HERE’s some good news for both consumers and retailers: a technology developed by Mobeam Inc enables the redemption of digital coupons, loyalty card points and the like directly from your mobile phone using regular barcode scanning devices.
The Mobeam solution makes use of light based communications and infrared proximity sensors within a mobile device to transform a physical barcode into a beam of light that is readable to conventional barcode scanners. It is designed to work for 1D barcode based content, which is the most prevalent form used in commerce today.
What this means for retailers is that there is no need to fork out extra expenses to replace the barcode scanning equipment that they are using at their stores. And for us consumers, we can look forward to having lighter wallets, purses, pockets or bags whenever we make trips to the mall.
Mobeam technology can be enjoyed through two apps: Omnibeam and Beep‘nGo. The difference between the two is that Omnibeam is only available to users from the United States and features offers and discounts from digital grocery saving service, SavingStar. Meanwhile, Beep’nGo supports international retailers and includes the ability to manually enter card numbers.
As wonderful as this news is, there’s a snag here: you would need to own a mobile phone that has Mobeam technology embedded into it. Currently, this technology is only available on Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Note 3 phones. So, for the time being, if you’re not a fan of Samsung’s, you’re more or less out of luck.
However, we certainly hope to see Mobeam’s technology making its way into more mobile devices in the near future as it will definitely be a nifty feature that most of us would be glad to have on our phones.
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http://www.mobeam.com/
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