Naratte’s Zoosh Technology - Possible Substitute For NFC

Near field communication (NFC) technology was on the headlines recently as Google Inc. announced its plans to use this technology for money transactions with smartphones. This radio based technology is touted as the next big thing in smartphones and can be used for wireless, paperless money transactions in stores in a secure manner. However, the main stumbling block it faces that most of the present day smartphones are not enabled with the essential hardware for using this technology. However, a startup Naratte is about to launch an app that can match the security and communication features of the NFC apps by using ultrasound!

#-Link-Snipped-#Naratte, based in Sunnyvale, California is all set to launch an application that will provide the same money transaction ability but can be used on almost any mobile handset. All the hardware that’s requires for this app is a speaker and a microphone. The company has developed a new sound processing technique in which the mobile establishes a secure connection with a nearby phone with the help of sound waves that are too high pitched for the human ears. Brett Paulson, co founder and CEO of Naratte says that they have put everything in the software only so all one has to do is to download the app to the smartphone and start experiencing this unique technology. This awesome technology is called “Zoosh” and it took the company almost two years to perfect this cool sound processing technique so that it can be used to establish a secure link even in noisy environments without any extra chip.

For using Zoosh, one needs to hold his phone within six inches of either another handset with a Zoosh-enabled app or a dedicated reader at the supermarket’s payment counter. Then after a brief interval, the two communicating devices identify each other by sending short pulses of ultrasound waves that help them exchange each other’s ID tokens. Once the contact has been established the phones can be used for exchanging contact information data, or to do debit transactions or credit transactions of either cash or points.

The development of mobile phones as mp3 players has led to the success of this technology because it requires high quality speakers and microphones. So any mobile phone with a standard mp3 playback feature can use Zoosh. This easy accessibility of Zoosh makes it a far more feasible option compared to the NFC apps. Fellow startup Sparkbase will deploy the first batch of loyalty program apps using Zoosh created for small merchants. Byron Alsberg, the chief development officer and the second co founder of Naratte believes that by the fall, many thousands of cafes and stores will be using this technology. A lot of skeptics were silenced when Laura Chambers, manager for mobile at the payments processor PayPal stated that she and her company are looking forward to the launch of this technology. Naratte has not yet entered into any contract with PayPal yet but has built a demo app that facilitates PayPal transactions, using commonly available application-programming interfaces. Naratte is also trying to tie up with mobile phone carriers across the globe.

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