NYT writes about the increasing use of RFIDs in :
Tollbooth Technology Meets the Checkout Lane
From gas stations to grocery stores to fast-food chains, merchants are experimenting with payment systems for a harried marketplace. Using radio frequency identification – or RFID – the systems automatically identify customers, who have set up credit or debit accounts with the issuer, and charge them for their purchases.
The RFID payment systems are similar in some ways to stored-value cards and the programmable “smart cards” used by Starbucks and a growing number of merchants. Those cards automatically deduct money for purchases from prepaid accounts or charge them to a personal account.
But RFID systems are much faster than other types of payment. There is no fumbling through a wallet, no punching in personal identification numbers, no signatures and, most certainly, no Web browsing. All that is needed is a tiny device called a transponder that might hang on a customer’s key chain and is waved in front of an electronic reader like a magic wand.
