The page feels like the closest thing I've seen to a TV ad spot on the web.

I opened the tab and missed the intro completely. Had to reload to see it again. They could include a "replay" option.

They should be using the page visibility api and not play the animation until you're actually looking at the tab http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/pagevisibility/intro/

It's not supported by Safari according to the article, though, which may have dissuaded them from using it.

I, being the roundly-abused Opera user that I am, would obviously prefer that they still served the "modern browsers" out there, while the others are catching up. :)

Thank you I was wondering if there was an official way. I have a site that currently uses onfocus / onblur to turn on background scrolling for the grey ominous clouds. (http://www.residentevilradio.com) Wouldn't that work as well for video? The scrolling doesn't start until the page is in focus and pauses the scrolling when you navigate away. (constantly scrolling an image is apparently still a bit processor intensive). That and a lot of us browse with 40+ tabs open.

wow, if you hadn't posted this I would have totally overlooked the intro. Had to go back to re-experience the site. heh

yeah, I'm super impressed.

I honestly can't tell if the commenter intended their statement as a compliment, an insult, both, or value-neutral.

It's an observation. It looked and felt Different.

Come back when you have something to show us. Invite only w/o a way to request one? Use email cc to send money? Seems pretty damn dangerous to me so you need to explain things in a lot more detail.

Interesting timing with Google launching the "send money with Gmail" at IO last week.

The invite-only nature makes me think that Square has been working on this for a while, but since Google beat them to the punch they were forced to roll out Square cash ahead of schedule

Anyone know what the fees are?

Standard would be a bit cheaper than Venmo for credit card, will they offer free from a bank account in a similar manner?

It's 50c by transfer (payed by the sender).

Really? I wonder how they're justifying that when Paypal transfers are free.

In Canada we've had debit (Interac) email transfers for a while now. Supported by all major banks (and some credit unions).

It has a $1.50 fee.

Well if they don't sit on the money for three days (in my experience) I'd gladly pay the fee. Hell I'd pay the fee just so I could use something other than paypal.

40 year old virgin: You don't get the set and I'll throw in the DVD.

Lack of horrible?

So the same thing as Dwolla?

Dwolla is 25c per transfer, or free for transfers <$10.

Dwolla is straight bank accounts. People are more inclined to give out CC/DC info vs. bank account.

Anything that lets me not use PayPal is a good thing.

Seeing as it's pretty easy to spoof an email address, I hope that they have a BCC option with some secret email address i.e. 27272-adsa92@squareup.com . Otherwise it could be pretty easy to send money on behalf of people.

Or they could just reply with a confirmation link.

Likely they would only do this the first time you sent money to someone, or depending on a score from their abuse prevention system.

Wow, does it literally work by cc-ing square on a regular ole email?

Hope not - it's easy to spoof the from address.

BCC'ing a secret stripe address would be OK, until you accidentally put it in CC instead.

Edit: That said, finding a secure way of achieving this kind of convenience would be pretty great. Really, the only way to rival Google's new attach money to emails in Gmail feature.

If someone were going to attempt this, they would look at far more than just the "From" address. There are a lot of email headers and other data points that can help figure out the identity and authenticity of the sender.

I see email spoofing being a problem with this.

I hope that the email only initiates the transfer and that the approval takes place either in the Square Register app or on their website.

How do they authenticate the other guy to get his money out ? all you have is his email address. What do they do, hope someone can't see the auth-code you send him via email?

In any event, I'm curious to find out more about their abuse prevention.

I found this page that somewhat related to spoofing the source address: https://squareup.com/help/en-us/article/5136-troubleshooting...

Two interesting bits:

"I sent money to the wrong email address. If the recipient has not yet redeemed their money, you may cancel the payment. If the payment has been redeemed, please contact the recipient and request a refund, or let us know if you're unable to resolve the issue.

I didn't make that payment. Let us know if you'd like to dispute a charge that you don't recognize."

So, essentially, it's the same as Paypal's free personal transfers, just done through email with a after-the-fact confirmation. Shrug. I'm doing fine with the paypal app today.

Not to be sarcastic, but this is the first time I've ever seen anyone on Hacker News say that "they're doing fine" with Paypal.

That's because people tend to bitch about things online when they have a really horrible experience.

Most people don't go out of their way to tell everyone things are "just working".

I've been using PayPal for 8 years now. Never have had a problem. I'm well aware of their actions with freezing accounts, but I think it's a hard problem when you deal with money and millions of users across the globe.

I just reached the limit on my account and am just too wary of Paypal to give them access to my bank account.

Guess I'll have to find other ways. I am surprised that Square didn't at least send out invites to their current customers. Funny I had to read about it here.

I opened my PayPal account in April of 2002 and have made hundreds of payments with no major issues. I rarely comment regarding PayPal (and occasionally join in on the PayPal hate -- it's too easy!), but count me in as someone who is doing fine with PayPal.

I see this as a pretty viable alternative to cash. I don't like carrying any cash, and pretty much rely on my credit and debit cards alone. With this, I can simply Square Cash via e-mail the few establishments/recipients that don't accept credit card. And from what it looks like, it seems to be independent of the sender's e-mail service (unlike sending money via Gmail). Neat.

I assume they are processing the transaction as a refund to the recipient's card? There isn't enough detail to understand what's going on there. This looks like one of those "The investors made us put something up to start building buzz even though it isn't nearly done..." type of things.

You can send money to debit cards using the ATM rails a la Pulse, STAR, etc.

It's something we've explored at Balanced: https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/32

It sounds more like an ACH. I read that there's a new API that allows sending money to any Visa card (not as a refund) but I've never seen it used.

It says "send to any debit card". That's different than "send to any checking account". You can't ACH to a debit card.

Except for prepaid, every debit card has a bank account behind it that you could ACH to.

Some prepaid cards support direct deposit these days, which means they'd have an ACH account number. For example:

http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/prepaid-card-expl...

Yes, and it says "any debit card" which would include prepaid cards.

Are you sure about that? Check the TOS. From everything I've seen online, everyone hates processing prepaid cards.

you can only process a refund if you have the authorization code for an already existing txn on that card. you can't just issue one just by knowing the card details.

Actually you can process a "refund" (actually just a credit) without an existing authorization code. I've done it.

Refunds and credits are two different things entirely. They are considered two different things by the credit card companies. If you've done this, then you've done it with a system that hides the specifics of what you are actually doing.

I already got a payment from a friend there. It works.

Do they process it as a refund then?

A little off topic, but it is the reason I excitedly clicked the link.... Anyone know the best way to ship money from a US account to an Australian account? Working in the US at the moment but need to get some cash back home to pay off a cc, really don't want to get screwed with fees.

I use ozforex.com.au. They build their fee into the rate, and still seem to offer better rates than anyone else I've found.

Basically you pay into their US bank account, they pay into your Aus bank account a day later.

Just gave this a shot but apparently they aren't regulated in Arizona (where I am).

I really do not want to grab my ankles and get screwed by paypal :(

A normal bank transfer will ultimately cost less, I would just contact your U.S. bank to inquire about a ITT, International Telegraphic Transfer.

Xoom.com? I used them to wire money to Argentina when I was traveling. Better rates than other exchanges and relatively low fees.

Just gave this a shot but apparently living in Arizona sucks and I have to jump through a heap of extra steps, including sending my SSN and color of underwear to them via email. Bummer.

I use xe.com to get money from US -> Canada after internships in the US.

"Square Cash is only available in the United States at this time."

Anyone? Yeah sure. Keep thinking that.

There are many key attributes of cash that this system, despite it's ease of use, ignores.

I rarely try to be pedantic, but two fundamental attributes of cash is that it can be used without a transaction record and often anonymously.

Can this system?

This is clearly a "we were out and you paid since I didn't have cash, here you go" type thing. "Square up" not "money for drugs".

But they called it "Square Cash" -- "Square Up" would actually be a terrific name.

Haha, I totally read it wrong.

I don't imagine they care about anonymity even a little bit.

Anyone know how to request or receive an invite?

Is it just me or did anyone else see a crazy guy run across the street in front of the car in the video.

skateboarder?

The simplicity of this process seems to be a big draw.

Anyone know how to score an invite?

Alternative text: "Don't drive buzzed. Call a cab."

wow, amazingly clever and simple idea.

Not something new. There is a company in China www.99bill.com started email payment system 7+ years ago.

However, they failed to compete with www.alipay.com which provides free escrow service and seamless ecommerce integration.

99bill had to abandon b2c market and pick up b2b & offline market.

Email as a ATM is not 'amazingly clever' if the transactions are not protected by escrow service.

Dear devs, please do not bring your half baked or invite only apps to the HN front page.

No, I am not doubting one of your Internet rights but people's time is wasted and we(at least me) feel not good having to go to a page and face a smiley saying you are not ready for me yet(or I'm not privileged enough to have an invite) and you just wanted to have my attention from miles away!

not only is it invite only, but i seriously doubt it's to "anyone". Only people in the USA