Join the Community

22,037

Expert opinions

43,964

Total members

420

New members (last 30 days)

182

New opinions (last 30 days)

28,682

Total comments

Join Sign in

Pay the robot, or else

14 November 2008 3 comments

Matt White

North America editor

Finextra

Dave Birch, on his Digital Money blog, has found what may well be the fintech geek's ultimate fantasy - a payments terminal in the shape of a life-sized android.

Developed in Japan (of course) by NEC, the robot lets you make payments by selecting the appropriate e-money icon on the touch screen panel embedded in his torso before swiping your NFC-enabled mobile phone across his hand.

According to the Pink Tentacle blog, NEC is hawking the fella around to theme parks- he even has cameras for face recognition, which could be used to recommend rides based on the person's age and gender.

External

This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.

3210

Report

Channels

/payments

Comments: (3)

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

14 November 2008

Very cool. But is it an Autobot or a Deceptacon?

Report

A Finextra member

15 November 2008

It looks like it won't be long before we see Wally-the-Robot.

Cleveland looks like a good initial deployment for a tooled up version, they could use them for debt collection and foreclosures.

They are thinking of renaming it Cleverlend.

Report

A Finextra member

15 November 2008

Another item of a similar ilk.

A certain shampoo marketer (what's my name?) will soon have a gadget on the shampoo shelf at the supermarket which you can use to analyse your hair condition and type. It'll give you a product recommendation suitable for your hair.

The initial gadget is budgeted at $100, so we won't have a speaking head with luxuriant flowing hair very soon, but as soon as their opposition cottons on...it'll be heads up in the shampoo aisle.

Report