Using The Fingerprint For MCommerce

A fingerprint, a machine readable identifier, is also a physical world hyperlink and can be used for mcommerce.

Fingerprints as digital payments

A customer pays by putting his fingerprint on a special scanner instead of paying with cash or credit cards, in the Edeka supermarket in the western town of Grosen-Buseck, in December 2006.

The new system that scans customers' fingerprints and deducts the grocery bill from their bank accounts has taken supermarkets in southwestern Germany by storm and is being picked up by hardware stores, school canteens and even the country's ubiquitous beer gardens.

Fed Questions Contactless Payments

From InfoWorld Fed Questions Contactless Payments

As major corporations like CVS, McDonald's, and Walgreens begin deploying new RF, or "contactless," payment technology, the Federal Reserve is taking a closer look at the technology and is asking the payment industry and card companies, among other questions, whether the new payment systems are secure.

Contactless payment technology uses RF technology embedded in credit cards, mobile phones, or USB devices to negotiate credit and debit transactions. As opposed to older generation magnetic strip technology, the RF cards can be waved in front of a card reader.

The rapid deployment of RF-equipped contactless payment technology was behind a meeting at the Boston Federal Reserve in May. According to interviews with those at the meeting, the payments industry argued that, while not foolproof, the new RF payments systems are a vast improvement over existing, "magnetic stripe" payments technology and that Americans' casual handling of their credit cards poses a far greater risk to sensitive financial information than wireless hackers that might target the cards.

"Adoption is growing at a faster rate than any other payment technology introduced in the last 50 years,".

Nokia And Mobile Carriers Team Up For Mobile Wallet

From TechShout Nokia and Mobile Carriers Provide Mobile Wallet


Nokia and several mobile telecom carriers have all teamed-up for a global initiative that will transform mobile phones into wallets, a wireless telecoms interest group announced on Wednesday.

Through this novel plan, consumers will be able to use a phone as a wallet or as an access card simply by waving it over a wireless reader - and in some cases punching a PIN number into the phone - similar to how travelers in Tokyo and London access public transport.

Nokia, along with two other leading cell phone makers Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, will set in a wireless chip into its phones.

In a statement, Mifare and Felica said, “By combining this secure chip with an NFC chip, a universal contactless IC (integrated circuit) platform can be created for mobile phones.”