Cards Once Were Used for Playing Games
Without Albert Einstein, I’ve been told, we wouldn’t have our current GPS assisting us with directions. He certainly would be pleased to know how his century-ago equations have affected 21st century living.
Current computer techies do make daily life easier but, being young, few of them understand the aging population. For example, below the headline "The Eye-Scanning ATM Is Here" in the October 26, 2015, Wall Street Journal, Peter Rudegeair spoke of the soon-to-be useless wallet as cards become obsolete. The ATM machine would read a customer’s iris. Won’t that mean quick-but-intense light? An ability to go from bright to dim or vice versa has a much slower time as one ages. So the accommodation factor could mean the elderly won’t be able to count his money for about a full minute since the scanning light would affect vision.
We all know how it feels to have routine optical exams and our eyes dilated, and, minus sunglasses, walk into a room with all the lamps on. Night driving, for older people, with headlamps and brake bulbs blazing, is uncomfortable and akin to the eye dilation effects. How can we tell that to the ATM machine?
Will the scanner cope with cataracts or other ocular issues? What about eye problems, like macular degeneration or such? Few know what the scanners might or might not do to the human until study after study is done for decades. An ATM user with a damaged retina could possibly incur other issues from the rapid but intense light scan. If one is predisposed to the very real neurologic migraine, might the intensity of the ATM scanner trigger such?
"... withdraw money with an eyeball scan or a code on a smartphone..." Twenty-something developers might also be surprised to know that there really are seniors who prefer a dumbphone with its flippy case that actually makes and receives calls without sliding fingers, hearing chimes for incoming mail, or accessing the Internet. Just a phone.
I’ve never had an ATM card. To me, a PIN is something I use to secure a fold in material before hand-sewing a hem or such. Pins are also reminders of metal rollers, to curl hair, that were retired in favor of Bobby Pins after World War II. During that war, women wore snoods, large mesh caps that held their hair in place, and used a hairpin. The latter didn’t make curls, however, but just fastened the snood so it wouldn’t slip. Pins are not PIN numbers. Pin boys replaced bowling’s wooden game piece, and by hand, during the same period in history. There were no automated ball returns. I could go on with my memories that move in and out of my mind hearing ‘pin’ but it certainly isn’t associated with a bank card.
The public is told that thieves can’t manipulate eye scanners. It sounds comforting but the devices haven’t been out long enough to know what a thief can or can’t do! Anti-virus and security systems for computers certainly have had hackers, and Trojan Horses seep into software.
Scare tactics probably will be used to promote this techie transaction machine by warning about the dangers of carrying a card (theft), the dangers of hackers finding a person’s very own information on that card (identity theft), and whatever the ad people can come up with. If, for many, fingerprinting is considered an invasion of privacy, what about one’s eyeball ‘print’? Perhaps, with a 21st century 3-D printer, that can be replicated.