IT and society: IT and the high street

IT and the high street

IT has brought about a consumer revolution. Cash is giving way to plastic cards; electronic point-of-sale terminals linked to the store's ordering system and to the banking system are appearing everywhere; and shopping and banking can even be done from a home computer linked to the telephone network.

Plastic money is of two types:

• Credit cards, such as Access and Visa, which allow you to purchase goods without the need to make an imme­diate payment. Stores can add a small surcharge to your bill if you use this payment method, and the credit card company will charge you interest if you don't settle your account by the due date.

• Debit cards, such as Switch and Link, which also allow you to purchase goods by directly debiting your bank account. Many debit cards double up as cash cards, allowing you to draw cash from your bank account. This gives an instant and cost-free way of getting at your money via automatic telling machines (ATMs) at any participating branch, not only in this country but in many other countries also. (Switch cards can be used at many banks in a number of European countries; Link­ also known as 'Plus' - cards can be used in America.)

Plastic money is becoming 'smart', through the incorpor­ation of a microchip in the card. Smart cards are widely used in a number of European countries, in Japan, and in America, both as store credit cards and as bank debit/cash cards. The phone card introduced in this country by British Telecom is an example of a smart card.

The RAM in a smart card is able to hold up to 1 million characters, and can store details of the customer's transac­tions. Since this information is held in the card itself, it avoids the need to access the central computer to check the customer's account each time a transaction is made, so cutting down on computer costs and telecommunications costs. In the case of store cards or bank cards, it is necessary to periodically update the computer by reading out the data from the card via a terminal.

IT is also revolutionizing point-of-sale terminals in super­ markets and other large stores. Electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) terminals offer many facilities, including, through their links to the banking system, debit/cash card facilities. They can:

• Read the bar code printed on the packaging of a product, and so identify it.

• Match this identity with the product's description and price held in its store.

• Store the transaction details, along with information such as the time of the transaction, the method of payment, and the sales assistant's code number.

• Produce fully itemized receipts.

• Update the store's inventory records.

• Accept debit cards as a payment method, and even act as a cash point, dispensing cash.

• Produce data, if required, on the sales assistant's rate of work.

IT and the home

If we include TV and audio technology within the scope of IT, then IT has already revolutionized much of our home lives. Besides giving us access to ordinary TV programs, most new TV sets also offer teletext facilities, allowing us to access the Cee fax and Oracle databases. Further advances in the use of IT in the home will lie mainly in the introduc­tion of the microchip into ever more appliances, the linking of those appliances to a central home computer, and the linking of that computer to the telecommunications network.

Home banking and home shopping have been available for almost a decade via a computer connected to the telephone network. The computer I am using to write this book is also my personal banking terminal. When I type in a simple command, the computer automatically runs a communications software package and then proceeds to carry out the following actions:

• It dials up Prestel (using its internal modem) and logs on with my Prestel account number and pass work.

• It routes me to the Home link banking section of Prestel.

• It logs on to my Home link account with my account number and password.

All I have to do is type in a security 'transaction number', and my bank statement appears on the computer screen. Then I can pay bills such as my quarterly electricity or gas charges, or Visa card payments, simply by typing in the appropriate details. The Home link computer lets me specify the dates when the bills are to be paid, so that I can earn maximum interest on my money. And I can transfer funds between my Home link account and my ordinary bank account.

Bringing the various microchip-controlled home appli­ances under the computer's supervision is already techni­cally feasible, and Thorn EMI has built a prototype 'intelligent home'. Figure 11.2 illustrates the electronic links between the various systems. The kind of scenario that is envisaged is as follows:

Returning from a family outing you are delayed by a traffic jam caused by a motorway accident, which means you will be late home. The house is empty. Your meal, which is in the oven set to cook on automatic, will be cold by the time you arrive; the central heating timer

will switch the heating on unnecessarily early; you will miss the final episode of the TV serial you have been watching; and with night falling, the house will be in total darkness with the curtains open, an attractive target for burglars.

Your home and its appliances are, however, under the control of your computer. By phoning home you can access this system, and so re-program the oven, reset the central heating system, set the video recorder, close the curtains, check that the burglar alarm system is on, and switch on the lights in a predetermined sequence to simulate people at home.