Tag Archives: palm print

Not Only Amazon Stale (not Fresh), But Also Amazon Zero (not One)

With all the news about Amazon Fresh closing and more Amazon layoffs taking place, I missed a bit of news about the Amazon One palm-vein technology. But first a bit of history.

Amazon One in 2021

I believe I first wrote about Amazon One back in 2021, in a “biometrics is evil” post.

2021 TechCrunch article.

In that year, TechCrunch loudly proclaimed:

“While the idea of contactlessly scanning your palm print to pay for goods during a pandemic might seem like a novel idea, it’s one to be met with caution and skepticism given Amazon’s past efforts in developing biometric technology. Amazon’s controversial facial recognition technology, which it historically sold to police and law enforcement, was the subject of lawsuits that allege the company violated state laws that bar the use of personal biometric data without permission.”

Yes, Amazon was regarded as part of the evil fascist regime even when Donald Trump WASN’T in office.

Amazon One in 2025

Enrolling.

Which brings us to 2025, when Trump had returned to office and I enrolled in Amazon One myself to better buy things at the Upland, California Amazon Fresh. But the line was too long so I went to Whole Foods, where my palm and vein may or may not have worked.

Amazon One in 2026

From https://amazonone.aws.com/help as of January 29, 2026.

And pretty soon we’ll ALL be going to Whole Foods since Amazon Fresh is rebranding or closing all its locations.

And when we get there, we won’t be using Amazon One.

“Amazon One palm authentication services will be discontinued at retail businesses on June 3, 2026. Amazon One user data, including palm data, will be deleted after this date.”

You know the question I asked. Why?

“In response to limited customer adoption…”

Of course, in Amazon’s case, “limited” may merely mean that billions and billions of people didn’t sign up, so it jettisoned the technology in the same way it jettisoned dozens of stores and thousands of employees.

The June date may or may not apply to healthcare, but who knows how long that will last.

So what now?

In my 2021 post I mentioned three other systems that used biometrics for purchases.

There was the notorious Pay By Touch (not notorious because of its technology, but the way the business was run).

There was the niche MorphoWave.

But the third system dwarfs them all.

“But the most common example that everyone uses is Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, or whatever ‘pay’ system is supported on your smartphone. Again, you don’t have to pull out a credit card or ID card. You just have to look at your phone or swipe your finger on the phone, and payment happens.”

And they’re so entrenched that even Amazon can’t beat them.

Or as I said after the latest round of Amazon layoffs:

“This, combined with its rebranding or closure of all Amazon Fresh stores, clearly indicates that Amazon is in deep financial trouble.

“Bezos did say that Amazon would fail some day, but I didn’t expect the company to fall apart this quickly.”

CIBS: Keeping Secrets From NGI

An interesting item popped up in SAM.gov. According to a Request for Information (RFI) due February 20, the FBI may have interest in a system for secret biometric searches.

“The FBI intends to identify available software solutions to store and search subjects at the classified level.  This solution is not intended to replace the Next Generation Identification System Functionality, which was developed and implemented in collaboration with the FBI’s federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners. The solution shall reside at the Secret and/or Top-Secret/SCI level with the ability to support data feeds from external systems.  The solution must allow the ability to enroll and search face, fingerprint, palmprint, iris, and latent fingerprints, and associated biographic information with a given set of biometrics.”

Now remember that the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system is protected from public access by requiring all users to adhere to the CJIS Security Requirements. But the CJIS Security Requirements aren’t Secret or Top Secret. These biometric searches, whatever they are, must REALLY be kept from prying eyes.

The RFI itself is 8 pages long, and is mysteriously numbered as RFI 01302025. I would have expected an RFI number 01152026. I believe this was an editing error, since FBI RFI 01302025 was issued in 2025 for a completely different purpose.

Whatever the real number is, the RFI is labeled “Classified Identity-Based Biometric System.” No acronym was specified, so I’m self-acronyming it as CIBS. Perhaps the system has a real acronym…but it’s secret.

If your company can support such a system from a business, technical, and security perspective, the due date is February 20 and questions are due by February 2. See SAM.gov for details.

Oh Yeah, That Biometric Stuff

Bredemarket works with a number of technologies, but it’s no secret that my primary focus is biometrics. After all, I call myself the “biometric product marketing expert,” having worked with friction ridge (fingerprint, palm print), face, iris, voice, and rapid DNA.

The biometric product marketing expert in the desert.

If I can help your biometric firm with your content, proposal, or analysis needs, schedule a free meeting with me to discuss how I can help.

Communicate with the Words of Authority

Biometric marketing leaders, do your firm’s product marketing publications require the words of authority?

John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket, the biometric product marketing expert.

Can John E. Bredehoft of Bredemarket—the biometric product marketing expert—contribute words of authority to your content, proposal, and analysis materials?

I offer:

  • 30 years of biometric experience, 10 years of product marketing expertise, and complementary proposal and product management talents.
  • Success with numerous biometric firms, including Incode, IDEMIA, MorphoTrak, Motorola, Printrak, and over a dozen biometric consulting clients.
  • Mastery of multiple biometric modalities: friction ridge (fingerprint, palm print), face, iris, voice, DNA.
  • Compelling CONTENT creation: blog posts, case studies and testimonials, LinkedIn articles and posts, white papers.
  • Winning PROPOSAL development: managing, writing, editing for millions of dollars of business for my firms.
  • Actionable ANALYSIS: strategic, market, product, competitive.

To embed Bredemarket’s biometric product marketing expertise within your firm, schedule a free meeting with me.

Make an impact.

Revisiting Friction Ridge

(Imagen 4)

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

Due to renewed interest in my blog post on “Friction Ridge,” and its related Substack post, I’ve ventured back to the ridge.

Friction ridge, featuring Ricky Nelson.

If you missed my May writings, the friction ridges on fingerprints, palm prints, and elsewhere are used for everything from solving crimes to protecting smartphones.

If your biometric company offers a product that harnesses the power of friction ridges to identify people…do your prospects know about how your solution benefits them?

If your company is keeping quiet about your friction ridge solutions, let Bredemarket help you find your voice and spill your secrets to your buying prospects. 

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers
Content for tech marketers.

Frictionless Friction Ridges and Other Biometric Modalities

I wanted to write a list of the biometric modalities for which I provide experience.

So I started my usual list from memory: fingerprint, face, iris, voice, and DNA.

Then I stopped myself.

My experience with skin goes way beyond fingerprints, since I’ve spent over two decades working with palm prints.

(Can you say “Cambridgeshire method”? I knew you could. It was a 1990s method to use the 10 standard rolled fingerprint boxes to input palm prints into an automated fingerprint identification system. Because Cambridgeshire had a bias to action and didn’t want to wait for the standards folks to figure out how to enter palm prints. But I digress.)

So instead of saying fingerprints, I thought about saying friction ridges.

But there are two problems with this.

First, many people don’t know what “friction ridges” are. They’re the ridges that form on a person’s fingers, palms, toes, and feet, all of which can conceivably identify individuals.

But there’s a second problem. The word “friction” has two meanings: the one mentioned above, and a meaning that describes how biometric data is captured.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces.
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XhWFHKWCSE.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces. Squishing 

  • If you have to do something to provide your biometric data, such as press your fingers against a platen, that’s friction.
  • If you don’t have to do anything other than wave your fingers, hold your fingers in the air, or show your face as you stand near or walk by a camera, that’s frictionless.

More and more people capture friction ridges with frictionless methods. I did this years ago using MorphoWAVE at MorphoTrak facilities, and I did it today at Whole Foods Market.

So I could list my biometric modalities as friction ridge (fingerprint and palm print via both friction and frictionless capture methods), face, iris, voice, and DNA.

But I won’t.

Anyway, if you need content, proposal, or analysis assistance with any of these modalities, Bredemarket can help you. Book a meeting at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Amazon One Biometrics Worked. Maybe.

Because of the long line at the Upland Amazon Fresh, I didn’t want to wait around to activate my new Amazon One account. So I went to the Whole Foods on the other side of town. Then the fun began.

I had previously designated a payment card to use with Amazon One (Card #1). When I went to check out and provided my palm, I was asked to insert this card.

The reader said there was a problem with this card, so I inserted a different card (Card #2) and the payment processed on that card.

After my purchase I went back to my Amazon One app…which still showed Card #1 as my purchase card.

Not sure what’s going on.

Enrolling in the Amazon One Palm System via Smartphone

I think I’ve already mentioned that the Amazon Fresh in Upland, California is holding its grand opening in about an hour.

So I figured I should pre-investigate what was necessary to enroll in the Amazon One palm vein system once I arrived at the store.

My first discovery was that Amazon One has its own app, separate from the Amazon app. I don’t know how many apps Amazon has, but if Amazon and Meta ever merge (Amameta?), I will need a separate phone just for its apps.

So I downloaded Amazon One, linked it to my Amazon account, and waited for the instructions on how to enroll my palm at an Amazon location…

…only to find that Amazon One wanted to take pictures of both my palms, right there on my smartphone. Just like any contactless fingerprint app.

Enrolled in Amazon One.

So I am now enrolled, and I have confirmed that my local Amazon Fresh accepts Amazon Go.

Um…that is not East Foothill.

However, as even non-locals will realize, this is NOT 235 East Foothill, but WEST Foothill. So much for geolocation. (And the location of the Madonna of the Trail statue is wrong also, but I digress.)

Now let’s see if it all works.

Amazon in Upland: Is a Bear a Non-Person Entity?

So the day approaches, and the Upland Amazon Fresh will hold its grand opening on Thursday, May 1.

Amazon Fresh, Upland, California.

Wonder if the bear will show up.

Image from https://abc7.com/amazon-driver-bear-delivery-in-upland-caught-on-video/11503470/

What? You forgot about the bear?

“Yes, that’s an Amazon driver in the foreground, raising his hands to try to scare a bear away so he can make his delivery. He was successful. 

“The full Storyful video can be found here. (And of course it’s a Ring video. You didn’t expect a Nest video, did you?)”

I wonder if the bear’s paw will work with the palm vein reader.

Imagen 3. What’s the Amazon One error rate for THIS demographic group?

By the way, this is a reminder that Bredemarket provides its services to local Inland Empire businesses also. I can offer

  • compelling content creation
  • winning proposal development
  • actionable analysis

If Bredemarket can help your stretched staff, book a free meeting with me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

And one more thing…

After I wrote the main body of this post, I realized that I accidentally wrote the Bredemarket trifecta, covering all three of my concentrations:

  • Identity (Amazon)
  • Technology (Amazon)
  • Inland Empire (Amazon)

If you’re concerned about Amazon taking over everything, don’t fear. It will eventually fail.

But until it does, I’m gonna make some money!

#fakefakefake