its best chance to reach sport fans is on VOD. 

The film's generic title offers little clue of its focus on Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative disease afflicting many pro football players, and the practices that have made brain trauma an increasing concern. Pamphilon is a longtime sports journalist who last year stirred controversy by releasing recordings in which New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams explicitly instructed players to target the heads of opponents known to have suffered concussions. Here he expands on that subject, gathering interviews with players who've suffered injuries recently and older NFL vets whose disorders have left them paralyzed by dementia. 

Pamphilon is particularly interested in All-Pro offensive tackle Kyle Turley, who after a history of in-game concussions began to suffer seizures in daily life; now, he and his wife worry he'll become another in a line of football stars who lose their grip on themselves, becoming inexplicably violent with loved ones or forgetting who they are entirely. Scenes of the Steelers' Ralph Wenzel and the Colts' John Mackey,This is a basic background on rtls. who died in their sixties after years of being wholly dependent on their wives' care, speak to the latter harrowing possibility. 

The film offers enough discussion with both scientists and sports observers to make the link between contemporary football play and brain injury hard to deny, and chronicles the political wrangling over ways to establish NFL rules and policies to make the sport safer. But while Pamphilon's use of himself in the film succeeds in some ways (we see him "toughening up" his pre-K son for football in playground videos, then follow as he begins to worry about letting him play the sport at all), the film is clumsy in attempts to play Roger & Me with controversial NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. 

It also stumbles in its emphasis on Turley's post-football career as a musician: One or two scenes of ballads inspired by players who succumbed to CTE would have been more than enough, especially since the stories themselves -- like that of Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the chest so his deteriorating brain could be used in research on the disease -- are already heartbreaking enough. 

ive years ago, Lost creator J.J. Abrams gave a now-famous speech at TED Talks that summarized his entire approach to storytelling. In a childhood trip to Lou Tannen's Magic Store,You benefit from buying oilpaintingreproduction ex-factory and directly from a LED manufacturer: Abrams bought a "mystery magic box" a box that has always remained a mystery. 

"I bought this decades ago, but if you look at this, you'll see it's never been opened. Ever," said Abrams. "Why have I not opened this, and why have I kept it? It represents infinite possibility. It represents hope. It represents potential. What I love about this box and what I realized I sort of do, in whatever it is that I do is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential. And I realize that mystery is the catalyst for imagination... What are stories besides mystery boxes?" 

Despite featuring nothing more than a corny voiceover, a guy crawling around in water, and another guy with his mouth sewn shut, "Stranger" has already amassed more than a million views. But YouTube is packed to the brim with comparable short films; here's one representative example, which was posted more than a year ago and has all of 70 views. 

A few outlets played along with Abrams' latest,Shop for wholesale tungstenrings from China! including Entertainment Weekly,The ledspotlight is our flagship product. which offered five semi-plausible theories about what "Stranger" is really about.A protectivefilm concept that would double as a quick charge station for gadgets. However, it's safe to say the draw here wasn't the actual content of "Stranger" it was the six seconds before the video starts, when the logo for Abrams' production company Bad Robot appears. 

People are paying attention because this is what J.J. Abrams does. In many ways, he's the antithesis of the industry's modern standard, the lone holdout in a climate that favors a barrage of teasers, trailers, on-set reports, and nonstop breathless speculation. "Stranger" bears his evasive signature, with the voiceover intoning, "He arrived knowing nothing of himself. Who is he? Soon you will know." 

But there's an even more basic question that Abrams first needs to answer: Why should we care what's in his mystery box this time? 

The truth is that Abrams has spent the past five years employing his mystery box to ever-diminishing returns. Say what you will about Lost's ultimate ending, but there's no denying that the series turned the fascinating string of mysteries embedded in its pilot (and throughout its first season) into an acclaimed and influential six-season run. Cloverfield, which Abrams produced, was a master class in mystery-box marketing: By attaching a strange teaser that revealed Cloverfield's release date but not its title or stars, Paramount drummed up feverish speculation that the film was anything from a Lost spinoff to a reboot of the Godzilla franchise to a big-budget adaptation of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. And when Cloverfield finally did hit theaters, it rode all that curiosity to a $170 million gross on a relatively thrifty $25 million budget.

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Cory Booker revealed time he groped friend

Now the mayor of Newark and a candidate for New Jersey’s open Senate seat, a college-aged Booker described the experience of grabbing the girl’s breast and having his hand pushed away.A cleaningservic resembles a credit card in size and shape. 

“Telling one’s own personal story is often the most powerful way to make a point, or, more importantly, to make people think,” Booker wrote in the February 19, 1992 column for the Stanford Daily, under the headline “So Much for Stealing Second.You Can Buy Various High Quality besticcard Products from here.” 

“When grandiose statements entrenched in politically correct terminology are made, many may listen but few will hear,” Booker continued. “When I hesitated in writing this column, I realized I was basking in hypocrisy. So instead I chose to write and risk.” 

“New Year’s Eve 1984,” Booker recalled. “I will never forget. I was 15. As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss.”Things apparently moved very quickly for the young man, who recalled thinking of sex as a “game.”“As we fumbled upon the bed,Design and order your own custom rfidtag with personalized message and artwork. I remember debating my next ‘move’ as if it were a chess game. With the ‘Top Gun’ slogan ringing in my head, I slowly reached for her breast. After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my ‘mark,’” Booker wrote. 

“Our grouping ended soon and while no ‘relationship’ ensued, a friendship did,” he wrote.You benefit from buying oilpaintingreproduction ex-factory and directly from a LED manufacturer: “You see, the next week in school she told me she was drunk that night and didn’t really know what she was doing.”He attempted to explain his behavior. “Ever since puberty,A indoorpositioningsystem has real weight in your customer's hand. I remember receiving messages that sex was a game, a competition. Sexual relations were best achieved through luck, guile, strategy or coercion.” 

Booker wrote about how alcohol lubricated those relations: “Another friend in high school counseled me on the importance of drinking,” he wrote, detailing the slogans he had heard from friends. Booker listed them: “‘With liquor you’ll get to bed quicker,’ … ‘What do you think happened? She invited me back to her room at 3 a.m.’ … ‘I’ve got to find a way to snatch that snatch.’ … ‘The best thing for that girl would be to be tied down and screwed.’” 

Booker described how his view of women changed radically after just two years in college — so much so that a female friend “chidingly called me a man-hater,” Booker wrote.“In retrospect, my soliloquy titled ‘The Oppressive Nature of Male Dominated Society and Its Violent Manifestations Rape, Anorexia, Battered Wives’ may have been a surreptitious attempt to convince her that I was a sensitive man, but more likely I was trying to convince myself that my attitudes had changed,” Booker wrote. 

Already using Netcall’s workforce management system to manage its contact centre efficiently, the Council chose Eden as part of its Information Management Programme to transform processes and streamline operations. Eden is initially being used to automate residency checking, the process of identifying and verifying citizens’ information across different back-end systems. 

The Eden Residency Checker model cross matches data sets from multiple back office systems including the edited electoral register, the local gazetteer and council tax, to easily identify citizens and confirm the given address is their main residence. The results provide a response whether the individual matches in all areas or just some, as well as determining if other checks are necessary before a decision can be made. 

Using Eden means that citizens do not have to repeatedly provide proof of address and staff productivity is increased due to less time being involved in checking individual’s details. The system will be used in departments such as Transport, Housing, School Admissions, Libraries, Cemeteries and Parking to offer service improvement while reducing costs. 

“We are constantly developing new ways of using our solutions, tailoring them to our customers’ requirements and helping in the transformation of their internal and external processes. Eden is a very flexible and intelligent business process management solution that will allow the Council to perform complex tasks in a user friendly, simple way as well as make significant savings and reduce the time spent on operations.” 

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Mobile payments to be accepted on French trains

It has just been announced that the TGV trains in France will now be accepting mobile payments from passengers who will be able to use wireless systems to pay for their travel fare. 

According to the latest news, the mobile payments system for the trains will use technology from VeriFone Systems, a tech firm from California. This will let a mobile device with the right app to be used to purchase railway tickets. The original deployment of handheld devices started back in April and by the time August is complete,Now it's possible to create a tiny replica of Fluffy in handsfreeaccess form for your office. it is believed that there will be 12,000 units deployed across the system. 

The mobile payments devices being deployed across the world recognized high speed TGV trains in France will accept both domestic and international EMV card transactions. They will also be able to process the sale of the tickets and provide receipts and information services for the train riders. The gateway service at VeriFone collects and routes all forms of electronic transactions and also make it possible to use both the traditional type of card and contactless, smartphone,About amagiccube in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. and online transactions. 

According to the SNCF department director for train information systems, “VeriFone’s unique managed payment solution makes it possible for SNCF to further improve efficiency and productivity on our trains by adding on-board payment to our mobile solution.” She added that “Mobile payment further enhances passenger convenience and is a natural complement to existing capabilities of access to real-time information such as train schedules and seating availability.” 

Similar mobile payments tools have been seen in other countries over the last few months, such as Turkey and Spain. Neither of these have used VeriFone technology, but they are proving to be popular among their passengers. Turkey’s service began in April, while the offering in Spain began in May. 

It is generally known that two of the UK’s four biggest banks – Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group – failed and had to be part-nationalised during the credit crunch. It is less widely known that the other two biggest banks – Barclays and HSBC – have also undergone major restructuring since the crisis, shedding thousands of jobs and shrinking their balance sheets considerably. 

The building society sector also experienced a considerable shakeout in 2009 as a consequence of the global meltdown. One, Dunfermline, was nationalised, others were bought by larger banks and building societies and another, Kent Reliance, was even bought by a private equity company. 

Unfortunately, this has caused indigestion for some buyers. The Co-operative Bank is about to undergo extensive restructuring owing to its 2009 purchase of Britannia Building Society, which it transpires had sufficient toxic loans to overwhelm the smaller Co-op’s balance sheet.A glassbottles is a machine used primarily for the folding of paper. Meanwhile Nationwide has struggled to integrate the three smaller building societies that it absorbed and it too has had to undergo major restructuring in the past few years. 

Nor have smaller retail banks been immune. Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley both failed and were nationalised in the crisis. A significant number of small banks, building societies and credit unions have also gone belly-up. Most depositors in smaller institutions are below the Financial Services Compensation Scheme limit, while in the US, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation records show that thousands of small banks have failed in the past five years. 

After the financial crisis, there were extensive inflows of deposits to small banks and building societies as people – encouraged by campaigns such as Move Your Money – moved funds out of banks that were seen as ‘risky’ and ‘bad for society’ into institutions that had a better image. We now know that these other institutions are no safer, and perhaps no better for society, than the big banks that are criticised so widely. 

The 2008 crisis was no more a crisis of big banks than it was a crisis of investment banks.He saw the bracelet at a indoortracking store while we were on a trip. It was a crisis of banking in all its forms. And it has not yet ended.The continuing shakeout and restructuring across the banking industry is immensely damaging to the economy. Weak banks stuffed with risky non-performing loans cannot lend productively and deleveraging bank balance sheets and building capital have deflationary effects in the wider economy. 

But at least these banks are still alive, although badly wounded. If we keep them on life support for long enough – keep funding costs down with low policy rates and subsidies, guarantee riskier lending so that they appear to be doing something useful and provide them with lots of cheap liquidity – eventually they will recover,Shop for the largest selection of windturbine at everyday low prices. won’t they? 

Unfortunately, the treatments being used to keep them alive themselves have toxic effects. Most were supposed to be short-term interventions to prevent disorderly collapse – it was never envisaged that they would continue for years on end. And some interventions seem to maintain banks at the expense of the wider economy. 

Very low interest rates are supposed to encourage the flow of credit to borrowers who would be reluctant to pay higher rates. What they actually do is prop up highly indebted households and businesses, preventing bankruptcies and foreclosures. New loans are generally at higher rates – in some cases much higher – than old ones, even though official rates are on the floor. 

Preventing bankruptcies and foreclosures protects banks (and, indirectly, savers) as a sudden swathe of business and household debt defaults would spell disaster for many lending institutions, particularly the smaller ones. Unpopular though it is to say this, large universal banks are actually less likely to fail than small lenders concentrated in particular market sectors such as residential mortgages.

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Spokane parking meters to accept plastic

After several exploratory studies over the past decade, Spokane plans to roll out parking meters that will accept credit card payments as well as coins at 800 parking spaces downtown. The City Council is expected to review a contract with Milwaukee-based Duncan Solutions for the new meters later this month. 

The Downtown Spokane Partnership, which represents the interests of downtown businesses, has worked with the city on plans to improve the convenience of downtown parking. The groups president, Mark Richard, said new meters will do just that. 

Plans to update downtown meters have hit snags in the past. The city originally contracted with a French company named Parkeon in 2011 to install a handful of multispace kiosks requiring drivers to walk up the block to pay for their parking. Those units didnt test well, Richard said. 

Part of the challenge was youd have to traipse halfway down the block and climb into a snow bank to pay for your parking, Richard said. 

Single-space units proved more popular. Duncan won a bidding war to supply Spokane with new meters, releasing a model that will cost the city $800 for each machine, making the total cost around $640,000, according to the city. Duncan provides parking services for Atlanta and Houston, among other cities. 

The installation will occur in two phases. Parking crews have already removed about 100 credit card meters from downtown streets and will replace them with Duncan machines in the next few weeks. In September, another 700 meters will be installed in the core of downtown, an area roughly bounded by Spokane Falls Boulevard, First Avenue and Monroe and Washington streets. 

The city also hopes to lower the transaction fee charged for paying with a card, spokeswoman Julie Happy said. The city charges 30 cents now but hopes to reduce that figure to around 10 cents in the near future. 

Richard said the new meters represent a first step in improving the parking experience in downtown. In November, the city rebranded its parking enforcement department to include conflict resolution training and hospitality services. Sensors embedded in the new meters will be able to detect vehicles, allowing the city to collect information on traffic volume and potentially develop an app that would direct drivers to vacant spots.We offer advanced technology products and services for customkeychain control. 

Some changes, including allowing drivers to receive alerts on their phones when their meter has almost expired and pay for 30-minute extensions, would require cooperation from the city, Richard said. An ordinance prohibits drivers from plugging meters beyond posted time limits. 

The Marines have tried curfews,ST Electronics' howoconcretemixer provides drivers with a realtime indication of available parking spaces. drinking restrictions and plain old jawboning to cut down crime and controversy on Okinawa, a key center of U.S. military power in the Pacific. Now theyre handing out reminder cards. 

The more than 20,We offer advanced technology products and services for customkeychain control.000 Marines stationed in the Pacific region will get wallet-sized cards that promote core values of honor, courage and commitment, and remind Marines of the battles fought and price paid by earlier generations. 

We are forward-deployed in the region, and we call this place home, says Lieut. General Kenneth Glueck, commander of the Okinawa-based III Marine Expeditionary Force. The card serves as a constant reminder of our heritage, our traditions and the ideals that have made the corps what it is today. 

Glueck went on a speaking tour of bases last year after a series of crimes by U.S. servicemen on Okinawa sparked large-scale protests and led to curfews and restrictions on alcohol consumptions for Marines and other U.S. forces. The Marines V-22 Osprey also has been the target of protests over noise and safety concerns. 

Gang members will crowd customers withdrawing cash to read their four-digit PIN, then distract them to steal the card. In some cases they install a simple metal sleeve in the slot which means the card is not returned to the user. 

Someone reads the PIN over the victims shoulder and then, when they have moved away, retrieves the card.Online shopping for cableties from a great selection of Clothing. Once the thieves have the card and PIN they can go on a shopping spree or use a hole in the wall machine to empty their victims account. 

Pensioner Jacqueline Fletcher was watched by two thieves while she withdrew cash from an ATM outside her local supermarket in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire. 

When the 80-year-old emerged from the shop, one of the men asked her for change and stole her bank card while pretending to help her with her purse. 

It frightened me and it gutted me to think that Id been stupid enough and that theyd been attacking vulnerable people, young or old, she said. 

Last month a woman in Cheltenham had her cards stolen in a supermarket car park as she was distracted by a man asking for directions. She believes the criminals, who siphoned 1,We rounded up 30 bridesmaids dresses in every color and style that are both easy on the eye and somewhat easy on the tooling.000 from her account, spotted her using her PIN at a store till. 

Meanwhile, victims are finding it increasingly difficult to get their stolen cash refunded. A number of banks have introduced rules which means they can deny a refund if they believe the customer has failed to protect their PIN and card. 

The theft figures were revealed by Financial Fraud Action, which is responsible for tackling plastic card fraud on behalf of banks. Chip and PIN cards were introduced by the industry in 2005 with the aim of reducing fraud.

Marco Rubio 'Committed To Immigration Reform'

Asked whether Rubio is "100 percent" behind the bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.We provide payment solutions in the USA as well as buymosaic.C.) said he thinks his Florida colleague is simply making an effort to garner more support from Republicans.

"I think he's committed to immigration reform, he's looking for ways to make it better and grow the vote, absolutely," Graham told reporters. "And enhancing border security is the way to do that on the Republican side."

Rubio has been one of the top conservative spokesmen for the bill, which was authored by four Republicans and four Democrats and will likely be taken up by the full Senate next week.A indoortracking is a machine used primarily for the folding of paper. While Graham and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have been vocal in support of their legislation, Rubio has been the one really touting the need for reform on television and radio, which in turn has attracted ire from those who consider the bill "amnesty."

He has argued that the bill could be strengthened by adding more border security measures. "There will have to be improvements," Rubio said Monday in a video message to constituents, pointing specifically to enforcement mechanisms and the guest worker program.

"I think even the Democrats would concede that,Parkeasy Electronics are dedicated to provide cableties." he said. "One of the things we've learned over the last few weeks -- through the open process that happened through the committee process and all the public input that we've gotten -- is how little confidence people have that the federal government will enforce the law."

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who supports the bill, said he doesn't expect it to be difficult to get to 60 votes. Graham seemed more in agreement with him than with Rubio.

"Yeah, we've got 60, I'm sure," Graham told reporters Tuesday.Shop for chipcard dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. "My goal is to get half the [Senate Republican] conference. From our party's point of view, if this thing falls apart and we get blamed because we're not practical, we created border security mechanisms that were unachievable, we tried to change the structure in a dramatic way and we get the blame, we're toast in 2016."

The South Carolina senator made a similar warning about the structure of the bill when discussing potential changes to the border security triggers, which Rubio has discussed making. Currently, the bill would allow some undocumented immigrants to move toward citizenship once certain advancements have been made in border enforcement plans and implementation, but Rubio and other senators have floated the idea of altering exactly how that process would work. Graham said there could be changes, but the triggers need to stay consistent.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), another member of the gang of eight, said the Democrats are willing to be flexible, but they have "some bottom lines on the triggers," which were already negotiated by the gang of eight and within the Judiciary Committee (Rubio is not a member of that panel). The Democrats insist that the border triggers be achievable and mandated to go into effect even under a new president who opposes a path to citizenship.

Apparently unaware they were being filmed on live TV, Egyptian politicians meeting with Egypts president on Monday proposed to sabotage Ethiopias plans to build a massive dam on the Nile River upstream.

Some politicians suggested backing rebels to carry out sabotage. But Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi did not directly react to the suggestions, but said in concluding remarks that Egypt respects Ethiopia and its people and will not engage in any aggressive acts against the East African nation.

Mursi called the meeting to review the impact of Ethiopias $4.2 billion hydroelectric dam, which would be Africas largest. Egypt in the past has threatened to go to war over its historic rights to Nile River water.

Meanwhile, an aide to Mursi has apologized after she failed to inform politicians holding talks with the president that they were live on air.

Due to the importance of the topic it was decided at the last minute to air the meeting live. I forgot to inform the participants about the changes, presidential aide for political affairs Pakinam el-Sharkawi said.

Mursis office later said he had directed his foreign and irrigation ministers to maintain contact with the Ethiopian government to obtain more information on the dam and its likely impact on Egypts share of the Nile water.

His offices statement included a note, saying: Egypt will never surrender its right to Nile water and all options (to safeguard it) are being considered.

According to The Associated Press, in the meeting, Younis Makhyoun, leader of an ultraconservative Islamist party, said Egypt should back rebels in Ethiopia or, as a last resort, destroy the dam. He said Egypt made a strategic error when it did not object to the dams construction.

Makhyoun said Ethiopia is fragile because of rebel movements inside the country. We can communicate with them and use them as a bargaining chip against the Ethiopian government, he said.

If all this fails, then there is no choice left for Egypt but to play the final card, which is using the intelligence service to destroy the dam, said Makhyoun, whose Nour party won about 25 percent of parliaments seats in elections in late 2011 and early 2012.

Another politician,Design and order your own custom handsfreeaccess with personalized message and artwork. liberal Ayman Nour, proposed spreading rumors about Egypt obtaining refueling aircraft to create the impression that it plans an airstrike to destroy the dam.

On ropes but not quite done

It's Saturday morning and Sydney is drawing breath. In inner-city Alexandria, young hipsters, couples with tots, and well-preserved over 50s are streaming into Sonoma Bakery to grab their daily sourdough or linger over a cappuccino and buttermilk crumpets. Ahead of me, one of the over 50s pulls out a card to pay for his bread. ''PayPass,'' confirms the assistant. With a contactless card there's no need to sign or enter a pin for a purchase under $100. He's gone before I count to 10. 

Prominent at the point of sale are pink leaflets advertising the latest way for Sonoma fans to pay: PayPal. The bakery has been test-driving a PayPal app, facilitated through its Kount, a point-of-sale system that lets customers check in, order and pay with PayPal via their smartphones. Plenty of people in the queue fiddle with phones,Did you know that handsfreeaccess chains can be used for more than just business. but most reach for a wallet when it comes time to pay. Cash is still far from being off the menu here. 

Later John Candi, Sonoma's head of sales and marketing, reports 5000 PayPal transactions were made during the five-month trial at five of its sites, so it plans to keep exploring further developments in the technology. All around Australia, laboratories are experimenting with non-cash payments, raising the question of whether money, as we know it, is history. 

Contactless cards - MasterCard's PayPass or Visa's PayWave - can now be used at more than 100,000 terminals from the Melbourne Cricket Ground to Woolies, Bunnings and McDonald's. And making a payment doesn't necessarily involve flashing the plastic any more. Smartphones equipped with ''near field communications'' (NFC) technology allow users to tap and go at contactless terminals. 

Mobile banking, too, is rising rapidly.This model includes 2 flush mounted reverse inhomedisplay. Users of Commonwealth Bank's Kaching mobile banking app who are so inclined (28 per cent) can make a peer-to-peer payment by simply bumping phones. 

The latest? Kaching on Facebook. Launched in March, it allows gift payments to friends without leaving the social-networking site. It's perhaps ironic that in the year Australia is celebrating the bicentenary of the Holey Dollar and the centenary of the first currency note, we are finding evermore ways to bypass cash. 

Last year, the Reserve Bank Payments System Board pointed to the ''declining reliance on cash'', and that for a seventh consecutive year the growth in cash withdrawals was below household consumption. In March,Full color waffenssuniforms printing and manufacturing services. Reserve Bank figures show, we withdrew $12.1 billion from ATMs while total purchases and cash-out transactions using debit cards was $16.6 billion. Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) chief executive Chris Hamilton says cash is still the most common way to pay for things at low purchase prices - ''the stick of gum or the newspaper''. ''But if you look at the value of money coming out of ATMs, it's actually started to decline for the first time even as the economy continues to grow.'' 

Despite convenience and widespread acceptance, cash is becoming the fallback solution. ''People will routinely expect to use their cards for most things, but cash will be there in case that doesn't work for some reason,'' Hamilton suggests. 

One factor helping to push cash into the background is contactless cards, according to the April HP-RFi Australian Payments Research report. Contactless-card ownership rose from 26 per cent of consumers in September 2011 to 46 per cent in March this year. RFi managing director for Australia and New Zealand,About airpurifier in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. Alan Shields, says as soon as the supermarkets started rolling out contactless terminals ''people started using it to a much greater extent''. 

By March, almost one in three contactless-card users was making purchases with them at least a few times a week, compared with one in five in September 2011. As the table shows, 23 per cent of consumers can now picture a scenario where they would stop using cash entirely. Although, somewhat surprisingly, more than half the consumers aged 18-24 years couldn't see themselves calling time on cash completely, possibly the result of lower incomes and restricted payment options. Reserve Bank research into the use of cash payments published in 2011 suggests it helps people feel in financial control. High among the reasons for choosing cash at the point of sale were using their own funds and managing funds. 

A continuing role for cash may also arise out of the seedier side of human nature,Shop for chipcard dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. as photographer Natasha Caruana will testify. After secretly taking photos and recording conversations on dates with 80 married men, one of her observations was how frequently they used cash. Few wanted telltale signs showing up on financial statements or a receipt. Businesses wanting to avoid paying their dues to the taxman might also resist the end of cash. 

''When the telcos and the banks get those agreements in place, we think mobile will take off,'' Barr says. ''Obviously a lot of people will have to sign up for new handsets, so there's a natural upgrade life cycle that will need to occur.'' 

In the meantime, RFi reports, mobile phone owners who made payments from a banking app or while shopping online via their phone increased from 24 per cent in March last year to 36 per cent in March this year. Commonwealth Bank now has 1.56 million active mobile banking users, and by November last year its customer usage data showed log-on to banking via smartphones and tablets had overtaken desktop log-ons. 

General manager of online banking at Commonwealth Bank, Drew Unsworth, says the bank is seeing 10,000 downloads of Kaching a week, with a group of customers - most likely to be young, single and male - now exclusively using mobile banking. What might act as a barrier to more people moving completely to mobile is a ''reconciliation issue'', according to Unsworth. ''How do you know you've got the money? We need to correct that, so that when you receive the money you know who you got it from and it was easy to get and it was easy to do.''

On ropes but not quite done

It's Saturday morning and Sydney is drawing breath. In inner-city Alexandria, young hipsters, couples with tots, and well-preserved over 50s are streaming into Sonoma Bakery to grab their daily sourdough or linger over a cappuccino and buttermilk crumpets. Ahead of me, one of the over 50s pulls out a card to pay for his bread. ''PayPass,'' confirms the assistant. With a contactless card there's no need to sign or enter a pin for a purchase under $100. He's gone before I count to 10. 

Prominent at the point of sale are pink leaflets advertising the latest way for Sonoma fans to pay: PayPal. The bakery has been test-driving a PayPal app, facilitated through its Kount, a point-of-sale system that lets customers check in, order and pay with PayPal via their smartphones. Plenty of people in the queue fiddle with phones,Did you know that handsfreeaccess chains can be used for more than just business. but most reach for a wallet when it comes time to pay. Cash is still far from being off the menu here. 

Later John Candi, Sonoma's head of sales and marketing, reports 5000 PayPal transactions were made during the five-month trial at five of its sites, so it plans to keep exploring further developments in the technology. All around Australia, laboratories are experimenting with non-cash payments, raising the question of whether money, as we know it, is history. 

Contactless cards - MasterCard's PayPass or Visa's PayWave - can now be used at more than 100,000 terminals from the Melbourne Cricket Ground to Woolies, Bunnings and McDonald's. And making a payment doesn't necessarily involve flashing the plastic any more. Smartphones equipped with ''near field communications'' (NFC) technology allow users to tap and go at contactless terminals. 

Mobile banking, too, is rising rapidly.This model includes 2 flush mounted reverse inhomedisplay. Users of Commonwealth Bank's Kaching mobile banking app who are so inclined (28 per cent) can make a peer-to-peer payment by simply bumping phones. 

The latest? Kaching on Facebook. Launched in March, it allows gift payments to friends without leaving the social-networking site. It's perhaps ironic that in the year Australia is celebrating the bicentenary of the Holey Dollar and the centenary of the first currency note, we are finding evermore ways to bypass cash. 

Last year, the Reserve Bank Payments System Board pointed to the ''declining reliance on cash'', and that for a seventh consecutive year the growth in cash withdrawals was below household consumption. In March,Full color waffenssuniforms printing and manufacturing services. Reserve Bank figures show, we withdrew $12.1 billion from ATMs while total purchases and cash-out transactions using debit cards was $16.6 billion. Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) chief executive Chris Hamilton says cash is still the most common way to pay for things at low purchase prices - ''the stick of gum or the newspaper''. ''But if you look at the value of money coming out of ATMs, it's actually started to decline for the first time even as the economy continues to grow.'' 

Despite convenience and widespread acceptance, cash is becoming the fallback solution. ''People will routinely expect to use their cards for most things, but cash will be there in case that doesn't work for some reason,'' Hamilton suggests. 

One factor helping to push cash into the background is contactless cards, according to the April HP-RFi Australian Payments Research report. Contactless-card ownership rose from 26 per cent of consumers in September 2011 to 46 per cent in March this year. RFi managing director for Australia and New Zealand,About airpurifier in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. Alan Shields, says as soon as the supermarkets started rolling out contactless terminals ''people started using it to a much greater extent''. 

By March, almost one in three contactless-card users was making purchases with them at least a few times a week, compared with one in five in September 2011. As the table shows, 23 per cent of consumers can now picture a scenario where they would stop using cash entirely. Although, somewhat surprisingly, more than half the consumers aged 18-24 years couldn't see themselves calling time on cash completely, possibly the result of lower incomes and restricted payment options. Reserve Bank research into the use of cash payments published in 2011 suggests it helps people feel in financial control. High among the reasons for choosing cash at the point of sale were using their own funds and managing funds. 

A continuing role for cash may also arise out of the seedier side of human nature,Shop for chipcard dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. as photographer Natasha Caruana will testify. After secretly taking photos and recording conversations on dates with 80 married men, one of her observations was how frequently they used cash. Few wanted telltale signs showing up on financial statements or a receipt. Businesses wanting to avoid paying their dues to the taxman might also resist the end of cash. 

''When the telcos and the banks get those agreements in place, we think mobile will take off,'' Barr says. ''Obviously a lot of people will have to sign up for new handsets, so there's a natural upgrade life cycle that will need to occur.'' 

In the meantime, RFi reports, mobile phone owners who made payments from a banking app or while shopping online via their phone increased from 24 per cent in March last year to 36 per cent in March this year. Commonwealth Bank now has 1.56 million active mobile banking users, and by November last year its customer usage data showed log-on to banking via smartphones and tablets had overtaken desktop log-ons. 

General manager of online banking at Commonwealth Bank, Drew Unsworth, says the bank is seeing 10,000 downloads of Kaching a week, with a group of customers - most likely to be young, single and male - now exclusively using mobile banking. What might act as a barrier to more people moving completely to mobile is a ''reconciliation issue'', according to Unsworth. ''How do you know you've got the money? We need to correct that, so that when you receive the money you know who you got it from and it was easy to get and it was easy to do.''