Amazon rolling out palm recognition technology as checkout option at Whole Foods
Company's 500 Whole Foods locations in US to ultimately offer the technology
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Amazon said Thursday that its checkouts at all Whole Foods Market locations will soon offer its palm recognition technology as a payment method.
The move, announced in a blog post, will lift the total number of Whole Foods stores in the U.S. where customers can use Amazon One palm recognition technology to pay via waving their hand over a special scanner from more than 200 to 500. The rollout to the grocery stores that don’t already have the technology will take place by the end of the year, according to Amazon.
Whole Foods, founded more than four decades ago, has belonged to Amazon since 2017, when the tech company spent about $13.7 billion to acquire it.
Amazon has announced that it will shutter six of its 530 Whole Foods Market locations in the United States. (Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images / File / Getty Images)
Overall, more than 400 different places in the U.S. to date offer Amazon One, according to the company. The sites that have the system, which include certain Panera Bread restaurants, airport stores, sports venues and other locations, have generated more than 3 million instances of the technology being used, it said.
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Amazon said it "will never share palm data with third parties, under any circumstances, including in response to government demands, unless we’re required to comply with a legally valid and binding order." It also does not use or sell the data, which utilizes the AWS Cloud, for marketing, according to the company.
Amazon says its checkouts at all Whole Foods Market locations will soon offer its palm recognition technology as a payment method. (Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images / File / Getty Images)
The tech giant upping the availability of Amazon One at Whole Foods comes more than two years after the technology’s unveiling. Its initial launch involved Amazon Go corner stores.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 198.38 | -4.50 | -2.22% |
"Since we’ve introduced Amazon One at Whole Foods Market stores over the past two years, we’ve seen that customers love the convenience it provides, and we’re excited to bring Amazon One to all of our customers across the U.S.," Whole Foods Market Chief Technology Officer Leandro Balbinot said in Thursday’s blog post.
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Amazon also operates Whole Foods locations in Canada and the U.K.
The tech giant upping the availability of Amazon One at Whole Foods comes more than two years after the technology’s unveiling. (Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images / File / Getty Images)
The tech giant has added features to the palm recognition technology since its debut. In May, it introduced an age-verification feature to Amazon One for proving a user is 21 or older, which the company said at the time first became available at Coors Field in Colorado and would "be rolled out to additional establishments in the coming months."
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Amazon’s latest set of quarterly earnings is expected to become publicly available this month. The price of its stock has seen a more than 51% increase since the beginning of the year.
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