Charge your burger on your cell phone

The next time you buy a burger at McDonalds, you can pay via your mobile phone. Japan's leading mobile phone service provider NTT DoCoMo has teamed up with McDonalds for electronic payments via mobile phones, in a new way to make money from mobile phones. As usual Japan leads the way in this new type of interactive technology. But consumers should know that your purchases will be tracked by both companies for marketing purposes.

For Julie Ask, an analyst with research firm Jupiter, the partnership illustrates the need to have upfront agreements and co-operation for the chain needed for electronic payments to be a success.

"Otherwise it suffers from the chicken and egg problem. POS [Point of Sale] equipment is needed to interoperate with technology in the cell phones. Carriers and handset manufacturers need incentives to add cost into the cell phones. There has to be a network for it to be interesting to anyone," she said.