I remember thinking about a middle-aged man standing at a checkout counter. Something set him apart.

我想起一个站在收银台旁边的中年男士，有一些东西使他显得与众不同。

youdao

Imagine that you were only allowed to fly on one airline, or take a single route to work, or use one designated checkout counter at the grocery store.

想象一下，你只能使用一家航空公司，或者只走一条路去工作，或者在杂货店只能使用一个指定的收银台。

youdao

Suppose you are in a long line at checkout counter 1 — you can roughly guess how long it would take to move up in that line.

假设您排在1号付款台前的长队中，您可以粗略地估算出大概需要多久时间才能排到自己付款。

youdao

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is joining Citigroup and Mastercard to set up a mobile payment system that would let Android users wave their phones in front of a small reader at a checkout counter to pay for something.

FORBES: Morning Tech Wrap: Apple, Google, Firefox

It means that I can use my PayPal account and at the checkout counter, I just use my cellphone number and a pin.

FORBES: How To Protect Yourself From PayPal Identity Theft

"It's all about how fast they can get customers through the checkout counter, " says Madeline Aufseeser, a payments-industry analyst at Aite Group LLC, a financial-services research firm, who is skeptical many large merchants would try surcharging for fear of angering consumers.

WSJ: Bank Fees Squeeze Retailers