Bump Shares Its Phone Tapping, Data Swapping Technology With A New API

techcrunch.com

16 points·sinzone··9 comments

Imagine Bump as the fastest way to transfer money within friends or somebody...

e.x: Hey buddy you should give me 10 bucks from yesterday!

Oh yes! let's bump.

I can't wait for this to be true. Future, get here faster!

I think this is a really cool idea. I think of it every time I use IrDA to beam small files back and forth. But IrDA is so 10 years ago...

How does it work? Ad-hoc wifi connection between the phones, or does it actually send the data through the cloud?

as i understand it, it uses the timing of the bump and location data to match the phones, then the transfer of data is done through the cloud

yes, and we are network agnostic so a user on wifi will match a user on the cellular network.

It really is a nifty idea, but it does make me tired thinking about how far those bits have to travel!

Did y'all ever play with acoustic transfer of data? I could see using the speaker, mic, and a soft modem to transfer a few kB or so.

Doesn't location data require GPS which takes time to acquire data and need satellite visibility? What happens if I bump in a basement?

Location can come from cell tower triangulation, scanned wifi or GPS. There are several ways we match people without location, but the vast majority are currently matched with.

Shameless plug: if you think this is cool come work with us! http://bu.mp/jobs.html There are even more exciting things on the horizon (well we think so at least).

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