This was in today's New York Times Magazine. it discusses future
innovations coming to automatic teller machines.
kelly
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
SALIENT FACTS: AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINES
Cash Crop
Money is so passe. The newest A.T.M.'s dispense entertainment, and
can spot you on sight. By KEVIN BISCH
WHY ARE A.T.M.'s MULTIPLYING LIKE RABBITS?
For all the talk about the advent of a cashless economy, automated
teller machines just get more plentiful -- and cheaper: a new
countertop model from Rhino Systems leases for a mere $73.50 per
month. But that makes the competition for each $1.50 service fee
pretty steep. So the newest A.T.M.'s have started multitasking:
instead of offering only cash, they offer myriad services (more
than some customers may even want) and suggestions on how to spend
the money you withdraw.
ARE THEY GETTING SMARTER?
Scarily so. A San Francisco company called Innoventry has
implemented a new technology that allows its check-cashing machines
to identify customers by sight -- and it may soon be available in
A.T.M.'s. Scanning the contours of your face, the machine compares
them against a data base and finds a match. All told, it takes a
few seconds, and it works even if you change your look. "You would
have to put on 20 percent of your body weight for your facial
features to change enough to not be recognized," said Henry Kunicki
of Miros, the company that licenses the True Face technology. "I
always tell people if your mother doesn't recognize you, this won't
either."
BUT ARE THEY FUN TO PLAY WITH?
Something like that. Seemingly bored with mere cash, Electronic
Data Systems Corporation now distributes phone cards, stamps,
airline tickets -- anything that fits -- through the cash
dispensers of its A.T.M.'s. And 1,000 of the machines show
15-second, broadcast-quality, full-sound film trailers during the
authorization period of each transaction.
WHAT'S NEXT -- ADVERTISEMENTS?
But of course. With hard drives that can hold up to 50 ads and
satellite communications capabilities to download new ones, some of
the very latest machines can play a continuous cycle of
advertisements, timed to correspond to the appropriate hour of the
day (Starbucks coffee at 7 A.M., Miller beer at quitting time). In
the future, bank cards will carry personal data about the customer;
processing this information, the A.T.M.'s will run commercials
microtargeted at the user's demographic group. "The whole idea is
to show people ads that make sense to them," said Don Jarecki of
Educational Data Systems. "Instead of showing an ad for Depends
undergarments to a kid who's 24, we'll show him an ad for the new
Beastie Boys release."
WHAT IF EVEN THAT'S NOT ENOUGH STIMULATION?
If watching movie trailers and product advertisements seems an
insufficient way to pass the 15 or 20 seconds that a transaction
might last, take heart: within the next 18 months, Diebold plans to
roll out A.T.M.'s capable of limited Web access. Customers will be
able to visit sites along an intranet created by each individual
bank. Which means that though the person in front of you might
pause to check the terms of her life insurance policy, you won't
have to wait while she visits the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" chat
room -- at least not yet.
August 15, 1999
_________________________________________________________________
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|