Now, You Can Pay For Things Using The iPhone's Camera
by Joe White
June 24, 2011
A new startup called card.io has made it possible for users to pay for goods using the iPhone's built-in camera.
While many of us have been speculating as to whether Apple's iPhone 5 will be NFC-capable, card.io proves that NFC isn't the only way to pay for goods using an iPhone handset. As you can see in the below video, the company's API makes it possible for users to snap an image of a credit card with an iPhone, and have the data encrypted and transmitted to a vendor. As TUAW notes, this certainly beats typing your credit card number into an application.
Card numbers are never saved by card.io, and the service can be integrated within mobile applications using a recently released SDK.
The reason this payments method is impressive is because no new hardware is required in order to use it. Meaning, of course, that Apple fans can start snapping and paying for goods with card.io on current generation handsets.
Obviously, the service works in-app, however, if developers add support for the service we'll hopefully start seeing card.io crop up everywhere.
Developers: If you're interested in implementing the service within your app, head over to http://card.io.
And iOS fans, we'll keep you posted on the service itself. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.