Walt Disney World Emulates Apple's Use of iPod Touches for Friendlier Welcome

[BornAgainMac]

This is good. I never liked the finger scanner.

 

[Troneas]

they need an ipod touch just to scan a ticket?


sounds like a waste to me.

 

[SiG03]

I was just at the Magic Kingdom yesterday. They used these new iPod Touch scanners to get my wife and I into the park. It defintely looked like they were in the process of phasing out the old turn-style entry gates and moving over to the bar-coded plastic passes because there were RFID scanner stations. However, IMO, that might only be for the annual/season pass-holders.

 

[Zcev5454]

At JC Penny's here, the staff all have iPod touches with a scanner attachment. It's great that you can check out everywhere in the store.

 

[glutenenvy]

Oh come on, unless you avoided touching ANYTHING the entire day you touched something every other person did. You aren't getting any other disease from the finger scanner than you would from using a door handle, the grab handles on the rides, any plate, drink or other item handed to you from any other human, etc. If you were really that worried about disease a $1 bottle of Purell would solve that one time finger scanner touch.

Everybody touches the scanner and Purell can not kill everything. It also needs to be completely wet and wet longer than most people use it for to have maximum effectiveness.

If you were to catch something you are the most likely from either the scanner or from the inconsiderate people who drag their sick children around when they need to be recuperating. Take that as either the parents or the children.

For an average WDW attendance of 121,000,000 per year and approximately 50 scanners running on average gives over 6000 people using that scanner for the day. Somebody with more exact math can have a much closer approximation. Cast members say they are cleaned but I've never once seen it happen.

What I think you are trying to say is that 6000 people with unwashed hands handle those food items you mention, which doesn't make a lot of sense. The amount of surface area for the other items you mention is exponentially huge compared to a single surface where people are expected place the same finger they usually poke into their ears, eyes, nose, and other things.

So either you don't quite get it yet or think it fun to encourage me to sound like Monk (which is ok because who doesn't find themselves rooting for Monk).

Why boost your chances of getting sick on vacation from fairly low to considerably higher by using those finger scanners? At Disney prices it doesn't make sense.

 

[maxosx]

This is a product of the extremely close ties between the Disney & Apple Corporations, as originally forged by Steve Jobs.

Like anything else it's both beneficial & nefarious. (pros & cons)

Guests of the Park, or Resort, are given the "warm & fuzzy story". It's for your convenience, your child's safety, blah...blah...blah.

Yet Reality runs far deeper, as the data collected about you, complete with facial recognition & full length pictures collected via thousands of surveillance cameras hidden at all heights, angles & positions around the resort are combined with your credit card data, and biometric data gleaned from sensors deployed in various touch points (think bracelet).

This is neither a gloom & doom, nor "big brothers watching post" it's simply someone very close to the project, sharing whats really happening "for your safety".

It's high tech at its finest

 

[Brett.F]

they have been trialing RFID for a long time and have many of the machines already installed. If they are using ipod touches to scan tickets I can assure you it is because there is an issue with something or as a stop gap measure while they flip the switch on the magicbands since they wouldn't be able to do the biometric scan on an ipod touch so there is nothing to prevent you from using someone else's ticket. Either that or they are scanning tickets with an ipod touch for people who have tickets without RFID and will still make them scan their finger and go through the turnstile as normal

I just came back from a trip down to Florida. The reason why they still use the old turnstiles and the iPod touch scanner is to provide support for people with the old tickets without the RFID chip. People who purchased their tickets in advance through external companies, are still getting the old tickets that do not have the RFID chip in it (i'm guessing just leftover supply of old tickets). Everyone else who purchases their tickets at the park are getting the new tickets with the RFID chips. They only have a few old turnstiles and iPod touch people at the entrances, but there are predominately RFID turnstiles.

 

[newdeal]

I just came back from a trip down to Florida. The reason why they still use the old turnstiles and the iPod touch scanner is to provide support for people with the old tickets without the RFID chip. People who purchased their tickets in advance through external companies, are still getting the old tickets that do not have the RFID chip in it (i'm guessing just leftover supply of old tickets). Everyone else who purchases their tickets at the park are getting the new tickets with the RFID chips. They only have a few old turnstiles and iPod touch people at the entrances, but there are predominately RFID turnstiles.

RFID tickets are getting phased out also and replaced with RFID wristbands in the near future. I am going to the world next week so will be glad to see the new turnstyles even though I have old non-RFID tickets