Amazon – the marketplace giant, is committed to speeding up the overall shopping trips of the users by allowing them to pay using the palm of the hand. Amazon aims at unveiling its revolutionary range of palm recognition technology. The given technology aims at initially converting your palm into a personal credit card inside the physical retail stores of the company.
The company recently announced the launch of Amazon One – the all-new biometric technology for enabling shoppers for entering and paying for items at Amazon stores. This is achieved by placing the respective palms over a dedicated scanning device. For ensuring its working, the users are firstly expected to connect the respective palms to some stored credit card. After this, the users can easily make the payments by using their palm.
To get started, Amazon One is going to serve as an entry option at two of the major cashier-less stores of Amazon Go –situated near the headquarters in Seattle. With time, Amazon is making plans to introduce the given technology at more physical stores in a matter of a few months.
Amazon is also hoping to sell the revolutionary palm-scanning technology to other organizations as well –including office buildings, retailers, and stadiums. The company reveals that it is already under active discussions with multiple potential customers. It is a proper model that Amazon has been experimenting on for years. During March, Amazon revealed that it will start selling the technology that would power the cashier-less stores.
Amazon One –the Next-Generation Payment System
The technology is given the name as “Just Walk Out.” It is going to enable the shoppers to enter the store through the scanning of an app, and then, making the exit without ending up in the queue. Sensors and cameras are able to track what items customers go forward with choosing and charging them as they would leave.
Amazon One is known to allow the respective Amazon customers to make payments with the help of their palms. Many people tend to wonder about the utilization of the palm recognition technology for Amazon Payments instead of other technologies like facial recognition and others.
The main reason, as per Amazon, is ensuring the overall privacy. Palms are not known to be easily accessible. Therefore, these help in imparting a sense of security. You can never identify a person by just looking at the palms. However, you can easily recognize a person by his or her face. The utilization of palms for this technology is also quite intentional. Someone could end up accidentally or forcefully giving away facial recognition and thus, the payment could be used easily. With the help of palm recognition, it becomes more of an intentional use. This implies improved security.
How Does Amazon One Work?
Amazon is known to feature a series of scanning hardware systems for scanning the palm and storing its information. The system is capable of encrypting the information and storing the same for further use. For achieving the same, there is no specific requirement of possessing an Amazon account at the same time. However, the technology is known to be functional only once the same is available in other businesses or stores in addition to Amazon.
Data gets stored at the respective store level. Everything remains encrypted as well as stored online. It is only meant at making the overall shopping experience fast & efficient.
For the current instance, the users are allowed to link just a single credit card with the payment technology. You can consider linking the credit card either to the palm or even consider choosing both. In the coming times, Amazon is making plans to expand its offering of using multiple credit cards –one for each palm. Currently, the users are allowed to scan the respective palm when they are entering the Amazon store. Anything purchased from the store is charged to the respective credit card that has been scanned upon entering the store.
Upon expansion of the given technology & its applications, the users can look forward to using the same palm or credit card at multiple stores.
Utilizing the Image Scanning Feature
Amazon One is also on the verge of utilizing the image scanning hardware systems –including the proprietary computer vision algorithms for capturing and encrypting the respective palm image. For using the given service, there is no need to have a dedicated Amazon account. At the same time, the users of Amazon One are going to delete the respective biometric data as well –direct from the official website of the company in case they no longer wish to continue using the services.
Amazon has been working on the technology of Amazon One for several years. During the end of 2019, it had even applied to the patenting of the palm recognition technology.
Focus on Developing Contactless Technology
In the modern era, the users are well-aware of the idea of pressing down their fingers for unlocking the iPhone with the help of the Touch ID. At any other instance, the utilization of the palm-pressing technology for making payments would not be too much of a concern. However, given the fact that the technology has been introduced in the United States of America –currently dealing with COVID-19, the given instance cannot be regarded as the ideal time of putting another potential touchpoint at the entry of the store. Indeed, Amazon aims at stressing that the given device is going to be a “contactless payment.” This is something the customers are going to appreciate. However, unless the store representatives would stand at the entry gate sanitizing the device continuously, the surface is going to be touched by multiple customers. In the given process, Amazon One might go forward with achieving its objective of going all contactless. However, in the meantime, the devices are expected to be under the supervision of proper representatives to be wiped continuously for ultimate safety.
