PulseWallet Lets You Pay For Items By Scanning Your Wrist

That embarrassing moment when you reach the check out counter and realize you do not have cash on you, or forgot to bring your credit card out with you, could be a thing of the past thanks to a new payment system debuted at CES 2014 by the folks at PulseWallet. Basically what this does is that instead of relying on credit cards or cash, PulseWallet will allow users to pay for items simply by scanning their wrists, whereby the built-in palm scanning technology by Fujitsu, Palm Secure, will be able to to photograph the veins under the person’s wrist which is apparently unique to each person. Due to the distinct patterns and complexity of a person’s veins, forgery would be extremely difficult.

However PalmWallet does require that you have some kind of payment method linked to it, whether it be a direct debit from your bank account, or if it is linked up to your credit card. Unfortunately at the moment there are no retailers supporting PalmWallet at the moment, but the system is expected to go on sale in February and it will be interesting to see if anyone decides to actually implement the system, and if anyone actually plans on using it to begin with. This technology is definitely not new as Pinellas County schools in Florida have adopted a similar system, where students could pay for their meals by waving their hands over the scanner which were linked to their parents’ credit cards.

It’s a novel idea and a unique one at that, but what do you guys think? Is paying by cash and card a habit that’s hard to break?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: biometrics