VeriFone would roll out more so-called contact-less devices, or readers that enable consumers to pay with a wave or tap of a credit or debit card.

WSJ: Google Pursues Role in Mobile Payments

Visa and several large banks are testing mobile-payment programs that allow consumers to make contact-less payments with an existing smartphone equipped with a special chip card and antenna.

WSJ: Google Pursues Role in Mobile Payments

While most of the financial activity that now takes place on smartphones involves people engaging in transactions with their bank, the credit-card industry has spent millions of dollars to issue new plastic with the contact-less chip that speeds the check-out process.

WSJ: Google Pursues Role in Mobile Payments

"Because it's contact-less there's a perception people can grab it from thin air, but it's actually a more sophisticated technology than credit cards with a magnetic stripe, making it more difficult to steal a consumer's payment information, " said Nick Holland, a mobile-transactions analyst at Yankee Group.

WSJ: Google Pursues Role in Mobile Payments

He must be quick: flies usually bite within 10 seconds of skin contact and despite their tiny size - less than a millimetre - they are ferocious.

BBC: Burkina Faso: Beating river blindness by fly-catching

Nasa ground controllers have re-established contact with the International Space Station less than three hours after a computer failure briefly interrupted communication.

BBC: Nasa back in contact with the International Space Station

The Leicestershire study also found that, as nursing has become more high-tech, there is less physical contact with patients, so nurses are using massage to compensate and to demonstrate care for patients.

ECONOMIST: Health

If the drama of first contact was denied the late-arriving Pilgrims, it is even less available to travelers today.

NPR: Unearthing History in 'A Voyage Long and Strange'

Or it can rely on existing evidence and reclassify the devices to a less restrictive category that includes ultrasound machines, motorized wheelchairs, and contact-lens solution.

CNN: FDA mulls future of electroshock therapy