In a surprising end to his presentation at the CeBit conference in Hanover, Germany, Alibaba founder Jack Ma Yun showed the world his company’s new facial-recognition technology.
Before leaving the stage, Ma told the audience he wanted them to see a “small innovative product that we have designed”.
With that he showed them a selfie service that can be used to pay for goods or services, and purchased a souvenir stamp for the mayor of Hanover, to be delivered “in six days”.
“Online payments to buy things is always a big headache,” he said, as reported in the South China Morning Post. “You forget your password, you worry about security, today we’ll show you a new technology, how people in the future will buy things online.”
Ant Financial, which runs Alibaba’s Alipay business – a major online payments service in China – is behind the technology.
According to CNBC, Alibaba is looking to improve on the current verification modes out there, such as Apple’s fingerprint ID or other variants on the two-step processes.
“One system would allow a user to confirm a purchase by speaking a trigger phrase, and another solution, called ‘Kong Fu’ would let a customer verify a payment by scanning something like a tattoo or even a pet,” CNBC reported.
Either way, the company is certainly thinking outside the box.
[Video] Jack Ma Demonstrates Face-recognition Payment Technology | via @Alizila http://t.co/VCIaJExtcs #CeBIT2015 pic.twitter.com/iiZmuiw9Ih
— Alibaba Group (@alibabagroup) March 17, 2015
Jack Ma demonstrates the future of payment technology @cebit pic.twitter.com/2nwj06VZzf
— Alibaba Group (@alibabagroup) March 15, 2015
Selfie image via Shutterstock
