Paying With the Wave of a Cellphone 137
holy_calamity writes "Tech Review discusses how it will soon be possible to pay in stores by waving your cellphone over a contactless reader, thanks to new handsets due next year, and RFID stickers and cases offered today by firms including Visa. It's convenient for shoppers, but a major driver of the technology is the opportunity for retailers to gain access to their customers' cellphones and social networks for marketing purposes."
Dreaming. (Score:2, Interesting)
Mark of the beast! (Score:4, Interesting)
[13:16] And it maketh all, the small, and the great, and the rich, and the poor, and the freemen, and the servants, that it may give to them a mark upon their right hand or upon their foreheads, [13:17] and that no one may be able to buy, or to sell, except he who is having the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. --Revelations 13:16-17, New Testament (Young's Literal Translation) [bible.cc]
I know it's against Slashdot protocol and all to cite religious texts, but if this isn't the prophecy from the Book of Revelation coming true, I don't know what is. I don't know about the rest of you, but the first time they try to inject that thing into my hand, I'm going to cite this religion text and state boldly and unwaveringly that it is against my religion to have an RFID implant. Posted AC because the mere mention of religion here without bashing it poses great risk to karma.
Re:Old people already use that in Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much this. NFC payment via phones has been one of the main reasons why western style smartphones like iphone have been a complete and utter failure in Japan. If you can't even do basic things like pay for your train ticket with a smartphone, then what good is the smart part?
Imagine an iphone that you couldn't send or receive text messages with. Would you buy it? NFC payments are so widespread there that it's in the same general category in Japan.
Re:Old people already use that in Japan (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Old people already use that in Japan (Score:3, Interesting)
"If you can't even do basic things like pay for your train ticket with a smartphone,"
I live in old Europe but I have been paying parking fees, train and bus tickets for years with my phone.
For the trains and buses the phone even _is_ the ticket, just an SMS that you show to the train/bus guy.
And I initiate the payment by sending a single letter as SMS message, completely under my control.
Not just Japan (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:First call (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mark of the beast! (Score:1, Interesting)
Why is it against your religion to comply to a prophecy of one of its main prophets? Finally there is a way to prove even some of the stuff is true and you're obstructing it by refusing to give in.
Re:Mobile banking (Score:3, Interesting)
I would hope that the user can control that. Personally I think I would prefer to have to explicitly authorize every single transaction.
I think it could be done conveniently though. Either by having the user up an app real quick to enable the RFID chip, or by prompting for a PIN whenever a transaction is attempted.
what (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mark of the beast! (Score:3, Interesting)
Except, you know, context. The whole book was little more than a thinly veiled attack on the Roman authorities. John was very much an anti-establishment character. He was especially critical of the worship of the Emperor as a deity. Not to mention John, like most early Christians, expected all this to happen in his lifetime.
>but the first time they try to inject that thing into my hand
The same "they" that make you carry a cellphone? The same "they" that make you use facebook? If anything you'll be clamoring for the chip our of peer pressure and convenience. It turns out you don't need this mysterious oppressor or 1st conspiracy theories. You just need consumerism and laziness to end up with a chip in your hand. One of the neat things of capitalism is that it gives you enough rope to hang yourself, the trick is not to hang yourself with it.
Re:Mark of the beast! (Score:4, Interesting)