"It would seem that any vending machine could have the same capability. Then the kiosk could connect to the secure SCI page at e-gold.com and tell me 'You have requested to pay $0.75 of gold to' some e-gold account. I put in my account number, SRK the password, and type in the Turing number (Alan would be *so* proud) and out pops a soda."
Similar technology already exists. In 2001 I co-developed a functioning model of a modified Verifone credit card terminal, using their Softpay technology to convert the terminal into what amounts as a WAP e-gold access point. It did not work particularly well, but other competing systems from Nurit and CRIS show tremendous promise in this area. Unfortunately, due to development costs, the only way to really test it with any viability is to put the terminals in a test market based on demographics f e-gold users -- i.e., to find a place where they are relatively geographically dense. The act of obtaining this information via e-gold Ltd. would represent a huge breach of privacy on their part, and attempts to gather information voluntarily from e-gold users via online sureys etc. were fruitless. However, as the gold economy continues to grow the project remains warm on the back burner, as offline compatibility of the e-gold system (or more precisely, the ability of a consumer to access his online account from an offline merchant) would create a huge boom in users of e-gold. Frank --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
