Credit card. Debit card. Gift card. Loyalty card. Membership card. Second credit card. Your wallet has way too many cards in it.
Coin has a plan to get people to stop fumbling with all that plastic. On Thursday, the seven-person startup in San Francisco introduced an all-in-one card, also called Coin, meant to store financial information from every other card carried in a wallet. The device is available for preorder.
Mobile payments remain a much sought-after nut to crack for technology companies both large and small. Any firm able to facilitate person-to-person or person-to-business transitions at mass scale stands to gain significant profit off those payments. Square, another San Francisco-based payments company founded by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, is rumored to be seeking an initial public offering to raise more money to expand.
Coin is fabricated with a patent-pending magnetic strip that can change depending on what card one wants to use. The battery in Coin, said to last up to two years, powers a small display screen that shows which saved card will be charged, along with its expiration date. Cards are entered into Coin after being swiped on a Square-like dongle plugged into a smartphone.
Kanishk Parashar, the CEO and founder of Coin, is also hoping to solve the age-old frustration of leaving a card behind at a restaurant. Coin uses low-energy Bluetooth technology to stay connected to a smartphone. If the owner drift too far from Coin, his or her smartphone will alert them. If the card is disconnected for more than 10 minutes, it automatically disables itself, which could potentially be an issue if a phone runs out of juice.
Coin can be preordered for $55, with an expected delivery time of 2014. Later, it plans on selling the cards for $100 each.
By Roberto Veronese, Creative Director, frog San Francisco
The use of digital banking and electronic payments is expanding in many countries, as consumers embrace technology that facilitates financial services. Yet in Russia, people still cling to cash for most of their financial needs. In fact, more than 90 percent of all commodity purchases are in cash, according to the Bank of Russia, and the country loses over one percent of its annual GDP due to the huge amount of cash circulating and its maintenance costs. This poses a challenge to financial institutions, like Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, which is eager to transition customers to digital services. Sberbank asked frog to envision product and service concepts that could effectively support that transition.
We began our work with extensive qualitative research in the field, investigating the deeply personal reasons why cash remains so popular among customers in Moscow. "I cannot go around without cash," a young, wealthy and tech savvy Muscovite told us, while shopping at GUM, the city's main department store. This was a typical response, even for younger Russians who are regularly online. More than half the population uses the Internet at least once a week, and appreciates the convenience of new digital tools to browse for information and media content. Yet in some cases these technologically sophisticated consumers refuse to open a bank account, preferring instead to pay their bills with cash at ubiquitous payments kiosks, despite the high commission applied to these transactions.
We found a number of reasons for this reluctance to adopt digital banking and electronic-payment services. Foremost is the fact that only a small number of merchants accept credit card payments, due to charges of up to 4 percent on the seller's side and widespread tax evasion. Meanwhile, salaries are still largely paid with cash, despite the introduction of "salary cards" issued by a bank chosen by the employer. This is the main type of card issued in Russia, which on payday contributes to an extremely high volume of cash withdrawals that are usually not transferred to bank accounts.
Moreover, the stories we heard from Russians suggested a broad lack of trust in banks and other formal institutions, an attitude that dates back to the Soviet era. Russians tend to rely on their immediate social circle because social and family ties are extremely strong. If you need credit, most Russians would tell you, it's better to ask friends and family. "Friends understand more than banks," one middle-class person told us. "There are no hidden terms and conditions, and no pressure to pay on schedule." Even big purchases, like a car, were paid for with bags of banknotes, people said.
Finally, we heard from Russians that "cash is easier" while current digital services are intimidating. With few exceptions, middle-class customers acknowledged a lack of understanding and bad experiences using their banks' digital tools. Just by walking into any bank branch in Moscow we could see the consequences of this: even younger customers prefer spending hours in line to complete traditional operations like bill payment, because online services are too obscure or complicated. Typical comments from people standing in long bank lines included "I'm too busy, and I don't have time to learn about new tools" or "I'm afraid to make mistakes [online], too complicated."
Our qualitative research became the foundation for the creation of six archetypal customers comprising a spectrum of behavioral patterns based on two factors. One was financial and digital literacy, which is influenced by age and education, while the second was affinity for sophisticated products, which closely correlates with social status and personal preference.
Archetypes with significant financial literacy and high understanding of sophisticated tools were more attracted to higher interest rates on deposits and self-service solutions that provide a wide range of tools, control and security. In this group, high spenders in areas such as traveling and socializing were keen to learn about new ways to help them earn and spend smartly, but they didn't have too much time to figure out all the details. They tend to act as key influencers on their families and peers.
The archetype representing those with less confidence in advanced tools were looking for simple, essential ways to better manage day-to-day finances and support for savings and mortgages. Money transfer and sharing account information are recurrent needs, especially among families.
For those classified as social elites, who tend to delegate their wealth management to third parties, there is a demand for highly personalized finance solutions as well as products that demonstrate their premier social status. At the other end of the spectrum are people resistant to change who are not technologically savvy and have simple banking needs. Transactions tend to be routine and restricted to a few basic functions, usually offered by self-service terminals accepting cash. While it might be difficult to completely transform this group's behavior, education and improving the self-service experience could help alleviate their dependence on cash and branch services.
Building on these findings, frog devised several new product and service concepts designed to move customers from predominantly cash transactions and traditional bank branch services to the safety, security and convenience of digital banking and electronic payments. These strategies empower and educate customers across multiple touchpoints. They redefine the experience of saving money and accessing credit by anticipating financial needs according to major life events, and provide not just information but also guidance. Online banking was extended beyond personal-finance management to commerce, while electronic payments and bill payments represented two other key focus areas.
The design concepts developed by frog have become initiatives that are currently being developed by Sberbank and will be rolled out incrementally across the country. King cash, you have been warned.
Roberto Veronese is Creative Director at frog San Francisco, where he shapes strategies and designs for innovative products and services in a broad range of industries and markets (US, EU, MENA, CIS). Twitter @robveronese
Suspicious0bservers just uploaded a video
Login 
Interview recorded 11/2/2013
Discussion on this interview is in the forum.
Audio below and as a Podcast. Video coming soon.
When the focus on awakening became absolutely urgent, Michael found a living, local teacher in Adyashanti. In 2006, upon hearing the words of Adyashanti, the inquiry culminated in an irrevocable shift of consciousness. This timeless realization opened the doors of immense grace, clarity, and silence. In time, it also brought forward all the remnants of ignorance, pride, and fear that still animated the now rather split personality. The following years served to reveal the implications of truth in all areas of life, as the mind and body went through unprecedented adjustment.
Michael now speaks about the nature of spiritual awakening and true happiness. His talks clarify what it means to face our suffering nakedly without strategy and manipulation, recognize our essential nature, and undergo the radical falling away of identity. An original and inspired voice, Michael speaks to consciousness where it is identified with the mind, confronting the layers of doubt and compromise that blind us to the profound potential of a liberated life.
QUOTE
"Spiritual freedom is not found through imitation but through originality, which comes from knowing the origin. To be original means to ground the mind in the pure intelligence of consciousness, the stillness that lies beneath the masks and identities we wear. This realization is felt as an immense opening of awareness and insight, as well as a descent into a rich and nameless love. This love is an objectless beauty that announces itself in many ways. The more you listen and follow, the more simple and free you become. If you are not yet simple, if you still want to make spirituality into another subculture or lifestyle, then you are avoiding the annihilation and release that this love of truth brings. To meet each other here is the fulfillment of Life that we seek. Go there yourself and the others will be there. A new life will come. But first you must go. There is no other way and no one else who can do this but you."
From Roots of Liberation, Michael's forthcoming article in OneTheMagazine.com:
"In the quiet dawn of realization, I at last knew my being entirely beyond time, beyond everything conceivable. The foretaste had sparked into direct knowing. A sweet silence and bliss began to blossom. It is like being in love and watching as all hesitation and doubt fade into nothingness. The mind, the body — all was awash in pure presence and stillness. In stillness was the awe and wonder of an absolute aloneness beyond every created thing, yet without any loss of ordinary perception. I felt, as D. H. Lawrence wrote in the poem New Heaven and Earth, that 'I could cry with joy, because I am in the new world, just ventured in. I could cry with joy, and quite freely, there is nobody to know.' And I did cry with joy.
Nothing outward had changed. But the sense of being a known mental or physical object had collapsed, taking down with it the diaphanous boundaries of the dream-self. Suddenly life was immediate — unmediated — charged with presence. An unworldly stillness prevailed, along with the most delicate and immense sense of love I had ever known — a love without object. I was drenched in the original innocence of being, and I was the innocence.
Interview recorded 10/27/2013 at the Science and Nonduality Conference, San Jose, California.
Discussion for this interview is in the forum.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
She has have offered to give free gift mini readings (human or animal ) up to 250 people during October 2013-October 2015 to open new perspectives. About 100 slots left as of November 2013. lauriemoore.sessions.seminars@Gmail.com to reserve your gift slot.
From Dr. Laurie Moore:
We think the world exists in frozen ways. "She is kind. The teacher is the real deal. Today is warm. My husband is the best." However, everything is changing. Your motives, your teacher's motives, your loved one's motives are all in flux. The only opportunity you have is to return to the essence of peace now, and to make your choices within the contexts in which you are operating now. All our attempts to sum up spirituality into concepts are false safety, ways to feel secure, and ideas with which to label our identities. These will all dissipate a moment later.
I was an activist from age 7 on. With surging love in my heart, I set up social change and social service movements at school, and learning programs in the neighborhood. I appeared on the capitol steps with a petition to ban aerosols presented to Congress Man Gilbert Gude at age 14 with my friend, Jennifer. Deep inside I vacillated between a longing for Heaven on Earth and a steeping into this complete love. When I was 40, I was still immersed in numerous ways to assist humans in upliftment by opening new doors of communication within self and with other. That year, I made a spontaneous prayer to life…or rather a prayer beyond any choice surged through my heart, soul, and bones: "Please take me back to Heaven on Earth consistently!".
Soon my beloved cat's body was taken by coyotes. When he reincarnated to my amazement, taking me into spaceless, timeless oneness with all life I was humbled. Awakening after awakening became my norm. Soon I was leading Satsang seminars all over Hawaii, USA and sometimes in other countries. During this period I met Gangaji and re-united with Sh. Ahmed whose generous outpourings surged through my work, grounded in the love and wisdom of my beloved feline Guru Jessie and my beautiful Buddha-like mate Ray. Divine Mother was with me constantly, nudging and cleansing me.
Currently I am examining the reality of multiple contexts in which we live, looking at moment to moment choices we make about maintaining, nurturing, or dissolving personal and societal contexts.
I continue my work as a licensed therapist (LMFT), certified hypnotherapist (CHT) , human reader, and certified animal communication specialist. I also spend hours in uproarious laughter with friends, human and animal.
Having taught in Europe, around the USA, and all over Hawaii Islands, reaching people of many backgrounds after growing up in the Washington D.C. area and spending my twenties living in a variety of organic, spiritual, alternative, cooperative, farm communities with high ideals, I have worked with people from many walks of life. We all have the same heart at core. We all struggle with the difference between spiritual concepts and day to day life!
It has been delightful and fun to appear in hundreds of venues as Universal Love and Animal Communication Satsang Leader, and a multiple species and dimensions communication teacher. I was founder of The Miracle Ground later known as The Love Climate from 2005-2011. I now work solo with a very small and trusted team of behind the scene helpers.
My grassroots TV show, Universal Love and Animal Communication, shown on approximately 20 community channels across the USA, thanks to the generosity of seminar attendees and readers will resume in 2014.
Here are some of the places I have been blessed to speak or teach at:
Graduate and undergraduate expressive arts psychology teacher at San Francisco State University, Johnson State College, and Chico State University. Gave keynote speeches for The Santa Cruz Sentinel Women in Business Expo and America Singles. Taught or gave talks interviews at Conscious Living Expo in L.A., Mt. Madonna, Eselan, Buddha at the GasPump CNN.com, Fox News Live, Jazz up Your Life with Judy, O'Reilly Factor, NBC, Intuitive Soul, In the Company of Angels, Seeing Beyond, KRON News Weekend, Redbook, Braco America LiveStream Interviews, Science and Non Duality Conference USA 2013, Your LifeStyle Evolution, Reader's Digest, Discovery, The Connection, Species Link, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Good Times, Pathways, Joe Franklin, The Frankie Boyer Show, Dolphinville.com and numerous other venues.
To see me for a human or animal session, contact me at lauriemoore.sessions.seminars@Gmail.com. I have offered to give free gift mini readings (human or animal ) up to 250 people during 2013-2015 to open new perspectives.
Books:
Interview recorded 10/24/2013 at the Science and Nonduality Conference, San Jose, California.
Discussion for this interview is in the forum.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. Rick's mic malfunctioned, so his voice is muffled, but intelligible.
As a global leader and pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, Deepak Chopra transforms the way the world views physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social wellness. Known as a prolific author of more than seventy-five books with twenty-one New York Times best sellers in both fiction and non-fiction, his works have been published in more than thirty-five languages.
Chopra's medical training is in internal medicine and endocrinology and he is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. He serves as the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, Founder of The Chopra Well on YouTube, Adjunct Professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Columbia University, Senior Scientist with The Gallup Organization and board of directors, HESA. Time magazine has described Dr. Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century and credits him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.
A few of Deepak's many books:
Interview recorded 10/25/2013 at the Science and Non-Duality Conference in San Jose, California
Discussion for this interview is in the forum.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
So it was, that at the age of 16, I consciously decided to commit myself to the search for 'The Source of All Things.'
I intuited that this Ultimate Answer, as I called it at the time, would reveal to me (or anyone else sufficiently aware of it) such a deep understanding of the workings of life that – through and by the power of that understanding – one would be capable of resolving any issue, question, or practical matter for any individual's path to total well-being, as well as lead to our entire civilization's liberation from conflict altogether.
I soon realized that the understanding I was seeking would not only contain access to any answer ever asked for, but would also effectively deal with the causes of internal suffering and the belief in separation and lack.
In retrospect, the innate qualities or tendencies (earnestness, dedication, compulsion, intensity, seeking drive, extremism, etc.) which caused me to strive and suffer the most in that approximately 6 year period of intense spiritual, mental, emotional and physical ups and downs, were also what heavily contributed to my relatively swift liberation from suffering altogether.
Our perceived flaws usually turn out to be our greatest allies when we give them enough space to reveal their true purpose.–Bentinho Massaro
My journey led me to many teachers, teachings, philosophies and deep into places within my own consciousness. Here is a list of some of the things I studied and applied in depth until I felt I had exhausted the techniques' usefulness, and had seen their pros and cons, their ins and outs: Various forms of Meditation (Vipassana, Transcendental, Yogic, Samyama, Motionlessness, and others); Mindfulness, Yoga, Pranayama, Ayurveda and the yogic philosophies and practices of higher consciousness; I went to live in spiritually-swamped places in India for a while (which is a practice in and of itself); NLP, EFT, several personal development courses and intensives; Silva Mind Control (utilizing the Alpha and Theta brainwaves); Reiki, Initiations, and some other things. Some of these I became certified in; others I decided to leave behind me before I reached the end of the course, for they served no further purpose. And why hang around something that no longer lifts you up beyond where you thought you could be? This was my attitude with everything I could get my hands on at that time.
After years of this desperate quest, filled with effort, judgment, self-torture and constant striving, I finally gave up on trying to follow other teachers' ideas of what to practice. I decided to trust myself instead, out of sheer mental exhaustion.
This exhaustion and letting go happened in a state of utter despondency and disappointment at the failure of my relentless attempts to 'get it' and to 'get it in time', and to play by other people's beliefs. These people were, I finally realized, no more enlightened than I was – even if they had practiced some form of meditation for 30 years, had a long beard, or were perceived as enlightened by others. I realized that the status some people wore of being 'an enlightened one' meant absolutely zero to me.
It was then, in India, that I had my first profound shift in allegiance toward that which I already knew underneath to be true, but had doubted because of the apparent authority of 'other enlightened ones': The infinite potential, all present vibrantly and brilliantly, always and already right here and now. It was this truth of the very presence of (my) existence itself that had nudged me all along and carried me through my desperate yet focused search, and purged me out into self-reliance, self-responsibility, and Self-Realization, as well as into a life filled with ever-expanding wonder, awe, joy, and empowerment in ways I could not imagine before.
Following the shift in allegiance from 'others know the truth' to 'what I am is the truth', a deep relaxation remained — a non-referential ease of being. This had been recognized before, but its ever-presence was overlooked because of the belief that I did not yet have the answer. Life revealed itself to shine fully and completely by its own power alone. It offered its presence with an incredible naturalness, requiring no effort or maintenance whatsoever. This, I realized, was simply The Natural State of Existence Itself.
Finally, I had found what I was so desperately seeking: I was now in touch with the foundation that could provide any answer to life's many callings; therefore, this realization of Life Itself, was indeed The Ultimate Answer.
I naturally continued, as if taking a bath, to sink into this indescribable freedom that didn't, and still doesn't, seem to know an end or boundary. This awakening was the beginning of my life and the end of an unpleasant dream where I thought lack and separation could truly, possibly exist. Ha!
Enlightenment is not the end, it is only the beginning — the foundation for any real evolution or transformation to occur. So what are we waiting for? Instead of dreaming of a faraway place called 'enlightenment', let us at least get started realizing the truth that never leaves our presence; for it is our presence. This freedom is all-inclusive, ever-available, never-ending, and it is meant to be discovered, at the very least, by everyone.
http://www.bentinhomassaro.com
Interview recorded 10/26/2013 at the Science and Non-Duality Conference in San Jose, California.
Discussion for this interview is in the forum.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
