It’s got a metallic case, it’s slimmed down drastically and it has the great camera as before. Say hello to Nokia’s new Lumia 925, which was unveiled hours ago as the follow-up to the flagship Lumia 920. …

Visa card holders in Singapore will soon be able to pay for their groceries, petrol and a host of other items by simply flashing and tapping a compatible smartphone at the cashier, the payment company revealed on Thursday.

Though it stopped short of confirming when this will be rolled out here, it said it was bringing its mobile payWave service, now available in countries such as Australia, to Singapore at a yet undetermined date.

At a demo for media here, company executives showed how a Samsung Android phone from Vodafone Australia could be used right here in Singapore to buy a cuppa at a cafe.  …

There’s now an American Express card that you can use to pay for your train and bus rides in Singapore, along with your meals, gadgets and other items that a typical Amex card can pay for.

The pre-paid card, called the Imagine Card, comes with the same contactless technology that is on existing ez-link cards that commuters use to tap and pay at train stations and on buses.

At the same time, it can be used anywhere that American Express is accepted.

…

Years after mobile payment was first mooted as a new way to pay for things, Singapore users will finally be able pay for taxi and train rides and shopping items by simply tapping their phones on any of the 30,000 retail points that already accept such the near-field communications (NFC) technology.

On Friday, a group of banks, transit companies and telecom operators here introduced a number of mobile applications that promise to make payment much easier.

The idea is to make the phone a digital wallet that contains the information on the credit cards and stored value cards you have now, which can be accessed when you tap it against a supported reader. …

Think of Singapore’s latest efforts to turn everyone’s phone into a mobile wallet to pay for taxi rides, burgers and groceries, and the phrase deja vu may not be far from your mind.

As the city-state’s infocomm regulator and its industry partners embark on an ambitious S$40 million project, unveiled today, to let mobile phone users here tap and pay with their phones at some 20,000 payment points by next year, they could perhaps remember a lesson or two from the past.

If they succeed, users will be able to trot out their smartphones to pay for a burger at McDonald’s instead of using an ez-link card by mid-2012. A year later, in 2013, commuters may also be able to tap their phones at train station gantries to pay for their rides – if the transport authorities and companies get their act together.

But Singapore has seen numerous such trials over the years, even as places like Japan and Hong Kong have raced ahead with more advanced payment options. …