RSSGrocery Shopping With the Touch of a Finger
By Ed Oswald | Published June 15, 2005, 12:28 PM
A supermarket chain in North Carolina has introduced a new way to pay for your groceries - with only the touch of a finger. Lowes Foods is the first retail store in the country to offer a biometric payment system, which will match the fingerprint of a customer to a linked checking account.
Lowes contracted BioPay, a company specializing in biometric payment systems, to set up the service.
"In addition to being the most secure payment method available, QuikTouch can help us provide even faster checkout for our customers," said Lowes Foods President Curtis Oldenkamp.
Customers wishing to enroll in the service will have their index finger scanned, as well as pick a 10-digit number to act as their account number with the service.
After enrollment, the customer will be able to use the service anywhere it is accepted. Lowes Foods operates 109 stores across the Southeast United States, and expects all stores to have the fingerprint payment service by early next year.
man.. a lot of you need to stop smoking those trees
so damn paranoid! =)
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|*lowers head and shakes it slowly*
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|I find this trend disturbing. I can see how businesses and banks would like it. I'm just not sure I want my fingerprint on file and up for sale or sharing by the credit card companies. Since banking institutions can sell and share credit information with other companies without my knowledge, I am already uncomfortable with how things are being handled. 2 major banks have announced theft/loss of consumers' information in the last 6 weeks. Hackers would have a field day with identity theft if they could replicate fingerprints. The potential for abuse outweighs the convenience for me.
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|Now instead of being able to give thieves your money and hope they don't kill you, they'll just cut off your finger. Sounds like a blast!
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|For those currently using credit cards, it's a good option. I'm sure the anonymity of cash is still an option pretty much anywhere, for the paranoid/shady characters. ;)
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|No way man.
No way.
Mark of the Beast.
I gotta get outta here.
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|I'll use it. enough said.
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|I don't know what to think about this one. On one hand, it definitely has a Big Brother feel to it. But the credit card companies already have your information and social security number - so what if they also have your fingerprint? Something like this could also help with stolen credit cards and is a lot less ominous than RFID payment and tracking systems.
That said, I probably wouldn't be the first to sign up.
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|I think I'd rather skip that, and have the Mark of the Beast tattooed on my forehead.
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|I really like this idea! In terms of security, it is way out there. No need to carry credit cards or cash, just scan and go.
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|Won't be widely accepted. It's just stupid to think that people would want to use such a service.IMO I stopped shopping Wal-Mart when they started changing their prices based on the stock they have and when they started talking about using tracking chips in all of their products. I think this will be along those same lines.
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|What tracking chips are you referring too. I have not heard this. Tracking for what? Inside the store or for stocking purposes. Why would someone want to track a product outside their store, unless it was stolen.(big ticket items)
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|It's in those but you have to do a lot of reading and I think they may have changed their minds about somethings but I don't recall it all.
http://www.wired.com/wir...ive/12.07/shoppers.html
http://www.wired.com/wir...2.07/shoppers.html?pg=1
http://www.wired.com/wir...2.07/shoppers.html?pg=2
http://www.wired.com/wir...2.07/shoppers.html?pg=3
http://www.wired.com/wir...2.07/shoppers.html?pg=4
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|They use them for in-store inventory. But it's not like RFID tags can be removed when you purchase the product - they are embedded. And that's where the security risk comes from, people can easily scan you to see what items you have - outside the store.
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|thanks for the info
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|Pick 'n Save in Milwaukee, WI did this over a year ago. This is nothing new. I use it every time I go shopping there.
Quicker than a credit card although I doubt it is that much more secure.
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|A little bit overly paranoid there i just can't see a group of thugs standing outside a store with a scanner deciding who is worth their time to mug.
Their usualy more interested in cash not something they have to pawn off first.
This could be a good thing if widly acepted don't carry cash or cards what are the thugs going to make you do pick up some items and go to the check out counter with you.
Banking machines should also increase their security add a panic button silent alarm and have kinda a buffer zone that won't let transactions go threw when more than one person is in the designated zone and with finger print only systems this would become a usefull because with no cards they can't just steal your pin number and do it themselves and a bufferzone won't be able to see you hit the panic button.
So i say improve this type of technology it would be very usefull in some areas finger prints retnal scans things like that and do away with cards altogether would say cash but people need that and having a portable device for personal transactions would be a target for some sort of hack.
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|Umm he wasn't talking about standing outside the store, but you can buy long range scanners on Ebay right now for $600 and drive down the street and know whose house you want to get in.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/e...tem=7522826170&rd=1
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|will that actualy read threw walls or does it require a line of site.
Plus isn't the tags on the box not the actual item who keeps boxes around just take up space?
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|I can't answer those questions. I am not the one putting them in the products, but I am sure that much like DVDs and many other products that the RFIDs will be in the item themselves or the case that holds them, so Yes most people would still keep them. I am also sure that you would be able to read them through walls with a powerful transceiver. Most of this post is my opinion and I have very little if any facts to back it up.
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