Bellamy
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Swatch's payments watch is coming to the US
Swatch has announced that the mobile payments watch that it's sending to China will also make its way over here. The watchmaker has teamed up with Visa in order to offer the Swatch Bellamy in the US, Brazil and Switzerland. It's the third entry on that list that's the most eyebrow-raising, since Swatch CEO Nick Hayek very recently criticized his home nation's own banks for being slow to embrace new payments tech. It looks as if Visa has stepped in to make its relations in Switzerland look fusty and slow by comparison.
Swatch takes the wraps off its mobile payments watch
Swatch has revealed that it's working on a mobile payments watch that it'll launch in partnership with banks in China. Bloomberg reports that the timepiece will let users make purchases at point-of-sale machines in stores, thanks to an NFC chip that's embedded beneath the dial. The device, named Swatch Bellamy, will launch in January 2016 in the country, priced at 580 yuan ($91), with releases in Europe and the US coming afterward. Unfortunately, we're not sure too many people are going to be camping out days ahead of time to buy a bargain-basement fashion watch with an NFC chip inside. After all, you could buy a regular watch now and just grab an NFC sticker from any bank that offers them to its users.
IGDA executive director resigns, joins China's Tencent
Gordon Bellamy, the (now former) executive director of the International Game Developers Association, has stepped away from the post to join Tencent, the popular Chinese online social service. Bellamy will remain on the IGDA's board (where he was before he took the executive director post), but will step away from day-to-day operations. Dustin Clingman, the current board chair, will take over in the interim until a new director can be found.Tencent runs a number of popular online social and gaming services in China (including the world's largest online community, QQ), and has recently been putting together a collection of ties to major Western gaming companies. Bellamy's Twitter account now lists him as the Director of Business Development and Industry Relations at Tencent. According to his recent tweets, he's "excited for Tencent" and is "looking forward to working with the world."
