'Electronic wallet' firm raises $60 million

Pay By Touch, a San Francisco company that's helping convince consumers to replace their charge cards with fingerprints, has raised a $60 million round of venture funding. The round, announced Thursday, brings the total cash raised by the company since September to $190 million.

The venture financing blitz comes amid reports that Wal-Mart Stores and Costco Wholesale are eyeing the company's technology. Its system is already in use at Albertson's and Cub Foods. In addition, Pay By Touch just merged with its main rival, BioPay, making it the top company in the budding biometric payments market.

[balmermanj]

May be a great increse in security and inovation or a whole in the wallet

The way I see it it may be a great increse in security and inovation or an economic bust. I think it's a great idea, and wildly popular becoming a standard in the upcoming year, or it might be too expensive and not have enough benifits for consumers or the companies that would be providing the service

[StinkyMcButt]

What idiot would volunteer a fingerprint?

How long before the federal government subpoenas all of these fingerprint records under the banner of "protecting us from terrorism"?

Why would I expose myself to the risk of wrongful prosecution just so Wal-Mart can make more money?

And before you call me a nutcase, there are over 2 million people in prison in the United States. If only 1% were wrongly convicted, that means 20,000 innocent people are in our jails? Your volunteered fingerprint could make you 20,001.

[booboo1243]

That's nothing...

Thousands of innocent people are locked up just because they are using drugs, harming no one but (maybe) themselves.

[tabaks--2008]

What idiot doesn't know how this system works?

I guess you need to read MUCH more before posting words like
IDIOT, or you run a real risk of being pecieved as IDIOT yourself.
In this particular case, you DO look like one. This system does
NOT use fingerprints. The scanner at any of their checkpoints
uses a number of measurements taken from your finger (but
NOT THE FINGERPRINT ITSELF) and CALCULATES a "value", as a
means of verifying the information wiht the server. The "value"
can NOT be reverse-engineered to become a fingerprint you
idiotically think someone could then abuse. So, READ more,
don't just post. You'll look less IDIOTIC.