亞馬遜將推出"徒手"支付
Forget the titanium Apple Card — Amazon's latest payment method uses flesh and blood.
蘋果公司的Apple Card鈦金卡可以收起來了，亞馬遜的最新支付方式只要用戶伸手就可以。The e-tailing giant's engineers are quietly testing scanners that can identify an individual human hand as a way to ring up a store purchase, with the goal of rolling them out at its Whole Foods supermarket chain in the coming Months, The Post has learned.
據《紐約郵報》報道，這家電商巨頭的工程師正在默默測試可以辨識手部的掃描儀用來結賬，打算幾個月後在旗下的全食連鎖超市推出。Employees at Amazon's New York offices are serving as guinea pigs for the biometric technology, using it at a handful of vending machines to buy such items as sodas, chips, granola bars and phone chargers, according to sources briefed on the plans.
據消息人士透露，亞馬遜紐約辦公室的員工正在試用這種生物識別技術，在少數幾臺自動售貨機上使用該技術購買汽水、薯條、格蘭諾拉燕麥棒和手機充電器等商品。
The high-tech sensors are different from fingerprint scanners found on devices like the iPhone and don't require users to physically touch their hands to the scanning surface.
這種高科技傳感器不同於iPhone手機等裝置上的指紋掃描儀，不需要使用者將手碰觸到掃描儀表面。Instead, they use computer vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape and size of each hand they scan before charging a credit card on file.
掃描儀使用計算機視覺和深度幾何學技術，處理和辨識掃描到的每雙手的形狀和大小，而後進行信用卡付款。The system, code-named "Orville," will allow customers with Amazon Prime accounts to scan their hands at the store and link them to their credit or debit card.
這套系統代號爲“奧維爾”，亞馬遜Prime會員顧客可以在門店通過該系統掃描自己的手，並將信息與信用卡或借記卡綁定。It's accurate to within one ten-thousandth of 1%, but Amazon engineers are scrambling to improve it to a millionth of 1% ahead of its launch, the source said.
據消息人士透露，這一系統已精準到出錯率不到百萬分之一，但亞馬遜的工程師們正努力在正式推出之前，將出錯率降至億分之一。
Amazon hopes to introduce the tech to a handful of its Whole Foods stores by the beginning of next year and to eventually expand the super-fast checkout tech to all US locations. The pace of the rollout will depend on how quickly Whole Foods is able to install it and train employees on how to use it, sources said.
消息人士還透露說，亞馬遜希望在明年初之前能在一些全食超市引進這項技術，並希望最終將這一快速結賬技術推廣到所有美國門店。技術推開的進度將取決於全食超市安裝系統的速度，以及培訓員工使用系統的時間。"We don't comment on rumors or speculation," an Amazon spokesperson said.
亞馬遜一位發言人表示：“我們不對謠言或猜測發表評論。”While a regular card transaction typically takes between three and four seconds, Amazon's new technology can process the charge in less than 300 milliseconds, a person familiar with the project said.
一位知情人士表示，普通的銀行卡交易通常需要3至4秒的時間，而亞馬遜的新技術可以在不到300毫秒的時間內處理完交易。"Retailers have always been interested in faster checkout," Majd Maksad, founder and CEO of Status Money, a personal finance site, told The Post. "You only have to walk into Whole Foods to see the massive lines of people waiting to check out. It's a massive friction point."
個人理財網站“金錢地位”的創始人兼首席執行官馬吉德·馬卡薩德在接受《紐約郵報》採訪時說：“零售商一直對加快結賬速度很感興趣。你只要走進全食超市，就會看到人們排着長隊等着結賬，很容易發生摩擦。”If successful, the technology also could help encourage consumers to spend more when they visit Whole Foods, he said.
他說，如果能成功的話，這項技術還可以鼓勵消費者在全食超市購物時多花點錢。"People tend to spend more when they don't have the experience of touching something tangible like money," Maksad said. "The utility of money becomes more ephemeral."
馬卡薩德說：“當人們沒有實實在在地花出紙幣時，他們往往會花更多的錢。金錢的效用變得更加短暫。”At Amazon's budding chain of "Go" convenience stores that launched last year, customers use a phone app to check in at a turnstile. They can then fill their bags and carry them out without ever passing a register thanks to computer vision and an array of sensors all over the store.
在亞馬遜去年推出的新興Go連鎖便利店中，顧客進入門店時使用一款手機應用程序在閘門處刷一下，買完東西以後不用到收銀臺結賬，打包就可以走 了。因爲店裏安裝了計算機視覺設備以及無處不在的傳感器。With the new, hand-based tech, shoppers won't even have to bring their phones. Nevertheless, experts say it's unclear whether customers will be enthusiastic about scanning their hands at Whole Foods.
有了這種掃描手部的新技術，顧客甚至不用帶手機。不過專家表示，目前還不清楚消費者是否會對全食超市的手部掃描感興趣。
