Mobeam announced that its light based communications (LBC) technology is available to mobile handset manufacturers for integration on new smartphone devices.
Mobeam‘s LBC technology removes the technical barrier that limits smartphone applications for mobile coupons, gift cards and tickets.
By leveraging the light emitting sources that smartphones already use for other purposes message waiting and battery charging indicators, proximity sensors, camera flashes, among others mobeam technology can beam a barcode that works virtually anywhere.
“Because no phones today can reliably display a scanable barcode that existing retail point of sale technology can ‘see,’ a major gap in mobile commerce has emerged,” said Brian Kang, director of investment for of Samsung Ventures.
“To fix this problem, the mobile commerce ecosystem has two choices: either retailers can replace their point of sale infrastructure with new scanners that can read existing smartphones, or smartphone OEMs can find a way to make their devices work with the widespread existing technology in use the world over. With an inexpensive firmware solution that won’t change the physical designs of phones, mobeam is delivering the fastest path to universally available digital commerce,” Kang added.
Mobeam technology converts barcodes as well as billion coupons into a beam of light that can be read by every one of the estimated 165 million red laser barcode scanners already found at point of sale in stores all around the world.
With it, traditional barcode information is “mobeamed” to the laser scanner directly from a mobile phone, with no new equipment required whatsoever by the retailer and no new design elements required by the handset manufacturer. With mobeam enabled smartphones, mobile coupons can at last become a reality, with easy coupon redemption at virtually every POS.
Mobeam APIs are added to the firmware, allowing mobeam technology to utilize the LED light sources already planned for the device. These embedded APIs also allow application developers to create apps that leverage mobeam. Because mobeam requires no changes to handset component technology, it adds no incremental cost to the manufacturing of the handset. Mobeam works with any LEDs used in phones, including infrared LEDs often used with proximity sensors.
This advancement promises to transform the traditional coupon redemption, gift card, loyalty and ticket services that have yet to fully break into mobile, and as a result have been consigned to antiquated paper based formats.
As smartphone use is transforming banking and payments, mobile and digital formats will bring important new innovations to these services impacting every link in the value chain including consumers, CPG manufacturers, retailers, handset makers and mobile operators.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
