#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

[nickgerlich]

The New Pay Way

The way we pay for things continues to march forward, and, quite frankly, it has some people up in arms. There has been a lot of change the last few years—there’s that thorny topic again—and concerns range from security to privacy and religious issues.

If that isn’t a recipe for all-out chaos, I don’t know what is.

And now comes news that Amazon is expanding its Just Walk Out payment system to include clothing. Previously, it had been used only in c-stores and supermarkets. In concept, Just Walk Out means that after a shopper logs in within a store, they can just gather their goods and quite literally walk out the door, their entire shopping experience having been monitored very closely by cameras and sensors.

Amazon is also launching its Amazon One palm-pay system at Whole Foods this year, as I have discussed recently. This last weekend I had my second chance to give it a try, and it performed flawlessly. Aside from the fact that I need to work on the vertical aspect, meaning the correct height of my hand over the scanner, this was the fastest I have ever paid for anything.

As for the extension of Just Walk Out, each garment in the store will have an RFID, or radio frequency ID, tag attached. Basically, the tag will have an embedded chip smaller than a grain of rice, with item information pre-programmed.

RFID technology has been around for more than 80 years. It wasn’t until 1999 that a standard was developed for consumer goods applications, at which point the naysayers were stirred to life. They saw this as the coming of antichrist—haven’t we heard this again recently too?—and some people feared we would all one day have a chip implanted in our wrist or elsewhere, much like we chip our pets. You would have to have the chip to be able to buy or sell.

Of course, it didn’t exactly play out like that, and I haven’t extended my wrist for anyone to implant my chip. On the other hand, I HAVE embraced all of the other payment advances that have occurred since then, like chipped credit cards, tap-to-pay, Apple Pay, and so forth. Even with Amazon’s RFID and palm-pay methods, we’re still not any closer to what people feared late last century.

There are other legitimate concerns over privacy and security. If someone were to obtain your Amazon account info, they could go shopping on your dime, just walking out with whatever they wanted. And I suppose that if someone hacked the entire Amazon system, they would have access to a lot of biometric data, meaning my palm prints.

When I posted the video of my palm-pay experience to my Facebook a couple of days ago, a lot of my similarly-aged friends howled with disapproval. I’ve always been one to take chances, to be open to adopting new ways of doing old things. Besides, I get paid to do this, so there’s that. How else can I teach something if I haven’t actually experienced it?

Still, I understand the concerns, because Amazon is pushing the envelope. And, they not only wish to use it in all their stores, they want it to be in every store, so that they get a piece of each and every transaction made. That’s the vein of gold it wishes to mine.

This all underscores the need to have bulletproof network security. As we all know, even the biggest firms have been brought to their knees because of cyber attackers. Just ask the folks at MGM and Caesars Palace about this. I am convinced that firms must be willing to compensate the best network security experts to the tune of seven figures or more, because paying someone a few million sure beats paying a few hundred million in ransom.

Sadly, the bad guys have a long history of being able to stay just a few steps ahead of the good guys. It’s no different today than it ever was, and today’s porch pirate, while just a common everyday thief, is penetrating a vulnerability just like a pro hacker online. We can’t allow threats like this to stop us from making progress, or even just living our lives.

Like I said on my Facebook, “I have seen the future.” I’m good with it. Let’s work out the bugs and keep marching on. I’d rather be waving my arm over a scanner or waving adios as I exit, than waving it in consternation.

Dr “Gotta Hand It To Them” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[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

[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

[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.

[loveisonlyforthebrave8]

When Pai said ‘It’d be nice if I can taste your whole body’ he really meant Sky’s whole body. Let me count the ways: 1. Back 2. Jaw 3. Shoulder 4. Lips 5. Neck 6. Shin/Calf 7. Thigh 8. Chest/Nipples

[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….

[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

[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

[mattsmemes]