Commuters are the people that will determine the success or failure of Google's nascent mobile wallet technology for cellphones.
That's the conclusion of a researcher who has examined the role that mobile phone-based payment systems played in the uptake of 3G connectivity in Japan: he found that delivering a technology that works quickly enough to make a real difference to the utter drudgery of commuting was the key factor in determining the success of the m-wallet.
It may come as a surprise to some after last week's hypefest about Google's plan, but mobile wallets are in fact nothing new. As New Scientist reported in 2004, they were launched in Japan that year using a short range radio microchip developed by Sony called FeliCa (a tortured truncation of "felicity with cash"). When charged with cash over a 3G network, or connected by the 3G radio to a users' credit card account, a swipe of the phone across a FeliCa compatible reading surface would transfer a payment.
Seven years later there are a host of cellphone networks in Japan and South Korea using mobile wallets and a multitude of near field communications (NFC) radio technologies available to handset makers. For its Android phones, Google has partnered with NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands, a maker of NFC radio microchips - and supplier of the chips in Transport for London's "Oyster" RFID smart cards for the city's mass transit systems.
To make an m-wallet succeed, says researcher Sheikh Taher Abu of the University of Hyogo, Japan, writing in the journal Telematics and Informatics, the commuter is the person to please. He found that m-wallets are particularly popular for travel related purchasing. "Commuters place a great deal of value on products that enable them to reduce their commuting time. Wallet phones enable them to do so by completely bypassing the ticket machine and by accelerating the purchase of foods, drinks, snacks, and newspapers in kiosks or convenience stores."
"These applications contrast with traditional payment systems, such as for purchases in department stores and restaurants, where users and the department stores and restaurants are less concerned with saving a few minutes of time," he writes.
But Google, NXP, and their banking industry partners like Mastercard don't only have to make a time-saving product that runs on multiple phones and phone types (it will only be available on the Nexus S Android to start with). They have to make a secure one.
Google has been criticised for its approach to security and privacy over issues like the Street View WiFi sniffing affair and the unwonted conversion of gmail into a social network called Buzz. And NXP's Oyster card chips were famously hacked in 2008.
Things have since changed at Google, however, outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt told a meeting on privacy and security in Watford, north of London, on 18 May.
"We have learned some things," Schmidt said. "The first thing is to let engineers build the product but don't let them launch it until you have had a very long conversation with them. Second, we work with public policy people and lawyers about how it will be used - or misused. Third, we will ruthlessly implement permissions in software so nothing is done without the user's say so. Fourth, we check with the advocacy groups to see what they think."
Sounds like a smart move. The last thing a fast moving commuter is going to want to think about is who's sniffing their bank details or purchase history. 
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