[HN Gopher] Amazon One palm authentication discontinued
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon One palm authentication discontinued
Author : KerryJones
Score : 50 points
Date : 2026-01-28 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (amazonone.aws.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (amazonone.aws.com)
| nickorlow wrote:
| Amazon it on a killing spree lately it seems
| radicalethics wrote:
| I think they are going all in on Alexa+ and cutting many other
| teams (speaking fully as an outsider). The new Echo Dot Max
| makes controlling your TV/Browsing youtube with natural
| language really nice (same for exploring Amazon Music - Spotify
| needs to catch up with this fast). Subscriptions for AI in the
| living room is what they are first movers of at the moment.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| How does that compare with Google? I tried updating my Google
| Mini smart speakers to have Gemini and it still seems dumb as
| a box of rocks.
| radicalethics wrote:
| No experience with Google yet. Amazon still has more work
| to do with making their tool-use calls bullet proof, but
| I've been able to search Youtube naturally and "open the
| first video" (this is still rudimentary, it's not perfect
| yet). Pretty good success moving around the Fire TV app
| with voice (open, exit), reasonably good at switching Live
| channels. Really fun with Amazon music, "pull up a Taylor
| Swift album, but acoustic only, from 2010s ...", stuff like
| that. It's great, and I expect it to become rather ...
| perfect in time.
|
| Other things:
|
| - Great for todo/reminders with timers
|
| - "Hey Alexa, turn my lights on at 5 everyday, close them
| at 12"
|
| - Not great at controlling Prime Video yet, can search it,
| but not great yet at all. Expecting this to be perfect at
| some point as well.
|
| It's almost like a ... voice operating system.
| arjie wrote:
| This has been the worst downgrade for me. Response times
| have skyrocketed. The minimum time to response is now a few
| seconds slower and the responses continue to be low
| quality. The speaker seems to have even lost some
| functionality where it says "I can't do that yet" for a
| thing it mostly could already do previously. If I could
| tell anyone with Google Home devices one thing, it would be
| to not 'upgrade' to Gemini.
| nickorlow wrote:
| Google update sucks. Not only is it slower + generally
| dumber, but their AI alignment has made it refuse to answer
| very normal questions (I got scolded by my speaker for
| asking about the hours of the nearest liquor store)
| stefan_ wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46796745
| nickorlow wrote:
| Wonder what stunted adoption of this? High costs, users not
| liking it b/c privacy, credit cards/tap to pay being a good
| enough experience already? The handful of times I used this, it
| was nice.
| jasonjei wrote:
| I was personally creeped out by it at the handful of Whole
| Foods I saw this. I'd rather tap and pay or pay by QR code.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I just signed up and used it at Whole Foods. For me, and for
| that use case only it removes a step of loading the Whole
| Foods app to scan a QR code for my account.
|
| But have no idea why anyone else would adopt this.
| squokko wrote:
| People don't want to give Amazon their biometrics?
| iamjake648 wrote:
| If you trust Amazon, they were never storing images of your
| actual palm but instead creating and storing unique hashes
| from that data. Again, if you trust them, they did it in just
| about the most privacy protecting way possible.
| astrashe2 wrote:
| My doctor's office was using it. I didn't want to give them my
| biometric data.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| They also had this as option to pay at Amazon Fresh, which seemed
| odd to me. You needed to use your phone to scan the QR code from
| your phone anyway, and they charged the credit card on file in
| your Amazon account.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I didn't even know this was available to other businesses -- I've
| only ever seen it at Whole Foods.
|
| Curious if they're keeping it at Whole Foods or discontinuing the
| hardware altogether? Can't say I've ever once seen someone
| actually use it to pay there.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I literally just signed up for this. Guess I have the killing
| touch.
|
| I don't see the point though. It is a payment solution in
| search of a problem. It is a nice bonus first party payment
| solution at Whole Foods though.
| brk wrote:
| I used it once, a couple of weeks ago. Had been meaning to sign
| up for a couple of years and then just randomly completed the
| process recently.
| kidfiji wrote:
| They've had them permanently installed at Seattle's largest
| indoor sports/entertainment arena
| arjie wrote:
| This is sad. I loved paying by palm at Whole Foods because it was
| definitely the fastest way to do things. You just scanned and you
| were out. Now I've got to slowly type in my phone number for
| Prime and then tap my watch and select the right credit card
| (palm scan always used my groceries card). Ah well, perhaps
| adoption was low.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I just scan the QR code from the Whole Foods app on my phone.
| Then tap the button to pay with the credit card linked to the
| account.
|
| For security reasons, it makes sense that if you use your phone
| number rather than the QR code, of course you don't have the
| option to utilize the linked card.
|
| Meant to register the palm thing but just never got around to
| it, wasn't even really sure how/where? That was the main
| blocker for me -- was never prompted to do it as part of
| checkout, and didn't want to waste time going over to customer
| service to ask how.
| criddell wrote:
| The Whole Foods we go to is in a cellular dead zone. So much
| time is wasted by people standing there waiting for their
| phone to load.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I've been bitten by that. I genuinely can't even guess why
| it needs internet to generate the code. Shouldn't it just
| be a TOTP-type thing?
| iamjake648 wrote:
| It doesn't seem like a big deal, but this is just so much
| more annoying than using my palm that not only links my
| payment method but also prime membership.
|
| Now I need to tap through a stupid app and scan a code.
|
| We always stopped at whole foods on the way home from the
| gym, and I didn't always have my phone with me or readily
| accessible. This will definitely cause me to cut back on this
| quick stop in / impulse purchases.
| jzimbel wrote:
| If you have an iOS phone you can create a shortcut on your
| home screen that jumps directly to the code in the Amazon
| app. Whole Foods app may have the Shortcuts integration
| too, but I use the Amazon app.
|
| The code both applies your Prime membership and links your
| preferred payment method.
| awakeasleep wrote:
| I believe it's even quicker to ask Siri to open the Whole
| Foods app. You don't need to touch anything and Face ID
| will unlock the phone while you're talking.
| alex_young wrote:
| I think "just" is doing a lot of work here.
| Steps I remember: 1. Put down everything so you have 2
| free hands. 2. Mention that it will take a minute to
| the cashier. 3. Unlock your phone. 4. Find the
| Amazon app (this part is odd, you're at Whole Foods).
| 5. Dig around in the UI for the store code. They move it
| around. 6. Present your phone to the cashier to scan.
| crazygringo wrote:
| 1. I've already put down the groceries I was carrying, so
| the cashier can scan them. I have free hands.
|
| 2. The cashier is busy scanning, you don't need to mention
| anything.
|
| 3. FaceID unlocks it automatically.
|
| 4. What Amazon app? I use the Whole Foods app. I keep it
| easily accessible, I don't need to find it.
|
| 5. The code is always displayed by default when you open
| the app. You never have to dig around anything.
|
| 6. Or scan it yourself under the customer-facing scanner
| they have for that.
| thinkling wrote:
| The WF store I frequent has lousy cell reception, so add th
| step "open Settings app and get on store's wifi" (and who
| knows what all that lets them track).
| arjie wrote:
| Ah, perhaps I should try this Whole Foods app. The Amazon app
| is very slow and requires a good data connection to launch so
| it's mildly inconvenient when you've already reached checkout
| and it won't open for you to get the QR code.
|
| The palm thing was never prompted as part of checkout, it's
| true. I just did it while I was being checked out once years
| ago since it seemed so cool and it worked flawlessly since
| then. Honestly, I found the UX of it really all well done.
| Even if it didn't make it in the long term, I hope the team
| knows there were a few happy users out here!
|
| EDIT: I just installed the Whole Foods app and it opens
| directly to the QR code. That's nice. It also selects the
| appropriate payment method. There doesn't seem to be a watch
| equivalent so I'll have to pull my phone out, but this
| definitely reduces the terrible blow of losing the palm scan.
| I hope it works well without good Internet access!
| antgonzales wrote:
| Amazon, 1998: hello we sell books but online
|
| Amazon, 2023: please return to your Primehouse for your nightly
| Primemeal, valued Primecitizen
|
| - krang t. nelson
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Like literally scan your palm? There's no way that's on device
| like a fingerprint reader on your iPhone either. You're okay
| with just providing biometric data to a large corp like that.
| Makes me shudder.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You wave your hand over a camera.
|
| At this point I presume they collect such biometrics whether
| I like it or not; they have cameras everywhere.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| A grainy image of your palm from a surveillance camera
| capture is not going to expose biometric data. Your hand
| needs to be close enough to make out the detail required.
| Then tying that to your identity is very hard and takes
| manhours, not something you can replicate at scale. You're
| giving them your palm print/vein scan tied to your identity
| on a plate. It's very irresponsible.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > A grainy image of your palm
|
| I really doubt getting a reasonably good image of my hand
| is tough for Amazon. But they don't really need my palm
| at all; most of the point of that was probably that it'd
| be much freakier to normies if the self-checkout just
| said "hi Bob!" when you got close via facial recognition.
|
| > Then tying that to your identity is very hard and takes
| manhours...
|
| That seems deeply unlikely. I'm probably on 50 different
| cameras at a Whole Foods, some of which I'd never notice,
| and at some point I have to check out, which ties all
| that footage to a credit card and my Prime account if I
| don't want to pay the non-deal prices for everything.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Faces are easier to change. Grow a beard, wear some
| glasses, put on some weight or some surgery if you really
| need to. Can't change your eye print, finder prints, vein
| pattern or DNA.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's not really been the case for years now.
|
| Apple's FaceID can figure out who you are even with a N95
| mask and sunglasses on.
|
| And in most scenarios, you're gonna a) pay with a card
| with your name on it and b) head out to your car with its
| unique ID prominently displayed on it.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| FaceID fails more than 85% of the time with a mask,
| sunglasses and a brimmed hat that covers the forehead.
|
| Again, you can ditch your car but your biometric data
| will go into a pool that will be available to cross check
| against in perpetuity.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Now you're "that one guy who wears the mask, sunglasses,
| and a hat inside".
|
| Pay cash every time and you're even more noticeable.
|
| And then they start doing gait analysis or something, or
| use everyone's Ring camera to figure out where you come
| from.
| lxgr wrote:
| Isn't it a deep vein scanner? Much harder to spoof than
| still images or even video.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Hard to spoof. Not hard to _collect_.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Now I've got to slowly type in my phone number for Prime
|
| Haven't the (big) supermarkets in the US adopted the whole
| "scan and go" thing that lots of countries in Europe have had
| for a long time? (maybe more than a decade at this point I
| think)
|
| When I go to the supermarket, right after the entrance, I pick
| up a scanner, then as I pick stuff, I scan them and pack them.
| Then when I'm done, you scan a code, give back the scanner,
| take your stuff and leave. Kind of assumed this was done in the
| US first and then spread here, but maybe it started here? Not
| sure.
| alex_young wrote:
| Haha no. US commerce improvements tend to trail EU by a
| decade.
|
| We just got tap to pay a couple of years ago. People still
| pass bits of paper with signatures on them to pay each other
| for stuff.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > We just got tap to pay a couple of years ago
|
| You mean NFC payments? :| Oh, and checks too? I guess
| things were very different than my assumption, interesting
| thing to have learned today. Thanks!
| alex_young wrote:
| I mean the physical credit cards didn't have tap to pay
| most of the time until very recently. NFC has been around
| for a long time.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > I mean the physical credit cards didn't have tap to pay
| most of the time until very recently
|
| I think a couple of years before COVID hit most cards had
| it, but many stores didn't support it. But once COVID
| came and visited, all stores got new TPVs that could read
| NFC very quickly.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Paper checks aren't nearly so common for anything other
| than maybe a local tradesman or if you're renting from an
| individual. It's not uncommon to see high traffic places
| like gas stations refuse paper checks outright, or only
| accept them from local banks, as the onus is on the
| receiver if it doesn't clear.
|
| NFC payments have been around for a bit but are only
| recently very widespread, COVID really pushed that
| forward.
|
| The only notable big name holdout is Walmart. Somehow,
| they're still on either chip+pin or magnetic stripe cards
| only.
| selkin wrote:
| Walmart famously refuse to pay the extra couple of basis
| points that are charged by the various payment-rails-
| involved-entities when doing NFC payments instead of
| physical card.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| We literally started rolling out chip-and-pin after tap-
| and-go was already rolled out in England (and presumably
| elsewhere). It made no fucking sense because it was
| obviously going to be replaced again, and chip-and-pin is
| a miserable experience. All it did was annoy everybody
| for several years.
| expedition32 wrote:
| As much as I complain about Google I use Google Pay for
| basically everything. I'm not even taking my wallet with
| me...
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| No, I've never seen that in the US.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| That does not exist in the US as far as I've seen.
|
| There's Amazon's "just walk out" stuff, which they just
| killed.
| pirates wrote:
| Despite others saying that they have never seen it, Meijer
| stores have this, except instead of a store scanner you use
| your phone with an app. There are other reasons too, but this
| is a big part of why my family shops at Meijer compared every
| other store near us.
| IshKebab wrote:
| To be fair with scan & go you still have to scan your
| membership card which would be the equivalent of typing in
| your phone number.
|
| But most retail tech in the US is suuuuper backwards. They
| were still signing credit card receipts until _very_
| recently. The way you pay for petrol /gas is bonkers.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > The way you pay for petrol/gas is bonkers.
|
| Wait, what do you mean?
|
| This is how it works for us: I go to the gas station, the
| pumps are locked by default, I await eye-contact with the
| person inside, wave at them, they unlock the pump, I pump
| the petrol, then I go in and pay.
|
| I'm guessing it's radically different than that and
| involves signing papers somehow? Almost afraid to ask.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I only did it once in America and this was some years ago
| so maybe it's changed... but basically you have to
| somehow pay in advance. How do you do that without
| knowing how much petrol you'll need? Very good question!
| If I recall I basically overpaid and they refunded me or
| something like that. Crazy.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| As an American, I always put my card into the pump itself
| and then fill up. No guessing, no change, no even going
| inside for a normal visit.
|
| One time I went inside to buy a can to fill up, and I
| also paid upfront for a gallon, which made the pump cut
| off automatically.
|
| I've never tried to pay for an unknown amount of gas with
| cash, and never felt any need to.
| FateOfNations wrote:
| Thankfully no signatures involved. You roll up,
| swipe/dip/tap your card in a reader on the gas pump,
| enter your postal code (archaic security measure from the
| pre-chip card era), wait a few moments for the electronic
| authorization (they pre-authorize an amount in the
| $75-150 range), then pump, and leave.
|
| If you are paying cash, you generally have to go inside
| before pumping and prepay, and then go back inside
| afterwards to get your change, if applicable.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Kroger (Ralph's, etc.) allows you to do tap and pay, or to
| scan and pay (using a QR code in the app tied to your
| customer profile). These work at the regular cashiers and in
| self-checkout.
|
| Home Depot has also allowed this for lower-value items for
| several years.
| g947o wrote:
| scan & go is in most grocery stores but I almost never see
| anyone using it.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Is it really that hard to take an credit card out your purse or
| wallet and tap it that you were happy to hand over biometric
| data to amazon?
| arjie wrote:
| Oh the alternative isn't taking a credit card out of my
| wallet and all that. It's scanning my Amazon Prime QR code
| and then tapping my watch after selecting the credit card.
| But it isn't "hard" per-se, just mildly inconvenient, and yes
| it doesn't take much inconvenience for me to volunteer my
| biometrics. Clearly that isn't sufficiently common a position
| or they wouldn't be removing it so your surprise is likely
| quite common as well.
| lxgr wrote:
| I find scanning QR codes at the POS hugely inconvenient
| compared to paying with my watch. The discount has to be
| substantial for me to ever scan them.
|
| Retailer apps are often surprisingly (expectably?) bad at
| dealing with spotty/no connectivity, and even if they
| aren't, getting my phone out of my pocket, unlocking it,
| opening the right app, getting to the right screen in it
| (oh, did it just log me out?) etc. takes about 10x as long
| as arming my smartwatch in a convenient moment and tapping
| it once the terminal asks for it. It doesn't even require a
| free hand, since the range of mine is much better than that
| of passive contactless cards.
| arjie wrote:
| I like linking to the Amazon account because apart from
| the discounts (which are nice), it puts the receipt in my
| Amazon orders list. Yes, at Gus's there's no such linking
| feature or discount and I just tap my watch after
| selecting the appropriate card.
|
| Amazon's app is just like what you describe. It is
| extraordinarily slow and needs a high-speed data network.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Amazon prime is tied to your credit card. One single action
| to pay: tap credit card against reader
|
| Why do you have so many hoops to jump through like
| presenting QR code and tapping watch
| arjie wrote:
| I would love that, but it doesn't seem to happen for me
| if I use the credit card that I have linked to my Amazon
| Prime membership as the payment method. When I tap it
| doesn't recognize my Prime membership. Do you have the
| Amazon Prime credit card perhaps?
|
| The reason why I did the QR code and watch tap thing
| prior to the palm thing is that I didn't want to carry a
| single-use credit card.
|
| I'd love the functionality you're talking about. Do you
| remember how you set it up to get that? Would love to
| have my grocery card automatically recognized as being
| linked to a Prime membership.
| kay_o wrote:
| Any card on your account should work, last 4 must match,
| I have never entered number or scan QR
| arjie wrote:
| Oh, then my watch should suffice. Okay, I shall try it
| next time with a Prime discounted product!
| falcor84 wrote:
| It's another small source of friction. I don't know if
| biometrics are the solution, but I do find for example that
| I'm much more comfortable buying on a website I've used
| before and already has my card details, rather than giving
| them to a new website.
| kingstnap wrote:
| The useful data in that story is the eating and shopping
| habits collected by the transaction. What are they going to
| do with the arrangement of lines on your palm, likely stored
| as a compressed latent vector not useful for reconstruction?
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| I tap a piece of plastic in two seconds and not only do I not
| have to give any tech giants my biometrics, they're not added
| as middleman in the transaction at all.
| ColinWright wrote:
| Click on the link to read about this: 403 ERROR
| The request could not be satisfied. Request blocked. We
| can't connect to the server for this app or website at
| this time. There might be too much traffic or a
| configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app
| or website owner. If you provide content to
| customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to
| troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the
| CloudFront documentation. Generated by cloudfront
| (CloudFront) Request ID:
| IFiQvbhPlrP5MaRdM5km5yAdFAEmvC_IUx2LA899aXly11zm3wAoKg==
|
| Is it the HN "Hug of Death" ?
| jsheard wrote:
| I doubt HN could knock over an Amazon site. They're probably
| geoblocking regions where that service never operated.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > I doubt HN could knock over an Amazon site
|
| Not every amazon site is cloud-scale. Niche product like this
| might be running bare metal under someone's desk
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| No, apparently eu-west-1 went castors up earlier. I wouldn't be
| surprised if there was something related to this error.
|
| The site came back around eu-west-1 which, while correlation
| isn't causation, it does look meaningfully in causation's
| direction and wiggle an eyebrow suggestively.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Same right now from Spain. I guess it could be a geoblock,
| although I expected something more from Amazon
| quotemstr wrote:
| It's interesting how despite Google and Amazon both canceling
| products constantly, only one is infamous for the practice.
| woah wrote:
| Is this what the 16,000 were working on?
| dfajgljsldkjag wrote:
| These were neat to use at whole foods but I never saw them
| anywhere else. I guess Amazon just didn't really have much
| penetration in payment terminals in general. Maybe a deal with
| clover or toast could have changed things.
| Helithumper wrote:
| I found the palm payment at Whole Foods to be very convenient for
| the same reason as others in this thread.
|
| The steps without using Amazon One were
|
| * open the amazon app
|
| * open the checkout thing
|
| * click the QR code button
|
| * click the amazon QR code
|
| * Scan it
|
| * Open Apple Wallet
|
| * Pay
|
| I hope that they will at least add the amazon QR code to apple
| wallet to make payment faster in store. That or something to make
| payment (with Amazon Prime link) as fast as with Amazon One even
| while not continuing Amazon One itself.
|
| I wonder if they could use a NFC tag or something to quickly open
| the amazon app on your phone to pay or something?
| nickorlow wrote:
| Can they not just associate your debit/credit card w/ your
| account?
| davidmurphy wrote:
| download the Whole Foods app. It solely exists to display the
| QR code on startup.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Walk me through it.
|
| Why do you have all these steps to pay at a supermarket?
|
| When I am here in the UK, I wave my phone over the card reader,
| it goes "Pling!" and that's my stuff paid for.
|
| Of course, it's different elsewhere.
|
| When I am over in Austria, I wave my phone over the card
| reader, it goes "Pling!" and that's my stuff paid for, but this
| time _in Euros_ , at the going exchange rate.
| vinay427 wrote:
| In the US, you also wave your phone over the card reader, it
| goes "Pling!" and that's your stuff paid for. The GP comment
| is not about paying (although it can do that too [1]), but
| rather about providing their Amazon account details for
| Amazon Prime discounts and other benefits.
|
| A similar process is the case in the UK as well at Amazon
| Fresh stores, last I checked.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?node
| Id=...
| wiether wrote:
| More details in their FAQ: https://aws.amazon.com/one/faqs/
| cmiles8 wrote:
| The tech here was good but the product implementation was
| terrible. These scanners just showed up randomly in places and
| just sat there unused.
|
| I literally both saw them all over and never actually saw anyone
| use it.
|
| No clear onboarding pathway, no explanation as to what it did or
| why use it, no clarity on what happens to the data. Just a box
| sitting there.
|
| It was as if all the focus was on the tech and nobody bothered to
| think about how to actually deploy a product to market.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| I used them in whole foods all the time
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| sincere, non-trolling question: Why?
|
| You clearly saw some value in the convenience. Smartphone and
| smartwatch NFC offers that convenience _everywhere_. Even
| setting up palm authentication feels like unnecessary work.
| atkailash wrote:
| I used it at Whole Foods cause it did my prime code and
| charged me at the same time without digging my phone out of
| my pocket but also my Whole Foods has bad reception so it's
| annoying to use
| vostrocity wrote:
| I like to go running with nothing on me besides a house
| key, and it's useful to be able to stop by Whole Foods
| after the run and buy a snack without a phone, watch, or
| wallet.
| bombcar wrote:
| A powered door lock and keypad and you won't even need
| the house key!
| fragmede wrote:
| A richer zip code and safer streets and you won't need
| either!
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Convenience?
|
| Set up once with the CC with rewards for groceries, hover
| hand 2 seconds, done.
|
| Apple Pay in the phone or watch are super convenient as
| well, but they take just a tad bit more of time between
| selecting the menus in the touch screen for pay options,
| and then selecting the matching CC.
|
| I save like 30s? Possibly. Is this tech overkill? Most
| likely.
| toephu2 wrote:
| What problem was it solving though? NFC contactless payments is
| already pretty fast and convenient. I feel like Amazon One Palm
| was invented to solve for a problem we didn't really have. Thus
| the failure.
| michaelt wrote:
| There are certain enterprise applications that particularly
| like biometrics.
|
| Gym entry system where you can't share your entry fob with a
| buddy
|
| Corporate access control system, no need for a guard to deal
| with people who've forgotten their cards.
|
| Time clock where it's impossible for workers to clock other
| people in/out.
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Sure, but that isn't what it was being used for, and all of
| those places already have access control systems.
| burnte wrote:
| I saw them show up without explanation, but I don't think
| that's the reason they were unused. If you look at it, it says
| what it is and to just hold your hand over it to use it, so
| it's very easy to learn to use and enroll.
|
| I believe the problem was that people simply don't want Amazon
| to own copies of our finger/hand prints. I intentionally
| avoided the scanners because of that reason.
|
| This was always doomed to fail, this was almost as dumb an idea
| as the Facebook Portal. Yeah, the tech is there, and works
| great, but just like no one wanted Facebook to have a 24/7
| camera in their house, I don't think people want to give Amazon
| their biometric data.
|
| FB Portal was rolled out right after all the media reporting
| about Cambridge Analytica and how utterly untrustworthy
| Facebook really was at it's code. A friend of mine was PM on it
| and I felt terrible for him because as excited as he was, I
| knew it was always going to fail.
|
| "Do you have chickens in a coop? Hire Chicken Eating Foxes to
| watch them for you! They won't eat your chickens _! " _ Note:
| Chickens may be eaten at anytime and will probably be eaten
| instantly.
| munchler wrote:
| This seemed like a bad idea to me from the beginning. Giving
| personal biometric details to a monster corporation is a
| nonstarter for both techies and normies.
| burnte wrote:
| Exactly, this is why it failed. Suddenly in every Whole Foods
| is an Amazon device saying "give me your hand print!" Uh, no.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| They must have collected enough bio-metric data, or deemed hand
| prints to be not useful.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Or they've proven that you can use vein patterns in human skin
| to positively identify individuals well enough that payment
| losses are an acceptable risk, and now they plan to just
| integrate that into their surveillance apparatus everywhere.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I was always surprised there wasn't an uproar about these. A
| substantial chunk of Americans, i.e. a huge portion of
| evangelicals, devoutly believe a few things:
|
| * The Bible book of "Revelations" is an accurate prediction of
| things that will happen exactly as described.
|
| * Revelations predicts that in "the end times", it will become
| impossible to buy or sell anything without "the mark of the
| beast" on their forehead or right hand.
|
| * The "mark of the beast" would be administered by the
| Antichrist.
|
| From Revelations 13:16-17:
|
| "And the second beast required all people, small and great, rich
| and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand
| or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he
| had the mark--the name of the beast or the number of its name."
|
| I grew up in an extremely religious part of the US with a large
| evangelical population, and I know firsthand that a lot of people
| believe that all of the above is literally, precisely true. It's
| exactly what I was taught in Sunday School as a kid. I do not
| believe this; please don't feel the need to tell me why these
| ideas are not true because I already agree with you. However, _a
| lot_ of my family and old neighbors would 100% agree with all of
| the above statements.
|
| And yet, they seemed to have no problem with buying stuff from
| Amazon with a palm print, or using Sam Altman's creepy Orb eye
| scanner thing. I'm genuinely surprised at how little fuss there
| was about them.
| gear54rus wrote:
| So did you ask any of them about this? These religious lunacy
| always seem like they are from some other planet to me haha.
| kstrauser wrote:
| No, that's not the kind of subject I'd typically bring up in
| conversation. That would imply that I wanted to hear the
| answer.
| 15155 wrote:
| They are a useful tool if you need to keep your civilization
| preoccupied and blissfully unaware of their current
| circumstances. Existential crises are expensive.
|
| "Keep working! The next life - that's when it gets good!"
| 46493168 wrote:
| The book you're talking about is "Revelation" (singular) not
| "Revelations"
| kstrauser wrote:
| Ah, correct. I think I've heard it pronounced with the
| missing S more often without it.
| yalogin wrote:
| This was a terrible idea to begin with and am glad it's
| discontinued. Hope they delete the biometric data securely.
| bokohut wrote:
| Yet again another failed attempt to move to biometric
| identification linked to a payment instrument thus allowing one
| not to need to carry that payment method on person.
|
| This is not the worlds first biometric payments failure, as that
| belongs to PayByTouch, nor will it be the last. Having been
| deeply involved in the technology systems around the worlds first
| attempt at PayByTouch I do wonder why the "easy" is not embraced
| by more? I think I know however as it is likely religious in
| nature and the beliefs around such things. I can vividly recall
| being told to hide my employee badge while walking through the
| crowd of protesters holding signage about "Mark of the beast" and
| more in my attempts to enter the PayByTouch headquarters which
| used to reside at 1 Market in San Fran CA many years ago.
|
| Wash, rinse, repeat : Everything old is new again. Just give it
| time as biometric payments will come around once again for
| absolute, third times a charm?
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