Google is killing its Hands Free app on February 8

Google launched this impressive and exciting app called Hands Free which allowed users to make the payment with few (four) spoken words instead of smartphone or wallets. Unfortunately, the service is shutting down.

Google announced in a blog post, "...we’ll be shutting down the Hands Free app on February 8." The company is yet to clarify why it is stopping the program.

Hands Free was launched in March last year which allowed users to enter in payment and photo information, and then used a combination of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and location services from the user's phone to identify if the phone was near a participating retailer. While making the payment, the user just had to show the photo he/she had set up in the app to confirm the transaction.

Though Hands Free was supposed to streamline the purchasing process, it failed to reach a decent user base. According to the Verge report, it was functioning only for a "small selection of McDonald’s and Papa John’s, and a few other local stores in the South Bay area."

At the time of the launch, Google was also planning to introduce visual identification. Now, that the app is shutting down, those plans will also not see the day of the light.

However, Google did note that it wishes to “bring the best of the Hands Free technology to even more people and stores.” This means we can expect some new technology on similar lines in the near future.