Comment by Multicomp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Multicomp | Hacker News Reader

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The number of integrations between MagicBand and the existing &/or legacy systems must be staggering.

At the very least, there is the integration between the MagicBand and FREEDOM-POS, the point of sale software running at Disney parks.

It could be as simple as the band functioning as a reference to the built-in EFT account called 'play money', which is a stored value account generated on a POS and assigned to a given serial number (say, a disposable wristband, season pass card number, MagicBand number) and either filled with cash to store and deplete, or linked to a credit card to charge indirectly.

It could be as complex as the MagicBand bypassing FREEDOM entirely and interfacing directly with a back-end server that knows the card details, merely racking up charges over time to be periodically charged directly to the customer's card.

Either way, I'd love to get a peek behind the curtain at the Disney IT operations, warts and oddities specifically.

Technology wise, Magic Bands are awesome.

You can pay with them in the parks (no fishing around for cash or your credit card), it links to your Disney accounts, you can use them as a ticket to get into the parks and it functions as your door key at Disney hotels and cruise ships.

And it all just works.

The amount of data they collect from this must be staggering.

One thing I discovered: You can't assign a magic band to open multiple hotel rooms.

(I was bringing a large family to the park, and wanted folks to be able to float between rooms.)

We ended up falling back to card keys.

Sounds like a bit of an outlier situation. However, it also would seem to have a fairly simple technical solution.

It’s insane. There’s long range detectors all over the parks that can pick up the general amount of people in that area of the park for analytics purposes. For example, in the Star Wars area of the park, your MagicBand is detected behind the scenes and your performance on the Millennium Falcon is saved, and cast members can comment on it at point-of-sale terminals (“Hey! I heard you crashed the Falcon!”).

Here’s some of the FCC filings: https://fccid.io/Q3E#axzz3XOMIw4yj

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