The New York Times is reporting the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission is looking at an option to replace Taxi TVs, the integrated payment/entertainment consoles mounted in the back seats of city taxis. The commission is exploring an idea put forward by mobile point of sale company Square that would replace the TVs with embedded tablet computers.

According to the Times, David S. Yassky, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, said Square’s proposal would include the company's payment app for collecting fares as well as providing opportunities for a variety of content and computer applications that could even interact with location-based services like Foursquare.

Yassky said in the article that he was approached by Square executives several months ago with their proposal. Square is expected to make a formal presentation on March 1.

In an interesting twist, the Taxi TVs are currently controlled by VeriFone Media and Creative Mobile Technologies, the Times said. The systems combine video and information screens with the ability to collect fares through an integrated credit card reader.

VeriFone Media is a subsidiary of Square's point-of-sale rival Verifone. According to the post, a previous presentation by Square was squelched by VeriFone partner Creative Mobile Technologies over security concerns. Security has been a bone of contention between the two companies since last year.

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