Japan may not be Microsoft's power base but give them an "A" for giving it some of their best shots. This time, the Seattle-based computer giant is banking on Edy e-money to attract gamers to its Xbox Live fold.

So why e-money? In a nutshell, Japan may be a technological trailblazer, but its citizens have never really been big credit card fans. However, one of the fastest-rising means of trade is the Edy system developed by Sony where real money is converted to electronic credits that you can use in most Japanese stores to buy just about anything you want.

Edy money can be stored in either credit cards or mobile phones. Microsoft is taking advantage of the latter because mobiles are big in the country. Essentially, Microsoft's adoption of Edy allows interested gamers to register to Xbox Live and buy Microsoft points. This, Microsoft hopes, will remove the credit card distrust barrier and encourage more people to get into Xbox Live.

The days when we use our cell phones to call and send SMSs are so, so gone. Why you ask? Aside from the influx of smartphones and the recent unveiling of the iPhone, one of the world's biggest credit card payment scheme has launched a global system to turn mobile phones into wallets. Of course, we're talking about Visa.

Visa has entered in a deal with Nokia to let future users of this payment system, created with the help of IBM, to pay for groceries or other stuff by swiping a phone over a reader that electronically "talks" with a microchip on the phone. The owners would simply push a button, and voila, transaction complete.

According to a Visa statement at the CES, consumers will also be able to control and manage their payment accounts and funds, using only their cell phones.  A Near Field Communication (NFC) chip is the wireless standard used to link phones with payment systems in stores. This NFC mumbo-jumbo is developed by Philips chip unit, NXP and Sony. The initial version of the mobile payment system launched last Monday and future plans include remote payment and person-to-person payment.

There's no word on what happens when your mobile-payment-enabled cellphone gets lost or stolen. Most likely, you could cancel it the same way you do with stolen credit cards.

As much as we love our PlayStation 3, admittedly, it's price is something we can not call cheap. Regardless if you get the 20GB version or the behemoth 60GB, the price tag attached to our baby will always cause some people to think twice before buying. Fortunately Sony Corporation's retail arm, Sony Style, is offering fans a good work around.

Before January 4 of this coming year, sign up for a Sony-branded credit card. Then make a purchase using the card before March 31, 2007 and you will automatically receive US$ 150 off of your first credit card statement. Technically speaking if you subtract and add here and there, this brings down the price of the PS3. This offer may be used with Sony (a fifty dollar PSP, perhaps?) and non-Sony products. Hey, it's a credit card anyway!

Those who are interested to take the offer can refer to the Read link below for more information. But here's a brief summary of other features included in the offer:

• 0% Introductory APR for up to 12 months and No Annual Fee
• Full Platinum Visa benefits
• 1 Reward Point for every $1 on any purchase, anywhere.
• 3 Reward Points for every $1 on Sony products purchased anywhere.
• 5 Sony Rewards Points per $1 spent at SonyStyle.com, Sony Style stores, and ImageStation.com
• 10 Rewards Points per $1 spent at SonyStyle.com, SonyStyle stores, and ImageStation.com until January 4, 2007.
• Exclusive members-only deals on Sony products
• Automatic entry for chances to win great Sony prizes

In today's culture where mobile phones also double as PDAs which also double as PCs, hackers have apparently also found a way to extend their reach and infect mobile phones with malware which we originally thought can only be caught on a PC or laptop.

McAfee's Avert Labs has just identified a new kind of malware which is specifically aimed at mobile phones. The owner of the phone receives an SMS message which says something along the lines of "We're confirming you've signed up for our dating service. You will be charged $2/day unless you cancel your order at our Web site". The unsuspecting user, for fear of getting charged, would then click on the link and cause a Trojan to be downloaded into their phone. This Trojan allows hackers to control the handset and use it for malicious activities such as denial of service attacks, installing keylogging software and stealing personal account information. This last bit is to be noted carefully, especially by people who use their mobile phones to access their bank accounts, credit card information, or institutions such as PayPal which has recently offered mobile access for their users.

This phenomenon has been coined as "SMiShing", which is short for "phishing via SMS".

Experts warn to be wary of this kind of activity, and that, should anyone receive a suspicious message, treat it as one would treat a suspicious email: by not clicking on the links provided, not providing any sensitive personal information, and deleting the message as soon as possible.

Say goodbye to your free-loading days because come next year, you'd have no excuse not to chip in. Thanks to a new wireless standard called Near Field Communication (NFC), you'll be able to pay simply by swiping your cell phone a few inches from a cash register. The NFC Chip embedded in your phone will be able to send your credit card number stored in your chip by way of short distance radio waves.

If you're thinking that this is nothing different from radio-frequency identification (RFID) and other contactless payments, well hear us out first. Not only could a NFC give data, it could also take in data, such as a receipt zapped to it by a cash register or a bus schedule from a tag embedded in a bus-stop sign.

And if you're thinking that this would only be an unnecessary waste of your hard-earned dough, think again. You need not buy a new cell phone to use this one. The miniSD-card-size adapter from SanDisk can add NFC to any smartphone with a Symbian operating system when it hits stores next spring.

Probably by now you've either grown sick and tired, maybe even exceedingly paranoid, of hearing news after news of stolen laptops that contain very sensitive information like Social Security, Back Account and Credit Card numbers, also home addresses and phone numbers. And if being hassled to retrieve all these data isn't enough, there is also the frightening possibility of identity theft.

So what is a laptop owner left to do without resorting to setting your machine ablaze? You can go for costly security measures like tracking or even a kill switch if you're ever pushed into that situation. But most people, especially those in the know, would recommend encrypting your files. The only trouble is, how to weed through tons of disk encryption software in the market and in the web?

First off, listen to an expert. Marcus Ranum, is an editor for SANS' NewsBytes security E-zine. He has done security research work for the White House in portable security, and this is what he's looking for in a hard disk encryption software.

•  Free
•  Uses recognizable and known encryption algorithms
•  Works sensibly with a container file that can be treated as external data
•  Source code available
•  No adware or "wouldn't you like to buy me now?"
•  Small footprint

Our expert, found all that and more in this free open-source software for Windows XP/2000/2003 and Linux called TrueCrypt.

In a nutshell, TrueCrypt makes it possible to create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. It allows you to encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device such as a USB flash drive. Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent. If you want to know more about TrueCrypt just head on to their official site, where you can find the latest news and documentation, join the discussion in their forum and view other useful links.

Download: [TrueCrypt for Windows XP/2000/2003]
                  [TrueCrypt for Ubuntu 6.06 x86-64]

An Israeli company called Compulab built a computer that fits a complete PDA into a device just two-thirds the size of a credit card. At only 4.4 x 6.6 cm, the CM-X270L makes even a 6.0 x 4.4 cm MiniPCI wireless card look big.

The CM-X270L almost breaks the law of physics by fitting an Intel XScale chip that runs Windows CE or Linux, half a gig of flash memory, 128MB of RAM, AC’97 sound and a Philips 802.11b wireless interface inside its body. That's not all, it even found enough room to cram other features not found on PDAs, such as a PCI bus, four USB host ports, and wired networking.

The wireless wonder costs about $47 which is really cheap. But the company only accept minimum bulk order of 10,000 units so stick to your humongous PDAs for now. They're harder to lose.

Set to rival Samsung's Platinum card phone (SCH-V870), NEC has unveiled its own version of the credit card-sized phone - the N908. This tiny phone is sure to appeal to the touch screen generation, as the company decided to get rid of the keypad. Think of it as a DS phone, only much much smaller. The "do away with the keypad" design enables NEC to cut down the phone's size while giving the impression that it's one step ahead of its rival. NEC was able to squeeze in a 1.3 megapixel camera, a dual stereo speaker, and a microSD card slot in one tiny package. It's obviously being marketed to multimedia junkies who are always on the go. The phone supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, 3Gp, and MPEG4 formats. Wireless connection via Bluetooth is an added sweetener.

No word on pricing but the N908 is headed for an Asian release in Q3.