The time has come: New wristband with micro-chips used to buy food!

LiveNation thinks they have the answer as they have introduced a new digital wristband to try to fight off ticket fraud.

The band is embedded with a "smart-chip," making it unique to the person who is wearing it. In fact, along with admission, the band can allow it's wearer to purchase food and drinks with the technology as well.

I am concerned about this - because its specifically targeting a younger, more impressionable generation. If they get used to this now - it will be the norm in the future.

www.nme.com...

www.virtualfestivals.com...




[edit on 26-3-2010 by Ashley_T]

Remember rfid credit card key chain thing they rolled out some time ago. That pretty much died. Why? The retailers were getting charged more for it's use than a normal credit card swipe.

Retailers will not adopt this unless it makes checking out more efficient for the store, cuts costs, or they have no choice due to overwhelming demand. That's the sticker, if the stores have to pay for new equipment for only a small minority of customers, they won't do it.

So, it will be interesting to see how these do.

Yep. Target the youth with cool new gadgets, then wait for the old-school hardliners to die out.

I'm thinking the whole verichip, aka positiveID, is a scare tactic to herd people away from intrusive, painful chip implantation, towards a non-intrusive, painless 2D, invisible RFID chip technology that is no big deal to have printed on your hand...

www.sciencedaily.com...

somarkinnovations.com...

Something along those lines^

[edit on 26-3-2010 by Romans 10:9]

when i was living in japan, i once visited a onsen (natural hot spring) and it was a well established place

in order to make things easier for everyone, everyone got a wristband, and you could buy food or anything that cost money while you were wearing this water proof thing without getting money wet or whatever, it was a big convienience, after you check out of the onsen they take the wrist thing and scan it and see how much money you owed

worked really great at the onsen, but kind of retarded on the national scale.

wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't 'required'... but these days what isn't going to be? just a few days ago if i didn't want health care, i didn't have to pay for it, but now a select few have changed the constitution, so who knows what they'll do next with THIS tech

They already have this technology here in Japan. It is not a wristband, but you can get it in a card or cellphone. Currently you can use it to buy drinks from a vending machine and things from most convenience stores, but im sure in a couple years it will be able to work almost anywhere to buy pretty much anything

i think there were legitimate concerns for comments there.

aside from our obvious, BIGBROTHER=BAD, and this is desensitizing people to that next level of intrusiveness, but more-so for the fact that tickets can be passed off to others with no ID neccessary, and the tickets becoming memorabilia unto themselves.

one guy's quote:

Plus, like petecapstick, my wall of tickets would look stupid with a load of wristbands pinned to it...

Originally posted by Kaploink
Remember rfid credit card key chain thing they rolled out some time ago. That pretty much died. Why? The retailers were getting charged more for it's use than a normal credit card swipe.

Retailers will not adopt this unless it makes checking out more efficient for the store, cuts costs, or they have no choice due to overwhelming demand. That's the sticker, if the stores have to pay for new equipment for only a small minority of customers, they won't do it.

So, it will be interesting to see how these do.

that and people could hack the code and drive up and swipe for free gas....

on second hand.... lets make everything rfid

The thread title is a little misleading here, although i agree with the premise that it might be getting the younger generation more open to the idea of using micro chips to pay for goods.

These measures are being brought in to try and fight ticket touting for gigs so it will probably be a while before you have to use one in a supermarket. Its not even that unusual here in the UK. You have to register a photo online to buy a Glastonbury ticket and your ticket arrives with your photo printed on it so it can't be resold for profit to someone else.

In the last few weeks Flight of the Conchords tickets have been selling out in less than a minute and sometimes on the fanclub presales before they are even available to the general public only to appear on eBay and touting websites at £500+ per ticket.

When you consider that most of the money to be made in the music industry is now from live events and not album/single sales, it makes sense that the promoters are trying to protect the fans from being ripped off.

reply to post by Ashley_T


S+F! Thanks for the heads up! Yeah we need to keep an eye on this sort of thing! Educating the younger generations about the bad that could come from this is our only real hope to not end up in 1984!

Sounds good...if it is tested well then where do I sign up.

Also, what happens if someone steals/robs you and takes your band...is it fingerprint activated or...

Sorry luddies...this is progress. Deal with it or find a cave. You worried about big brother tracking you? just leave the flipping thing in a safe at home or something.