Silicon Valley start-up company Naratte launches ultrasonic mobile payment service

Sina Science and technology news Beijing time June 20 morning, a software developer named Naratte is expected to launch a new service in Monday, as long as the installation of a software, can use the smartphone existing microphone and speakers to achieve mobile payment, without any hardware upgrades.　　Technical advantages While many High-tech companies believe smartphones will soon be able to checkout in physical stores, a Silicon Valley start-up says it is perfectly possible to use existing models to handle mobile payments without hardware upgrades. Naratte is expected to announce in Monday a technology called Zoosh that can do short trades with an ultrasound that is not audible to the human ear, and can be achieved directly using the existing microphone and speakers on the smartphone.　　All this requires the consumer to install a piece of software on the terminal, without the need for additional chips. Naratte CEO Blette Paulson (Brett Paulson) says that as long as two phones are within a few inches (1 inches = 2.54 centimeters), they can use Naratte software to deliver data, such as personal contact information.　　This way, he says, smartphones can be used to act as mobile wallets, store and send digital coupons and membership cards, and eventually replace credit cards and debit cards. This kind of retail application needs to carry on certain transformation to the retail terminal of the physical store. In order to support NFC (near-field communication) technology, some retail stores have been upgraded.　　Companies such as Google are now supporting the technology, hoping to use short-range radio signals to complete the deal. But Mr Paulson said the number of handsets built into NFC chips was small. and to support NFC, the cost of upgrading each retail terminal is between 100 and 850 dollars.　　By contrast, the use of Zoosh technology will only cost about 30 dollars.　　Promotion Plan Mr Paulson said Naratte would soon launch mobile payment services between handsets, but it would take longer to establish partnerships with businesses that deal with credit cards and debit card transactions. Located in Cleveland, USA, gift cards and membership card trading processing company Sparkbase is one of the early adopters of Zoosh software.　　The company plans to use the technology for a service called Paycloud, which stores and manages membership cards, which acts as an electronic wallet for smartphone users. Sparkbase plans to start testing the service in Cleveland and Chicago in July this year.　　The company's CEO, Grass Hadman, Douglas Hardman, estimates that up to the end of next year, up to 250,000 U.S. businesses will use Paycloud services. Hardman also wants to be compatible with the technology when NFC is widely available in smartphones. But, he says, with the help of Zoosh, "I can do what I want right now." "Naratte currently has 12 employees, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, by Paulson and Byron• Alsberg (Byron Alsberg) was founded in May 2009. Alsberg currently serves as Naratte chief development officer.　　Both are electrical engineers who have previously served on Texas Instruments, the chipmaker, which has long been providing wireless communications technology. Naratte that security is a key issue.　　Mr Paulson said all signals transmitted by Zoosh would be encrypted with a unique electronic key, which would make it very difficult to hack each transaction even if the hacker caught the ultrasound.　　Mr Paulson estimates that at least 100 million handsets have been sold with speakers and microphones that can support Zoosh. While Mr Paulson believes it will take longer to work with companies that deal with credit and debit cards, Sparkbase's hardman is confident. "We have been very, very close to reaching deals with big deal-processing companies. "he said. (PEI)