Indeed, a Finnish start-up Uniqul has launched what it calls the first ever payment platform based on face recognition.
The system allows you to pay by giving the camera a nod and pressing ‘OK’ on a point-of-sale tablet. Uniqul claims its technology is protected by “military grade algorithms”.
“In the background our algorithms are processing your biometrical data to find your account in our database as you are approaching the cashier. The whole transaction will be done in less than 5 seconds – the time it usually takes you to pull out your wallet”, explains a press release from the company.
In order to use Uniqul unique payment system, the customer needs to register online before and have its picture taken by one of the company's Qpoint machine. Then, the customer can use all major credit cards or even a PayPal or Square account to charge its Uniqul account.
The real fun begins, lets witness the applications the world's finest software developers will create using this new technology.
Following with the eye recognition topic many sci-fi movies have been procrastinating technologies that now are part of our every day lives.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Minority Report (2002), it procrastinated the use of eye-scan technology to customize customers' needs based on their existing profiles and historic consumption records.
In case you did not have a chance to watch the movie (highly recommended by the way), check this brief sequence where Tom Cruise was entering a popular retail store with someone else's eyes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjsb22-EwQ
One of the morals of the story is that in the not-so-distant future people won't be able to freely and anonymously walk around the city without being continuously recognized by this eye scanning systems. Whether this would lead to a more secure society or on the other hand, a 'less free' and more controlled one is open to debate!
Agree with you Jon, but doesn't every new technological breakthrough comes with its potential threats - may it be nuclear energy or facial recognition.
ReplyDeleteIt is discretion of the society to make a better use of new technology and innovations so as to improve the overall living standards of people.
Talking about society and about the use of technology, watch out for my post coming up next on the way video analytics are currently deployed in "facebook" :-)
Hey, I just found a news on this in Indian media as well. Check it out:
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-24/science/40770928_1_credit-card-new-technology-finnish-company