PayPal Demos Auto-Debit Gumball Machine

ForgedArtificer writes "At their recent developers conference in San Diego, CA, PayPal unveiled a proof-of-concept gumball machine that would instantly pay for a gumball through a PayPal account using a smart phone and a QR code, sending a confirmation of the purchase through Twitter. Ok, maybe we all don't really care if we can get a gumball without a quarter, but the possibilities for this technology are endless."

Comments

endless possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

"but the possibilities for this technology are endless."

Seems Slashdot editors can't even seem to spell 'beginningless'

Twitter

[jrumney]

sending a confirmation of the purchase through Twitter.

My wife is looking forward to when the local strip club starts using this technology. Privacy be damned.

Banking regulations.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is PayPal *not* a bank again? O.o

Re:Banking regulations.

[YrWrstNtmr]

PayPal is [paypal.com] a registered bank.

Depending on where you are. From your link:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/
"PayPal was granted a bank license with the Luxembourg bank authority."
"PayPal Luxembourg will be regulated to the same standard as all major European banks. Banking laws and standards in the European Union ensure that customers are just as protected by a Luxembourg bank as by a UK, French, or German bank."

Not a lot of good outside the EU.

Re:Banking regulations.

[t33jster]

Yep. Everywhere else they are entirely unregulated, and they will definitely want it to stay that way for as long as they can get away with it.

Well, not exactly unregulated, but unless you're specific about what sort of regulations you feel are missing, the rest of this is purely pedantic. It's much more of a clusterfuck than that. For instance, I count 42 states (well, 41 + a District) here. As a former employee of PayPal's AML Compliance department, I can tell you that paypal is regulated (AML/CTF - not consumer protection regulations which is probably what you're bitching about) in the US (FinCEN), Canada (FinTRAC), Australia (AusTRAC), China (HK Police) the EU (CSSF) and anywhere outside of that in Singapore (MAS). A year ago when I left, there was talk of adding legal entities in 4 or 5 other countries, primarily in Asia and Latin America.

To the GP's point about why PayPal is not a bank (in the US anyhow), is that US banks issue credit and US money service businesses merely move money. I would certainly concede that the Bill Me Later unit of PayPal is operates purely on the technicality of the laws and/or regulations that separate banks from MSBs (BML makes a decision on whether to extend credit, then a bank issues the credit with the understanding that BML will buy the debt a few days later). There was often talk of becoming a bank, or at least chartering a subsidiary bank in order to allow the credit issuing to move completely in house. Ebay divesting Skype was supposedly a part of that plan, although I never understood why, nor can I say whether PayPal is any closer to becoming (or more likely starting) a bank. More of what PayPal does falls under the EU's legal definition of a bank, so PayPal is a bank there.

My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[igreaterthanu]

My smart phone does. This will never be able to replace other forms of money until they get that one sorted.

Re:My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[ziggyzaggy]

your credit card can't make 25 cent payments. I believe we'll go to a cashless society, all electronic money. That way the banking cartel can get a cut of every transaction no matter how small, and the government can tax, monitor and control all transactions no matter how small. If they consider you a pestilent person, they will cut off your ability to buy and sell.

A: Because it disrupts the flow of a message

[DNS-and-BIND]

Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?

...endless stupidity

[holophrastic]

So let's see. The gumball is a simple sphere that cost a penny to produce, and was produced in a batch of thousands. The gumball machine -- read dispensor -- cost ten dollars to produce, adn was produced in a batch of hundreds. The consumer is standing not twelve inches away from a needless and insignificant candy treat.

The perfect solution is not:

a more expensive dispensor, more competant consumer, a mobile phone, a fancy barcode -- read smart phone -- a web-site -- read web browser -- a privacy policy -- actually four -- Internet infrastructure, cellular infrastructure, a phone plan, a data plan, customer service, tech support, a collections agency, anti-fraud measures, and a PIN.

The perfect solution is a hammer. The quarter was already a nuissance. This is just stupid.

Oh yeah, and a bank account. How silly of me.

Why not challenge-response?

[snookums]

A more interesting type of system would use a QR code challenge-response. A small screen on the gumball machine, or at the supermarket checkout flashes a QR code. You point your phone camera at it and details of the transaction come up on the screen. If you hit "confirm", your private key is used to sign the transaction and produce a response QR code which appears on your screen and is read back by the merchant.

This way, your phone doesn't need to connect back to the payment gateway provider at all. This is an advantage if there is bad reception inside the store, or your provider is having a bad day, or your pre-paid plan ran out, or you only have an iPod and not a smart phone. Banks could probably even produce dedicated devices that performed only this function and provide them to customers.

Why is Twitter involved?

[Animats]

Why run this through Twitter? If the server wants to send an SMS message, it should just send an SMS message using an SMS gateway. Why package it as a "tweet?"

(I suspect why. So they can spam you. It's illegal to send unsolicited commercial SMS messages in the US. If PayPal makes you "follow" them on Twitter to get transaction confirmations, they can then send you ads, too.)

We already have that technology!

[Kagetsuki]

While it's not linked to a paypal account we've had IC payment here in Japan for a very long time. I've been buying things from vending machines with my phone for maybe 6 years now and as far as I know I was a late adopter.

For your protection,

[Compaqt]

Paypal has withheld your gummy bear for 180 days. Because you accessed the gummy bear from a location other than your usual location, we will also hold your $.25 while our anti-fraud department investigates.

To increase trust in the Paypal community, verify your account. To verify, fax a recent utility bill, send your debit card PIN and a half-chewn gummy bear as a DNA sample.