Advance Technology

Yottavote uses NFC for anonymous voting and feedback

TAP TO VOTE: Yottavote uses NFC to solicit customer feedback at a restaurant table

US startup Yottavote has developed an NFC voting system designed to allow consumers to give anonymous feedback to merchants and other businesses via their smartphone.

Yottavote's NFC Tag Service can be used to include NFC tags in table stands, posters or flyers. The URL stored in the tag links to a business' individual customer question, list of questions or Yottavote profile page. Consumers can then give their feedback by answering the questions, without providing any personal details.

A short video created by Yottavote shows the system in action:

Yottavote is now looking for brick and mortar businesses such as bars, restaurants, sporting stadiums and doctors' offices to adopt the platform as pilot customers, the company's Jonathan Chu told NFC World.

"We think that companies could also use our service to solicit confidential, immediate employee feedback as well." he added. "For example, a president could understand the mood of employees in different locations or get immediate feedback on the feasibility of a new strategy they've rolled out."

The team plans to release mobile apps soon to add fluidity to the voting. An app will never be a requirement, however, Chu stressed. "We want as many people voting as possible and think that requiring the user to install a mobile app is an unnecessary barrier," he said. "That flexibility is one of the reasons why we like NFC tags over QR codes."

The future of payment systems - to be or not to be?

Once, long ago, in the U.S. there were four payment systems that handle all payments. They created the rules and requirements that had to comply with each merchant - and even imposed by the commission, which he had to pay if he wanted to accept cards bearing the logo of the payment systems.

These commissions, according to the four major payment systems are necessary to ensure the performance is extremely complex ecosystem of payments that customers made payments amounting to nearly $ 4 trillion. dollars a year and provide a reliable and efficient transactions between buyers and sellers. In exchange for these commissions, payment systems have promised that the operation will be carried out in a mere nanosecond. They made a significant investment in security and the fight against fraud to meet their obligations, as well as in marketing and branding for buyers like to have and use their payment instruments.

These same payment systems depend on a variety of bonded - financial institutions to issue cards bearing the name and logo of their institution payment system. These cards are one of the few ways to fall at the hands of buyers. Debit cards are issued to customers for free, in exchange for opening an account in the same bank, they can use their cards to withdraw cash from ATMs and pay for purchases in stores.Credit cards issued to customers free of charge, in many cases, those who are to be commended for the loan and may pay a purchase is made using these same cards all the way to the end of the month or later, with interest.