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Amazon's Palm Reader Launches at First Non-Amazon Venue in Sneak Peek of Our Biometric-Based Future

The Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver will use the new tech for ticketed events.

Amazon One, the palm reader technology, now rolling out to the Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Denver, Colorado.
Amazon One, the palm reader technology, now rolling out to the Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Denver, Colorado.
Photo: Amazon

Amazon’s electronic palm reader technology, known as Amazon One, launched at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver on Tuesday, according to a press release from the retailing giant. It’s the first deployment of Amazon One’s biometric reader outside of an Amazon-owned property and is certainly a sign of things to come. In fact, Amazon seems to be banking on rolling this technology out everywhere.

Amazon One is already being used at Amazon’s brick-and-mortar stores, as well as several Whole Foods, which Amazon also owns, where people who sign up for Amazon One provide a scan of their palm-print. Once registered, those palm prints can then be used to purchase items.

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Starting today, concertgoers at Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Colorado will be able to sign up for the service, which will allow entry to the concert venue with a swipe of their hand. Red Rocks will have a kiosk for anyone who wants to sign up at the venue and Amazon One customers will also get a dedicated line for even faster entry, according to the company.

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“When a ticketholder is ready to enter the amphitheatre using their palm, there is a designated entry line where Amazon One is enabled. When a fan hovers their palm over the Amazon One device, a unique palm signature is built by our computer vision technology,” Amazon explained in a press release early Tuesday.

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Amazon One, which launched a year ago in just a handful of Amazon locations, promised to make a big push for third-party applications. And today seems to be the official start of that initiative, meaning the palm readers will likely start showing up at all kinds of locations.

Amazon promises the technology is secure and doesn’t store any information locally, a claim Gizmodo has not been able to independently verify.

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“The service is designed to be highly secure and uses custom-built algorithms and hardware to create a person’s unique palm signature. Once enrolled, the service is contactless and ticketholders can use their palm to enter AXS ticketed venues in less than a second or two. We’re excited to soon hear how AXS fans like using Amazon One to effortlessly enter their favorite events, so they can spend less time waiting in line and more time enjoying the event,” Amazon said.

Amazon hasn’t released exact figures for how many people have signed up for Amazon One, but says it’s in the tens of thousands of people throughout 60 locations in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Washington D.C.

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Amazon has partnered with AXS, which handles ticketing for a high number of concert and sports venues in the U.S., including the Staples Center in Los Angeles and T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, among a host of others. So whether you like this idea or not—and privacy advocates are skeptical to say the least—you’re probably going to be seeing it in a lot of new locations soon. Welcome to the biometric future.