I saw this on the news the other day and they were talking about stores that take your fingerprint instead of using credit cards. There are a couple thousand stores I think there are that do this. Instead of swiping your credit card you leave your finger print and the computer searches your finger print in the system to match it up with the person.

I think there are a couple flaws in the system though. People will go around cutting people's fingers off to go to an ATM and steal all their money. I think that there should be a PIN number for each card to help keep this from occurring. But there are also people around the world with no hands. Then what are they gonna do?

What do you all think of this idea?

Well, unless you like errors all the time, this won't be effective anytime soon. Fingerprint identification isn't exactly the best yet and can easily be faked, you leave fingerprints EVERYWHERE. Now if you wanted to embedd some chip under your skin that might work too.

Indeed, you can't just go with a fingerprint. You have to have some sort of additional info to go with it, like a pin number or another scan (retina maybe), which is commmon sense to anyone smart enough to be conducting fingerprint scans anyway.

As for people with no hands...well, they probably wouldn't be at a grocery store in the first place, seeing that they couldn't carry anything.

In my opinion.. worst idea ever. What happens if someone takes bill-gates fingerprints while he is sleeping? And then they use them whenever they want.. Its possible by manipulating other peoples fingerprints to match someone else, its called tape. You can actually take someones figerprints with tape. But then you would havew to reverse or inverse it somehow. This is why I think its such a bad idea.

ever seen minority report?

I wouldn't mind using a fingerprint system if it worked accurately. I would rather use my fingerprint rather than a credit card because it's easier. I prefer whatever is more convenient if it is as secure. However, if this were to become the credit card replacement there would probably people who would make fake fingerprints. I rather have an eye scan because it would be a lot more difficult replicate the textures, dimensions and color in the eye. Also, I'm guessing the technology to read fingerprints or to scan the eye would cost quite a bit more than a credit card reader right now so it probably wouldn't become widely used any time soon.

I just bought a new phone yesterday in Tokyo - Japan. I can swipe the phone and buy various things around the place - nothing huge though. ITs good for not having to pay with change and stuff. Also you need to top up the phone with credit so If it is lost its just like loosing your wallet with cash in it - Someone can then swipe away and use up your credit.

You ring up your phone comapany and have it canceled as soon as possible. I havent used it yet. You can also use on the trains.

Bill Gates probably doesn't use credit cards, so he probably wouldn't use a "finger-card" either. He's the richest man on the planet, I'm sure he has help that does errands and goes shopping for him. The kind of harrassment he would get if he went shopping on his own would be ridiculous.

@Arigato -- As for retina scanners, the only problem I could see would be for people with contacts...it'd cause a lot of errors.

@leeleelee -- That phone sounds way cool, but I could see problems with losing it. Even if you can cancel it and be reimbursed, it would be a hassle, especially if you have a habit of losing things often.

@Zabb -- That was a cool movie, and yeah, the same thing could happen here.

lol, ever seen the movie GATTACA? well in itit is a fururistic worls, and if you need to get into a high secutiry area, you put your thumb into a scanner, and its scans and takes a small sample of blood, although the flaw in the movie oculd happen in real life.. someone put a small pocket of blood in a fake thubm..lol not too difficult neways... yeah i think this would be good..maybe in the future though, because now adays, it may take up to 10-15 min to find a match for fingerprints...since theres so many to go through