THE CASHELSS AGE HAS ARRIVED, SAYS FUTURIST

BETHESDA, MD: The counterfeiting of paper currency is likely to explode in the United States within the next five to ten years, the inevitable result of innovations in optical scanning technology. The growing ease of printing fake bills is just one of the many obvious drawbacks to paper currency in the twenty-first century. Fortunately, the rise of new wireless telecommunications technologies is hastening the rise of a cashless society. In the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, finance and telecommunications expert Allen H. Kupetz steps boldly into the cashless frontier and explains why paper currency may be a thing of the past.

"Migration toward a cashless society is unlikely to hasten the apocalypse; neither is it lighting a fire under policy makers and the consumers who would negotiate its brave new world," Kupetz writes. "The success or failure of the migration to a cashless society will most likely be tied to three critical issues relating to the pace of consumer acceptance: security, privacy, and ease of use."

In a special section on the future implications of the cashless society, Kupetz is joined by corporate consultant Lisa Bodell, SecureGive inventor Marty Baker, and attorney David Warwick.

Pick up the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands, or write the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814. Order online at

www.wfs.org

THE FUTURIST is a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological trends.
Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to THE FUTURIST are Gene Roddenberry, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lamm, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Joel Garreau, and William J. Mitchell.

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