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Contact-less payments are a nightmare - the possibility of an unintentional scan is pretty damn high.

Spoken like someone who had never used contact-less payment before.

News for you, contact-less payment has been in use in Asian cities for over a decade (just one example http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html launched 16 years ago), and most people has no nightmares of paying unintentionally.

And yes, they have watches also http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-octopus/choose-your-octopus/licensed-octopus-products/en/index.html

I use contact-less payment all the time in Australia these days. But I don't wear my credit cards on my risk, since my hand goes near a lot of contact-less scanners just as a part of interacting with the checkout. If I'm getting on a bus, it could gets even nearer routinely. A watch would be on my hand. Which puts it in the accidental scan zone. Unless I have to push a button to validate - which, with a phone, I can still do one handed. With a watch I have to use two hands.

Contact-less payments are a nightmare - the possibility of an unintentional scan is pretty damn high.

Spoken like someone who had never used contact-less payment before.

News for you, contact-less payment has been in use in Asian cities for over a decade (just one example http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html launched 16 years ago), and most people has no nightmares of paying unintentionally.

And yes, they have watches also http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-octopus/choose-your-octopus/licensed-octopus-products/en/index.html

I use contact-less payment all the time in Australia these days. But I don't wear my credit cards on my risk, since my hand goes near a lot of contact-less scanners just as a part of interacting with the checkout. If I'm getting on a bus, it could gets even nearer routinely. A watch would be on my hand. Which puts it in the accidental scan zone. Unless I have to push a button to validate - which, with a phone, I can still do one handed. With a watch I have to use two hands.

Contact-less payments are a nightmare - the possibility of an unintentional scan is pretty damn high.

Spoken like someone who had never used contact-less payment before.

News for you, contact-less payment has been in use in Asian cities for over a decade (just one example http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html launched 16 years ago), and most people has no nightmares of paying unintentionally.

And yes, they have watches also http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-octopus/choose-your-octopus/licensed-octopus-products/en/index.html

Contact-less payments are a nightmare - the possibility of an unintentional scan is pretty damn high.

Spoken like someone who had never used contact-less payment before.

News for you, contact-less payment has been in use in Asian cities for over a decade (just one example http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html launched 16 years ago), and most people has no nightmares of paying unintentionally.

And yes, they have watches also http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-octopus/choose-your-octopus/licensed-octopus-products/en/index.html

welcomes you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html

It would also appear that Casio are very big on conveniently ignoring the fact that this isn't anything new. The Hong Kong public transport system has been running on an RFID card called 'Octopus' for several years now. I've used it lots of times, and it works really really well. The Octopus system used a credit-card sized card with an embedded RFID chip by default, but there are also wristwatches and wear-around-your-neck-on-a-lanyard-watches that perform the same function.

You can pay for bus and train (MTR) trips using the Octopus card, make purchases at 7-Eleven, and top up the card at railway stations and 7-Elevens, and make purchases from an increasing array of other stores, vending machines, parking, ferries, cabs, supermarkets, even school tuck shops!!!. The system works really really well - despite the potential privacy issues, I'm a BIG fan of HK's Octopus.

The system is, by default, largely anonymous. There's nothing to stop them putting a camera near a reader I guess, but I've never been asked to prove who I am when purchasing an Octopus card. The company acknowledges customer fears in respect of anonimity in various ways, they offer a 'personalised' octopus card with your photo on it if you want it, but there doesn't seem to be any pressure to adopt the personalised version.

Clearly, it would be trivial to extend the Octopus system to access control. In fact, it wouldn't actually require any 'extension' of the system, just get your own RFID readers that speak the same frequencies and 'language' as Octopus uses (RFID is still very 'unstandardised', there's a lot of 'standards' to choose from), and make them respond appropriately to the unique IDs in the Octopus cards/watches you happen to own.

I'm from Australia. A friend of mine is sending me my first Octopus watch next week. I already have a handfull of Octopus *cards* here to play with. Where can I get the RFID kit I wonder!

It would also appear that Casio are very big on conveniently ignoring the fact that this isn't anything new. The Hong Kong public transport system has been running on an RFID card called 'Octopus' for several years now. I've used it lots of times, and it works really really well. The Octopus system used a credit-card sized card with an embedded RFID chip by default, but there are also wristwatches and wear-around-your-neck-on-a-lanyard-watches that perform the same function.

You can pay for bus and train (MTR) trips using the Octopus card, make purchases at 7-Eleven, and top up the card at railway stations and 7-Elevens, and make purchases from an increasing array of other stores, vending machines, parking, ferries, cabs, supermarkets, even school tuck shops!!!. The system works really really well - despite the potential privacy issues, I'm a BIG fan of HK's Octopus.

The system is, by default, largely anonymous. There's nothing to stop them putting a camera near a reader I guess, but I've never been asked to prove who I am when purchasing an Octopus card. The company acknowledges customer fears in respect of anonimity in various ways, they offer a 'personalised' octopus card with your photo on it if you want it, but there doesn't seem to be any pressure to adopt the personalised version.

Clearly, it would be trivial to extend the Octopus system to access control. In fact, it wouldn't actually require any 'extension' of the system, just get your own RFID readers that speak the same frequencies and 'language' as Octopus uses (RFID is still very 'unstandardised', there's a lot of 'standards' to choose from), and make them respond appropriately to the unique IDs in the Octopus cards/watches you happen to own.

I'm from Australia. A friend of mine is sending me my first Octopus watch next week. I already have a handfull of Octopus *cards* here to play with. Where can I get the RFID kit I wonder!

It would also appear that Casio are very big on conveniently ignoring the fact that this isn't anything new. The Hong Kong public transport system has been running on an RFID card called 'Octopus' for several years now. I've used it lots of times, and it works really really well. The Octopus system used a credit-card sized card with an embedded RFID chip by default, but there are also wristwatches and wear-around-your-neck-on-a-lanyard-watches that perform the same function.

You can pay for bus and train (MTR) trips using the Octopus card, make purchases at 7-Eleven, and top up the card at railway stations and 7-Elevens, and make purchases from an increasing array of other stores, vending machines, parking, ferries, cabs, supermarkets, even school tuck shops!!!. The system works really really well - despite the potential privacy issues, I'm a BIG fan of HK's Octopus.

The system is, by default, largely anonymous. There's nothing to stop them putting a camera near a reader I guess, but I've never been asked to prove who I am when purchasing an Octopus card. The company acknowledges customer fears in respect of anonimity in various ways, they offer a 'personalised' octopus card with your photo on it if you want it, but there doesn't seem to be any pressure to adopt the personalised version.

Clearly, it would be trivial to extend the Octopus system to access control. In fact, it wouldn't actually require any 'extension' of the system, just get your own RFID readers that speak the same frequencies and 'language' as Octopus uses (RFID is still very 'unstandardised', there's a lot of 'standards' to choose from), and make them respond appropriately to the unique IDs in the Octopus cards/watches you happen to own.

I'm from Australia. A friend of mine is sending me my first Octopus watch next week. I already have a handfull of Octopus *cards* here to play with. Where can I get the RFID kit I wonder!

I am on the other side of this argument: RFIDs are actually good for the consumer, and there is little financial incentive for retailers to do anyting too big brotherly with RFID data; here's my older /. post on the matter.

However, I've had yet another thought recently, one that I haven't heard in any RFID discussion; I am currently in Hong Kong, home of the wondrous Octopus Card an RFID-based smart debit card. Octopus is used for every transit system in the HK metro area, and is increasingly used by retailers to pay for small transactions. Now, actual use of the Octopus rocks: you don't have to take it out of your wallet/bag/briefcase, just swap the whole thing over the reader; you can get an Octopus chip implanted in things other than a card, e.g. the back cover of a Nokia phone, etc.

But one other feature is very cool: an Octopus is anonymous. Anonymous as in cash: you can buy an Octopus and charge it with cash and it does not get traced back to you. There's the potential of RFIDs to actually enhance your privacy by reducing the overhead of certain transactions, and that's pretty big in my book.

I guess it's kind of the same thing as GSM SIM cards: yes they can be used to trace you --both phone-record-wise and location-wise via E911 services-- but you can also go to a shop and pay cash for a cell and a pre-paid SIM and you're online anonymously. There are two sides to every coin...

The EE Times article focuses on the technology is a bit light on details of what the card actually does, so I'm not sure if it is a stored-value card (like Octopus) or actually operates like a credit card. I would be surprised if it's the latter because of concerns about theft etc.