We are rapidly becoming a society in which our mobile phones are just as important as our wallets. Carriers are jumping on different ways for their customers to pay for physical and virtual items using their phones instead of cash. It makes sense for the state of New York to use mobile payments and apply them to the city’s parking requirements.

Monday can be a very groggy day. For some of us, it takes a good cup of joe to get back into the swing of things. Before running out to Starbucks to get your fix, consider this alternative. A man by the name of Jonathan Stark wants to buy you a cup of coffee.

We hope you haven’t gotten tired of companies who are trying to capitalize on mobile payments because we expect this topic to remain hot for a while. The latest contender is a company called card.io. Unlike other companies that are looking to take advantage of mobile payments in the retail space, card.io is focused on payments that are made through applications on smartphones.

Hewlett-Packard may not let the mobile payment craze pass by without getting a slice of the action. Big companies such as Google, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon are getting into that business, and there are plenty of customers for everyone. Bloomberg reports that HP is considering putting near field communication (NFC) technology into its devices. The company hasn’t made any official announcement, but don’t be surprised if HP does so soon.

Mobile payments is a business that many companies are trying to capitalize on. A big example of this would be Google Wallet, a service that links credit cards to Android phones. We’ll see how popular Google Wallet becomes when it goes live for the Nexus S 4G this year. For now, let’s focus on a new partnership between Verizon and PayFone.

Google is said be working on a system that will allow users to make payments in stores using their smartphones. A Wall Street Journal report says that Google is involved with Citigroup and MasterCard in this project. When all is said and done, individuals who possess Citigroup credit and debit cards can use their smartphones as a digital wallet.

Three of the major U.S. mobile carriers have joined forces to build a national mobile payment system that is aimed at transforming how you will shop, pay, and save. The system called ISIS, is a new mobile commerce network backed by various merchants and will provide a more convenient and personalized shopping experience for consumers. more »

According to a recent report in Bloomberg, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are preparing to begin testing a new mobile payment service. This would mean that some smartphone users on those carriers may soon be able to make a payment at a local store using nothing but their phone. Bottom line here, the talk of more »

The idea that a mobile phone can be a payment method isn’t a new one, but Tyfone got us all one step closer thanks to a new patent issued that brings a measure of security into the game. The biggest obstacle to the concept is security (what if someone steals your phone) and some commonality more »