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An article in this months Wired details how Disney spent $1 Billion developing, testing, and rolling out their Magicband system that started actually rolling out in 2013.
Disney's Magicband system is based on a wristband containing an RFID chip and a 2.4gHz wifi transmitter. To use the system, the guest simply aligns the Mickey head on the wristband with a Mickey head on the receiving antenna. These antenna are dispersed throughout the park; for example: rides, souvenir shops, restaurants, and on-property hotel rooms. Rather than having to pull out a wallet to pay for something, one simply uses the Magicband and, upon a good read of the RFID tag, your associated credit card gets charged accordingly. It is even used by their FastPass system which allows you to schedule getting on rides.
When everything works, the reader flashes green and emits a pleasing tone; if something goes wrong, it glows blue, never red. Red lights are forbidden at Disney, as they imply something bad happened. Nothing bad can happen at Disney World.
In early 2014, "atdisneyagain.com" did an actual dissection of a Magicband to get a look at the components, complete with FCC look ups to see exactly what was going on inside.
[Update: corrected grammar and phrasing.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmn32480 on Monday March 23 2015, @03:11PM
I'd guess that the $1Billion was spent on the R&D for the bands and readers, and the massive amount of equipment and infrastructure to support it.
Think about the size of the Magic Kingdom. You need 8 readers at each ride (2 pair at the head of the line, and 2 pair at the entry point from the concourses), 1 reader at every payment station, 1 pair at every entrance kiosk, 1 reader on each of the many thousands of hotel rooms, readers for all of the camera people taking photos though out the park.
Then add readers for each of the things above for all the rest of the parks world-wide [wikipedia.org]. Millions of bands, and the massive infrastructure and data mining apparatus behind it all has to be added into the cost.
Suddenly getting to that billion dollar mark doesn't seem so hard.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by Daiv on Monday March 23 2015, @04:32PM
On a roll-out like this, training hours would be calculated and added to the cost to make it seem more important as well. Look at HOW much we've spent on safety! Ignore the price increases, only look at how serious we are by how much we've spent! For the children!!!
(Score: 3, Funny) by pnkwarhall on Monday March 23 2015, @05:17PM
>>For the children!!!
It **is** for the children...
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