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What need does this address? Are cards taking up too much room in people's lives? This solution doesn't reduce the height or width of the encumbrance at all,
by jMyles 12y ago
What need does this address? Are cards taking up too much room in people's lives?
This solution doesn't reduce the height or width of the encumbrance at all, and reduces the depth only by n*.76mm, where n is the number of cards that will be replaced. I don't get it.
Also, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheZenOfProgramming http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheZenOfProgramming
- toomuchtodo 12y agoIt commoditizes credit/debit/banking products, which isn't a bad thing.
- aioprisan 12y agoHow does actually commoditize banking products? It just reduces the number of cards that you may or may not have in your wallet, with may or may not be a real problem for a majority of people. My gut feeling as a tech guy with disposable cash is that this looks great and I'd love to have this as a cool toy, but honestly it does not fulfill any real daily need for the mass market or for general good.
- untog 12y agoThis and Vessyl feel like the harbingers of Silicon Valley doom. Products that solve no meaningful problem and cost orders of magnitude more than their 'dumb' alternatives. A waste of good brains.
- egwor 12y agoFashion. Because it differentiates.
- hyperbovine 12y agoBut the Apple watch is blessed by Jonny Ive Himself!
- jrockway 12y agoSmart watches aren't really as bad as this. They tell the time, like normal watches, and are cheaper than many normal watches. Credit cards are different. They are small, thin, and never run out of batteries.
- mahyarm 12y agoThey are targeting women with this device. Look at all the marketing materials. Female main characters, a woman is in the facial recognition part, 'you shouldn't buy this for yourself, buy it for your female wife', clothing shops & restaurants, etc.
- dublinben 12y agoThe women in my life would find this incredibly useful. Several popular iPhone cases can hold a couple cards. This product would allow you to carry your phone, ID, and every other card in one compact package.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- egypturnash 12y ago"buy it for your female wife" ...as opposed to your male, neuter, or enby wife, I suppose?
- easytiger 12y agoIs that satire? I'm not kidding... To a British mindset that video on https://www.myvessyl.com/ https://www.myvessyl.com/ feels exactly like satire.
- untog 12y agoSadly not. A cup that tells you what you just poured into it is a real product.
- easytiger 12y agoTheir argument that knowing your hydration quotient is more important to fitness & wellbeing than knowing your calorie intake should get them pummelled. I don't care if they have an MD on their staff. For a start if you care about health & fitness to a degree at all you simply wouldn't drink Red Bull, beer to any amount that it makes a difference. If you do it will be in a binge scenario. I also use the same technique in debate by dealing with likely criticism by mentioning it and countering with a weak counter point. In this case that is the use of the app to enter drinks you would never pour into a horrid big bottle. I also wonder about the tech they use to determine the liquid content. I'm gonna guess its not that clever. Using light analysis vs a DB of known drinks or something likely to be wrong.
- untog 12y agoMy favourite part of the whole idea is that in order to get the data they say it helps you with, you'll need to carry your cup everywhere. To the bar. To bed. On vacation. Who would ever do that?
- jcampbell1 12y agoIn theory, this could enable one time use magnetic stripe data, which would solve many security problems. I could get this instead of waiting until all merchants support chip and pin (which is never going to happen in the US).
- dkuntz2 12y agoCredit card companies could incentivize merchants to do so by offering better rates on chip and pin, or by only offering worse rates without it the next time a contract is renewed.
- tetrep 12y ago>I could get this instead of waiting until all merchants support chip and pin (which is never going to happen in the US). It's going to be supported unless the merchant is happy eating fraudulent charges, which will make them a hotspot for people committing fraud. There's various dates for when that liability kicks in[1]. General trend is 2015 for PoS and 2017 for gas station pumps. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV#United_States
- aet 12y agoSay you have 10k stolen cards...now its easy to carry them all.
- TrainedMonkey 12y ago"Flash Memory (up to 20 cards)" Good luck with that.
- dkuntz2 12y agoSo you're reducing the number of cards you have on you by 1/20.
- lockes5hadow 12y agoIf this thing is real, you could just have your phone "load" different cards to it.
- chrissnell 12y agoAgreed. Besides the minimal space required by using separate cards, my bank will replace my cards for free whenever they break or the stripes go bad, which happens every six months or so. Does Plastc do that?
- aestra 12y agoDiscover will give you a new CC every time you want to change the design on it, which you can choose from several. :)
- mattmaroon 12y agoI have a lot of cards. Between gift cards, loyalty cards, and credit cards, I have at least 20-30 that I'd like to carry on me. I end up leaving cards I don't use every day in my car (and am always paranoid about the valet as a result). I use a KeyRing app for loyalty cards, but it's a pain and requires me often typing numbers into things. I often find myself in a Starbucks, realizing I left the Starbucks gift card in my car. Etc. This would let me get away with a much slimmer wallet and is therefore quite convenient. If it works.
- JTon 12y agoFor loyalty cards, why not use passbook or equivalent?
- IanCal 12y agoTo pick a single example, in the UK Boots points cards have a pin in and need to be inserted into a reader.
- saryant 12y agoGood luck getting Lufthansa to accept a Passbook version of a United premier card.
- Karunamon 12y agoI've got 12 cards in my wallet right now. Passbook accepts one of them. I'm unaware of any equivalents that would work with even a majority of them.
- syncsynchalt 12y agoPassbook only supports 2d codes, not 1d codes (UPC-style codes) or mag stripes that you typically find on loyalty cards.
- mattmaroon 12y agoThere are apps, like KeyRing, which I use. The problem is unless the merchant has an optical scanner (many are still on laser) they can't scan your phone. So now you or the cashier has to type in a 12 digit number. If it's the cashier, you have to hand them your phone. It's annoying.
- jkestner 12y agoIt serves the company's need to insert itself into the financial data stream. You know the story: "It's a $2 trillion industry - imagine if we just captured a fraction of that! Step 3: profit." For users, this must be some retro fad jumping the gun. Given the value of the transaction data going through this thing, it should be free at worst.
- jarin 12y agoI think it's safe to say they're charging for it because they haven't raised the money to develop and manufacture the thing.
- deet 12y agoYeah, there's potential to use a device like this to build a service like Simple or Moven but without the need to force users to open a new account with you just to get the necessary data. They even showed the instant feedback alerts in the demo video.
- raldi 12y agon is big, and depth-millimeters count for a lot in pocket world. If you're a lady wearing jeans, this could make the difference in whether you need to bring a purse. For me, it makes the difference re: whether I need to carry a wallet at all, or whether I replace it with a phone case that has a pocket for this and my drivers license.
- aeturnum 12y agoIt seems pretty solidly in the "luxury" column. This is particularly clear if you take a long view. It's likely that all physical credit cards are on their way out in favor of digitally distributed credentials. CC companies like you flashing their cards, but not as much as they like lowering fraud. That being said, it's certainly attractive. If the 'bubble bursts' (whatever that means), I expect this is the kind of start up that will be first against the wall. Just remember frivolous != worthless.
- dsjoerg 12y agoFor me, the remote-wipe ability is a killer app. Currently, when I lose a physical card, I have to go through a painful get-a-new-card procedure that involves going to my major websites and giving them my new card #. With remote wipe, when I lose my card I just remote-wipe it and order a new one. Also, this card will warn me when I'm too far from it so I won't be as likely to leave it behind.
- dublinben 12y agoThis can be avoided today by using one card for subscriptions and other recurring payments, and another card for physical purchases. I do something similar already, where I never carry around the debit card associated with my primary checking account.
- encoderer 12y agoI should never use a debit card for anything anyway. You have awful fraud protection and zero to near-zero rewards. Banks will give you net-30 terms for no cost, reward you with many benefits, and give you fantastic protection from thieves AND retailers.
- aestra 12y agoThe big problem with debit cards is if you get it stolen then your money is taken. Sure you'd get it back eventually, but until them you don't have access to your own money and can't spend it.
- koffiezet 12y agoThat's weird. I live in a country where 95+% of all payments are done with debit cards, and I don't know anyone who ever had a problem with fraud. Maybe debit cards are a bit better at security than "oh let's copy this number and put a fake signature on a piece of paper"? Even the mag-stripe version of our payment system that we have had here since '79 required online PIN verification.
- 12y ago
- prawn 12y agoI think this improves things, but I don't know why the focus isn't on a phone, which people are already carrying. In an ideal world, everything else I carry in my front pockets and wallet could be handled by my phone - keys, money, business cards, receipts, credit cards, loyalty cards, ID, etc.
- waylandsmithers 12y agoI thought the same thing about the new Apple Pay. I didn't consider the process of "take credit card from wallet and swipe" to be a massive inconvenience that needed to be turned into an app.