Autore: David Wolman

The other day I had coffee with an entrepreneur who has a cool idea: Enable consumers to use mobile money instead of cash at the millions of vending machines that currently only accept cash. Clip a little Bluetooth gizmo inside a machine—install looks super easy—and snap. Done.

My 4-year-old son is obsessed with cool. Let’s be clear: His understanding of the concept is limited. He knows it’s positive. He knows his friends say it about carnivorous dinosaurs. He knows its alternate use—opposite of warm—but he’s lukewarm on that usage.

Few things are as fundamental to our everyday lives and yet so easily overlooked as money. Not overlooked, precisely, because it’s on our minds, usually in the form of anxiety about having enough. But when it comes to the history, machinations, and evolution of the perplexing technology known as money—who on Earth has time to… Read more »