Eaze Launches Google Glass 'Nod to Pay' Bitcoin App

The Dutch startup Eaze introduced a "Nod to Pay" app for Google Glass that uses the headset's camera and ability to sense motion to enable Bitcoin payments.

The Google Glass app doubles as a Bitcoin wallet, storing funds in the headset's local memory. In addition, "we are working to host several types of currency on the Eaze ecosystem and make them usable for any type of device as long as it fits our philosophy of frictionless payments," says Rutger van Zuidam, Eaze co-founder, in a Feb. 26 press release. "Bitcoin is a great platform to build new services on because you can directly program your money as well as the money flows."

Eaze is not the first company to develop a Bitcoin payment app for Google Glass, a mobile device that is still in limited release. Last year, RedBottle Design LLC unveiled GlassPay, an app that lets shoppers scan product codes with the Google Glass headset and pay for items with bitcoins. RedBottle plans to launch its app in the second quarter of 2014 on Google Glass and Android mobile devices.

To accept Eaze payments, merchants use an Android or iOS app to display a QR code for shoppers to scan. The shopper, wearing Google Glass, says "OK Glass, make a payment" to begin the process. After scanning the QR code, the headset displays the transaction details on its built-in screen above the user's right eye. The user nods twice to approve the payment.

Consumers can set spending restrictions, permitting large transactions only when a proper PIN has been entered.

Google Glass has a built-in QR code reading capability, which today is used to streamline the process of signing on to wireless networks. MasterCard, SCVNGR's LevelUp and others have experimented with ways to combine Google Glass with payments. In MasterCard's example, the company is looking to access its MasterPass digital wallet and QkR mobile application through the headset. In LevelUp's model, the cashier would use Google Glass to read a QR code displayed by the LevelUp app on a shopper's smartphone.