Category: Featured News

Google launches Hands Free service, making transactions more convenient

Google is working to take mobile payments to the next level. The company has launched a new hands-free, voice activated payment application, which is currently being tested in San Francisco, California. Called Hands Free, the service is meant to make mobile commerce more convenient than it already is. It could also give Google and edge in the mobile commerce battle if it can find favor among consumers that often use their mobile devices to shop for and purchase products online and in physical stores.

Hands Free uses an assortment of innovative technologies

Hands Free makes use of a combination of technologies, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and location tracking technology to allow the service to communicate with point-of-sale systems. When this is done, consumers can confirm purchases by saying the phrase “I’ll pay with Google.” Hands Free is a standalone service with no association with Android Pay apart from also being developed by Google. The company believes that the voice activation technology powering Hands Free can make mobile payments more convenient than it already is.

New service could be risky for consumers involved in the mobile commerce space

While Hands Free makes use of innovative technology, it may also suffer from certain security risks. Theoretically, the voice activation technology could be abused by those that want to take advantage of consumer financial information. In order to combat this, Google has equipped Hands Free with numerous security features. One of these features will ensure that cashiers can verify the identity of the person using Hands Free before a purchase is finalized.

Google continues to search for a foothold in the mobile commerce market

Google has been fighting an uphill battle in the mobile payments space. The company entered into the market mobile commerce market relatively early with its Google Wallet platform. The Wallet was somewhat unpopular among consumers, leading Google to change its mobile commerce plans. Now, the company has Android Play, which is has become its flagship payment service that is set to compete with those coming from other major technology companies.

These files are now created with Word indexes and simplify compatibility issues for new and legacy documents.

Users of Google Docs now have a new feature available to them, as they are able to use EPUB format when they export their documents, including the ability to convert Word indexes into chapter lists that can be clicked by the viewer.

This announcement was made rather quietly, earlier this month by the team at Google Apps.

The introduction of the new Google Docs feature may have seemed like a rather quiet one, but it could represent a considerable step forward in making it possible for a spectrum of new and legacy documents to be accessible from one device to the next. Since the EPUB format has become a common format for everything from textbooks to young adult fiction novels and even academic treatises, it was a natural fit for this new feature. The format is appealing due to its ease of compatibility as well as the reliability of its hyperlinked chapter indexes created through standard word processing software such as Microsoft Word.

This format allows Google Docs to better cater to the use and exporting of longer works such as novels.

Unlike when Word documents are uploaded as a Google Doc file, viewable in GDocs, where the indexes originally created in the .doc file may not work (that is, by clicking a chapter, the viewer will not be automatically brought to that page), when it is exported as an EPUB, the chapter indexes are all completely preserved. This makes for a much more convenient reading experience and can be very important when viewing a longer document.

EPUB, itself, is based on the XML publication standard and is both free and open. Its standard was ratified by the International Digital Publishing Forum and overcomes many of the barriers and limitations presented by certain other common formats such as Adobe’s PDF which can lead to a more cumbersome reading experience, particularly when shifting from one device to the next.

It is likely that this could become a highly popular feature in Google Docs and could present a way to translate full libraries of legacy Word-based documents into a more modern and compatible cross-device format.