NTU start-up's app could shake up e-commerce industry

You see a dress on TV, you shake your mobile phone, you are led to a website to buy it.

Thanks to a new mobile application called HEY! Shake, this interaction - between a bigger screen and a smaller one using sound patterns - could soon be used by marketers and e-commerce platforms.

The app was developed by Cloud Wings, a start-up made up of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) alumni and students incubated at the innovation and enterprise arm NTUitive.

The technology was invented by Associate Professor Wen Yonggang, director of the Innovation Lab at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at NTU.

HEY! Shake uses patent-pending technology called AirSense, which detects sound patterns within 20m.

The app is able to recognise the video, so it can pull out related content such as videos, websites or lucky draws. It can also retrieve personalised recommendations for users.

Prof Wen said: "Research on the technology behind the app began about seven years ago..."

Mr Xia Ye, head of product and business development for Cloud Wings, said: "HEY! Shake... also allows businesses to quantify measurements by the number of shakes."

Typically, with an advertisement on a screen in public, it is hard to tell whether it caught people's attention. With the app, businesses are able to see if people were interested in it from the number of shakes.

A trial was held within NTU early this month, and the app was ranked as one of the hottest on the Apple App Store and Google Play that week.