Cutting edge: Google's new payments app Tez uses sound to send/receive money
As you might already know, Google has launched a new digital payments app – dubbed Tez – today (read more about it here). One feature of Tez that stands out is Cash Mode, which allows users to pay other Tez users without sharing sensitive personal information like bank account or phone number.
The way Cash Mode works is, you just need to bring the two phones near to each other, and enter your UPI PIN code. That’s it. The payment then instantly goes from one bank account to another. Cool, right? But how does it all work?
The Mountain View, California based company explains that the Cash Mode feature is built using their proprietary AQR (Audio QR) technology, which uses sound to pair one device with the other nearby device.
While Google doesn’t provide in depth details about Audio QR, it does say the tech is “similar to QR codes but more convenient and more secure.” While other popular payments services like Android Pay require the phone to have an NFC chip (found mostly in high-end, expensive phones), AQR doesn’t have any such requirement.
In fact, Google says AQR works on almost any smartphone in India, whether Android or iOS. Reason being, all it requires is the device to have a speaker and a microphone, that are a given for phones nowadays.
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Dr. Aparajita Sharma
A budding entrepreneur by profession, and a psychologist by education. As a founding member of PiunikaWeb, I am nurturing this firstborn with my sharp-eyed expertise and even journalistic writing when needed.