Yes, pretty scary. A real Stephen King kind of (here you play the music from the Twilight Zone film by Manhattan Transfer).
I am in Las Vegas for the WebTrends event. Recently, I decided to start training again with my bike on a roller in my garage. Spending hundreds of winter hours on a bicycle facing a concrete wall is not always the most motivating perspective. So, I thought that if I could at least listen to music while doing it, I would increase my chances of loosing those lousy 25 pounds of excess indulgence.
Last night I finally found an Apple store (man, they don’t pack many things between casinos on The Strip!). I knew what I wanted, so it went like this: “Excuse me, can I have this one please?”, “Sure!”, the clerk scanned the box with his mobile device, swiped my card, fetch the receipt (I guess they determined that the mobile devices with a roll of paper were not the best solution), and I was out. Total transaction time (minus the waiting; those things ARE popular): one minute and a half. Remember here that all he had was my credit card number.
I then took a taxi, and 15 minutes later I was in my room. The old reflex to check my emails immediately kicks in (it always does), and BOOM! there it was: a thank you email from Apple thanking me for my purchase with a PDF version of my receipt.
You know what? I know that they had my credit card number in file through iTunes, but for half a second, the thought that crossed my mind was “How the f… did they know????”, which tells you that my consumer brain hasn’t adjusted yet to that long announced hyper-connected world.
Neat…
Imagine if I had owned a BlackBerry (God, I’m glad I don’t!); I am sure that mail would have reached me right there, in the cab.