Slashdot Mirror
Casio's Credit Card Watch
Takuryu writes "Casio, working with Japanese credit card company, JCB, has developed a combination credit card wristwatch. Workers at the main JCB office wear the RFID tagged watches and use them for security access at the office, as well as for paying for lunch in the cafeteria. I wonder what percentage of employees they have tagged?"
Being able to hide your credit anywhere has an appeal. Sure, a mugger might ask for your cheap watch, but would they bother with your ink pen? Kinda cool to be able to give one your wallet without fear. Of course, in my case, the mugger will know which object has my credit. It will be the one wrapped in tin foil.
RFIDs creep me out. Someone being able to identify me by a device in my shoes, in my car's tires, in my shirt? It's weird and the nasty part is that no one I care about will have the ability, just big dumb companies that want to milk me. Vending machines that can take my money while I walk by are more bothersome still. I have a feeling that foil liners will become very fashionable soon, but it won't really work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Camera Watch
It uses an embedded IC chip FeliCa by Sony, according to the actual article.
Credit cards are extremely useful in the hands of the financially disciplined. For example, all cards (not necessarily credit cards) I use for financial transactions have a reward system. I either get miles or some sort of gift certificate or cash back. The percentage I maintain for the reward system is 1%.
There are some cards out there that are progressive in their reward systems; your reward percentage is more depending on how much you charge.
Now, this is where the financial discipline comes in. If you pay off the balance at the end of the billing period, you incur no interest charges. That means if you pay off your balance you automatically get 1% discount off of everything you charge. You're only limited by the credit limits you have. So car repair? 1% off if I charge it. Car insurance? 1% off if I charge it. Roughly every year or so I get about $200 in gift certificates from some sort of my choice in a selection (I shop from those stores anyway) for blowing $20k in the year on stuff I pay for anyway. I'm just waiting for the day when I can pay my mortgage payments with my card. It's very important that you pay your balance off every month. You get all the perks (car rental insurance, rewards, etc.) without the hassles (interests). So there's a compelling reason to get a credit card even if you don't need the it provided you have the discipline.
But credit cards is just the tip of the ice berg. The authorization system from the merchant's point of view is the same for debit cards as well as credit cards. So once the infrastructure is in, you can do both. Debit cards are great. They prevent people with no financial discipline from screwing up too badly.
The fun begins with delayed debit. In such a scheme, instead of immediately withdrawing from your account for purchases, the bank tracks the debit amounts and takes the lump sum out at the end of the month. They keep a running total and an available funds.
Where things start to resemble financial nirvana is when you put delayed debit and reward systems together. If your financial institution isn't offering you delayed debit with reward systems, frankly your financial institution suck.
Good thing there is such a device as a passive RFID chip, where the VCC is powered via inductive coupling with the chip itself. The range can be "configured" to be quite small - thus you are safe. The scary thing is the credit card receipt copy that the merchant keep that actually contain your number and expiry date!
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 find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.