“Envision this: (1) walk up to a vending machine, (2) tell Siri that you want a Coke, (3) the iPhone establishes wireless communication with the vending machine, (4) the iPhone sends your credit card data to the vending machine, (5) the vending machine goes through its authorization process, and voila (6) the vending machine spits out a Coke,” David Nitz writes for Seeking Alpha.

“Using RFID chips attached to individual consumer product packages, your iPhone will wirelessly recognize each item in your grocery cart. Your iPhone will list each to-be-purchased item and display your invoice on the iPhone screen complete with a total tally and via its NFC chip will transfer the invoice total to the retail store’s computer, charging the bill to your credit card after the authorization is made,” Nitz writes. “Visa is already working with smartphones to do this.”

“Apple’s iPhone users could have two big advantages,” Nitz writes. “First, no phone tapping or code entry would be required because Siri could complete the transaction that you request with an audible instruction. Second, and the biggest game changer of all, after experiencing and perfecting the system in its own retail stores using your iTunes account credit card for payment, it makes sense for Apple to issue its own iPhone-enabled credit card to hundreds of millions of iTunes customers.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Edward W." for the heads up.]