Thursday, August 8, 2013

Paypal goes for bricks-and-mortar payments

PayPal tests mobile payments using your face for verification (CNET)
When purchasing an item, the customer's name and photo pop up on the store's payment system. An employee clicks on the photo to initiate the payment. The customer then gets a notice and receipt for the transaction on their phone.
Paypal looks to be trying to process payments in bricks-and-mortar retail establishments with a clever method of substituting a credit card with a mobile phone and a signature with a photo.

The Paypal system uses a human-based facial recognition scheme that humans are actually quite good at administering: one-to-one matching. If Paypal finds it desirable, an algorithm-based face matching feature could be added fairly simply by installing a small web cam and a software application.