And they say innovation is dead in the U.S. Using the audio jack to read credit cards, brilliant.
Thinking out loud: I assume it reads the strips and converts the information to tones - but I would love to read more about it. I just want to plug it into my computer and see what comes up in Audacity when I scan a card.
I think this device/feature overwhelms the service as a whole actually.
I think the opposite is true. The hardware is almost a gimmick to push what is otherwise a potentially powerful service.
The theory behind this app is that individuals are now empowered to take credit cards for anything they previously would have had to take a cash or check for, which is increasingly important in our society where credit cards are becoming the normal way to pay for things.
As for the hardware, it's a pretty old trick. Though I don't know any of the specifics of this device, you don't need to look any further than your graphing calculator to see the idea in use.
Yes, paypal does something similar for online payments. I'm pretty sure the lag for merchants is longer.
Note that PayPal was revolutionary and is worth many billions of dollars - largely because they could handle the fraud this kind of configuration causes.
Thinking out loud: I assume it reads the strips and converts the information to tones - but I would love to read more about it. I just want to plug it into my computer and see what comes up in Audacity when I scan a card.
I think this device/feature overwhelms the service as a whole actually.