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?"

Comments

Bring on the comments

[Dizzle]

We all know what's going to be said. The watch is easily stolen. Has been for years and years. That's what makes it so appealing to criminals. This isn't going to catch on and for good reason. The security on these devices sounds like nothing at all.

Re:Bring on the comments

[lambent]

And what's the security on your regular plastic credit card? That there's a non-verifiable signature on it that most merchants never check? That sometimes, for an online sale, the merchant asks you to turn over the card and input that 3-4 number code on the back?

If anybody ever gets physical access to your stuff, it's pretty much always game-over. Doesn't matter if it's your wallet, cc-watch, speedpass, or whatever you use.

Re:Bring on the comments

[AlphaPB]

The usual procedure after a theft of one's smart card is to cancel that particular card, just as one would cancel a credit card. However, since most smart cards are debit-based systems, there might not be any theft protection limit like that in regular credit cards (where the cardholder is responsible for $50, then the rest is taken care of by the company).

Since this is a credit card watch, I suppose the credit card company would treat it as regular card. In that case, the only reason that this would be a bad idea is that it most likely won't have the cardholder's signature on it for verification purposes, making it easier for the thief to use the card. Most clerks in America don't bother to check the signature anyway, so I don't see this as much of a problem.

The watch is easily stolen. Has been for years and years. That's what makes it so appealing to criminals.

If you're saying that it's just easy to steal a watch that is in plain view, I'd say that it's mostly expected that people carry around wallets and cell phones, so it doesn't make a thief more likely to rob a person wearing a watch. Unless, of course, they target people wearing fancy-looking watches. In that case, the ugly plastic quartz watch in the article will have the unexpected benefit of deterring thieves.

Re:Bring on the comments

[zurab]

The range can be "configured" to be quite small - thus you are safe.

No, you are not. No matter how small the range, you can still get scanned in public places like crowded buses and other transportation as well as theaters, shopping malls, events with crowded people, or even while standing in line. The difference is that a thief does not have to pick your pocket. The thing should definitely have an on/off switch; except that that's not how most, if not all, passive RFID chips work.

The scary thing is the credit card receipt copy that the merchant keep that actually contain your number and expiry date!

That is why most relatively new credit card processing machines do not print the credit card number (maybe only last 4 digits) or an expiry date on the receipt. Obviously, manual processing of the credit card is not as "safe."

Security??

[Drooling_Sheep]

Are the watches protected from simply scanning everyones as they walk past and collecting thousands of credit card numbers? Or someone could set up a series of stations throughout a mall that charge small innocuous looking charges to cars from "shell" corporations and do like they did in Office Space.

Chicken and the Egg

[Basehart]

Who will the be the first to buy a watch with a watch I wonder?

Discovery Channel

[Tokerat]

...the engineers are then released back into the wild so that scientists can study their movements. One day, it may lead to the discovery of just how Casio is surviving in the wild this day in age.

/commercial break

I can't wait...

[lewko]

[Waving hand at RFID reader adjacent to cash register]

Me: You will give me french fries

Clerk: Yes, I will give you french fries...

The wristwatch has had its day...

[lewko]

The article mentions one of the more popular timepieces for Japanese kids is "NTT Docomo" (their mobile phone).

I haven't worn a watch since I last sat an exam. between my computer when I'm at my desk or PDA, phone and until recently pager when I'm not (all banned from aforesaid exam room), I always know what the time is. Indeed most of the time I don't really need to know what the time it is as my PDA will beep when I need to be somewhere. The rest of the time, who cares?

Unless vendors can integrate existing devices into a wristwatch, I suspect its days might be numbered. Even this possibility seems unlikely as the screens and data-entry possibilities for wristwatches are somewhat limited.

Then again... They said we'd be in the paperless office by now. I don't see the pencil on the way out.

666

[TheLoneCabbage]

When I was a teenager one of my good friends was a Christian fundamentalist. (I'm NOT) His high school would suspend anyone who purchased a pager (this was just before cell phones were ubiquitous). Their reasoning wasn't that it disrupted class or was a drug dealer thing (sheesh), but that it was the mark of the Devil. You know 666. The theory was that beepers were just the first stage in a series of moves by the DEVIL HIMSELF to accustom us to being tagged, and that eventually we would all be given the mark of the devil.

Now I'm not about to start following his bizarre religious practices (especially since they lead him to being institutionalized), but you gotta give the wing nut some credit. We all started carrying pagers, cell phones, then GPS, and now people aren't even thinking twice when they are asked to stick a radio transceiver on their person (or in it!).

It's like cooking a frog. Stick it in while the pan is hot and he'll just jump out. But if you turn up the heat slowly he never knows it till it's too late.

Prior art

[jayratch]

I was under the impression this has been available in America for quite some time from Timex. and Exxon.

Granted Speedpass isn't accepted everywhere by any means but gas and nowadays many McDonalds and a few supermarkets (in certain areas.)

The standard unit is small enough to just ditch the keychain and tuck the bead in my wallet; in fact with a bit of crazy glue I'm sure I could turn anything into a credit card of sorts. Since Mobil gives them away free (no fees, just a draw to their places) the tech must be cheap as hell- little more than an inductor/antenna and a simple IC with a serial number... it's basically less circuitry than a typical disposable camera, and far less than a digital watch.

Doesn't use RFID

[line.at.infinity]

It uses an embedded IC chip FeliCa by Sony, according to the actual article.