21–30 of 95 posts
I think it’s cool but with payments you’ll have to address security considerations. How can you prevent someone from spoofing a transaction or spoofing audio for payments?
This specific demo doesn't actually send payment data over audio, just a link to pay from. Post-payment would still go though signed stripe webhooks like a normal online payment. Seems like an interesting way to start a transaction without needing to buy any specialized equipment.
*full disclosure I worked there 2019 - 2020
I'm reminded of Google Tone[0], which beamed URLs audibly to nearby browsers in an Airdrop-style experience. A neat trick, but ultimately useless given that most devices have less obtrusive ways of sharing data P2P. The ultrasonic aspect of this experiment makes the technology a lot more useful. Tone also came with the unfortunate side effect of Google software having constant access to your microphone. 0: https://ch…
I'm reminded of Google Tone[0], which beamed URLs audibly to nearby browsers in an Airdrop-style experience. A neat trick, but ultimately useless given that most devices have less obtrusive ways of sharing data P2P. The ultrasonic aspect of this experiment makes the technology a lot more useful. Tone also came with the unfortunate side effect of Google software having constant access to your microphone. 0: https://ch…
This is such a cool experiment. Anything that involves sound like this is extremely interesting to me (I have a cochlear implant). Maybe I can hack it so I know when people are making payments :D
I really wanna use tech like this sometimes in future, but I also wanna care about accessiblity.
A while ago Alipay had this ultrasonic payment method, I queued for a vending machine, opened Alipay in advance because I never used this "ultrasonic payment" feature before, then just when the guy before me pressed the button, my alipay accidentally payed for him. Luckily he and I wanted the drink of the same price, so he payed for mine instead.
Using QR-code or NFC for payment won't mess up like this. And later Alipay completely canceled ultrasonic payment feature. I guess many people encountered the same problem. You can't control omnidirectional ultrasound broadcast. It's very insecure.
Interesting experiment, although it seems that most of Asia has settled on NFC (card emulation or token), QR, and 2D barcodes for offline (at least to customers) payments, which is more practical to deploy using existing infrastructure. I know Tez (aka Google Pay in India which was pushed in other countries) has implemented it, but Indians does Google Pay still have ultrasonic transfers?
And it has completely transformed how payments happen. paymets happen directly from bank account to bank account regardlessof what app you're using (Samsung Pay, PhonePe, GPay, your bank's app). You can use QR codes or simple username@bank to make payments.
I am not aware of any payment systems that support the use of NFC, (NFC is not that commonplace for anything except cards, and I have had trouble setting up cards in google pay). One of the biggest benefits of QR based payments have been is it does not require any special hardware. Just a mobile and Internet (Which is very common and accessible here). And it has little to no transaction fees. So it has been quickly adopted by literally everyone.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
Interesting experiment, although it seems that most of Asia has settled on NFC (card emulation or token), QR, and 2D barcodes for offline (at least to customers) payments, which is more practical to deploy using existing infrastructure. I know Tez (aka Google Pay in India which was pushed in other countries) has implemented it, but Indians does Google Pay still have ultrasonic transfers?
This is bad idea. A while ago Alipay had this ultrasonic payment method, I queued for a vending machine, opened Alipay in advance because I never used this "ultrasonic payment" feature before, then just when the guy before me pressed the button, my alipay accidentally payed for him. Luckily he and I wanted the drink of the same price, so he payed for mine instead. Using QR-code or NFC for payment won't mess up like t…