#palm pay

[nickgerlich]

Wave As You Go By

I remember to my fleeting days of youth how we paid for things in stores and restaurants. You either had cash, or you handed over a credit card to some guy who then laid it atop a cumbersome manual device. He then slid the arm over your card to capture an imprint—ka-chunk!—and handed you the carbon copy. A few weeks later it might show up on your bill, after much more manual processing.

Later we enjoyed the ease of simply swiping our plastic, be it credit or debit, greatly simplifying and speeding up our transactions. Over-use of your credit card could result in it becoming “swiped out,” meaning the magnetic stripe on the back becomes very scuffed from repeated use.

But in the last few years, the rate of change has magnified. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others all decided they wanted to be part of the payment eco-system, thereby grabbing a very small sliver of each transaction, but also providing convenience.

Then came tap-to-pay, which makes buying things ridiculously easy, whether in a store or at the gas pump. No need to worry about nefarious people installing credit card skimmers to steal your data.

Then there’s QR-pay, which I use in restaurants whenever possible, since I don’t want to relinquish my card to a total stranger for 10 minutes while they disappear to a hidden place. That’s risky business, and has also resulted in much fraud. Heck, I used QR-pay last night at Walmart, a handy feature of my Walmart+ membership. Talk about being in control, I not only scanned and bagged my own items, but then used my phone camera to pay for it from within the app. Easy peasy.

But wait, there’s more.

Biometrics are rapidly becoming the new cool way to pay. Last fall Amazon-owned Whole Foods announced it was rolling out its pilot program of hand scanners across the entire chain. Now when I go to a Whole Foods—mind you, we will never have one in Amarillo, but I shop there whenever I am in a larger city—I just wave my hand, and off I go.

Sure, it is its detractors, mostly those who contend that Big Data—meaning every big company that collects customer data—already has too much of our information. I reply, “But unless someone has me handcuffed against my will, or has chopped off my hand, this is exceedingly secure.” Your palm print is unique. I know. There is no perfect system, just like someone could have stolen my wallet 50 years ago with its cash and plastic, but I feel good about this.

And now Tencent, the Chinese firm behind their social media site WeChat, is doubling down on palm readers. This is not to be confused with American rapper 50 Cent, and I seriously doubt the Chinese entity has ever rapped. As much as we Americans love to be suspicious of anything the Chinese are doing, I must say they are leapfrogging much of the world with this effort. I recall China having QR-pay when we visited in 2019, and we were left scratching our heads and digging for RMBs to pay our lunch tab. Now they are reaching for the stars.

Tencent sees a hand-waving future in this, and not just for payments. Imagine being able to enter the subway or bus with a simple wave. Opening the front door of your house. Or entering your secure corporate campus and office. Even Google employees today have to “badge-in” and “badge-out.” Badges are so 1990s.

The long and the short of it is that we would not need to tote as many things as we have been doing, such as wallets and keys. I would stop short of saying we won’t need to carry our phone, because that would kind of negate the benefit of having such a handy mobile device. I mean, unless you simply do not want to be reachable.

Once again, there will be a transition period, and the hardware and software expense will be huge up front for businesses and anyone else using it. We just saw gas stations in the US transition to chip card readers (as mandated by law), and only some of those have tap-to-pay. All of that would be scrapped with a palm scanner.

And what of the Luddites who do not want to go along with any of this? My brother still prefers cash, and is loathe to use anything else. Going to pro sports and concerts these days is practically out of the question, because those venues no longer take cash, and ticketing is done electronically via your phone. When he saw me pay for my Whole Foods purchase a week ago in Orlando, he shrugged in a negative kind of way.

So does this mean businesses will have to retain legacy systems for those who do not want to adopt palm scanning? Tough question, because it would be even more expensive for companies. Perhaps what needs to be done is a concerted education effort to convince everyone of the merits of the new way, and demonstrate how that, while nothing is perfect, it is a step closer in the right direction.

Just be careful where and when you wave your hand. You may be paying for someone else’s dinner or groceries.

Dr “Ya Gotta Hand It To Them” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[gomzdrawfr]

Day 2 summary

- Ghost cosplayer 1 thinking I’ve mistaken him for someone else + shy (the one who went do you know who I am)

- Ghost cosplayer 2 accidentally hitting me in the face with his fake gun + queue profuse apologies and patting my head (I died)

- Ghost cosplayer 3 who looked too scary so I pussied out (bro was big and his mask looked x10 scarier and he was swinging an axe)

- Ghost cosplayer 4 was sick - asked him to pull my lanyard while taking picture - bro was confuse but had the spirit holding the tag with his palm open until I closed his palm and he went “ohhhhhh you meant that” and proceeded to pull gently (have a safe trip back to sg bro)

- Konig cosplayer who had a girlfriend so I could only admire from far (goals, cute couple)

- Goodies: 3 potato chip bags, more sweets and a hand fan

[collegeboysam]

when daniel gets his memories back and remembers all the freaky hedonistic nasty cirque du soleil shit he and armand used to get up to in the 80s he's going to be genuenly confused about anyone finding armand boring

[reality-detective]

Florida: West Palm Beach Police pursuit of U-Haul truck ends in crash at Broadway and 45th street. 🤔

[braceletofteeth]

You have quite a good memory.

[yippie-madness]

chat am i imagining it or does my wrist/arm look sorta fucked up

why is it like that???? ew ew ew

[sebdoesthings]

I swear, Love in the Palm of His Hand better get a physical release or else i'm gonna riot. I NEED it in paper format

[mer-se]

made a wholeeee smorgasbord of random foods and had a nice lil dinner with my niece. Let my indoor cat run around in the snow (she hated it)….I also ran around a bit….

[derseprinceoftbd]

"Nonetheless, her palms were slick with anticipation"

Just like her mom!

[anartificialsatellite]

May Hashem give you the confidence of a Tumblr user who's two years into a non-specific undergrad program for history and has read three unsourced infographics from a propaganda site.

[itswhatyougive]

Jonathan said in his yearbook profile that he wanted to be a rock photographer. I'M JUST SAYING I want a shot of him taking pics when Eddie is back and the gang is at a Corroded Coffin show in the happy ending montage. Hey, he's got to get his start somewhere!

[pankomako]

working on chibis of some of my characters for a profile banner but honestly i think theyd make sick merch sometime down the line. look at them

[lumiereandcogsworth]

The Great Kermit 🐸

[reality-detective]

Palm Reading 🤔 Part 2

[peemil]

my biggest issue with “new normal” type strategies to handling crisis is that no one is going to actually do what they need to do to adapt they’re just going to keep doing the same thing they were already doing and pretend the problem doesn’t exist because it’s more beneficial to corporate interests if we do so. and as we all know we are NOT immune to propaganda

[mattsmemes]