I always have this big issue to deal with when I’m travelling “light”: “what should I do with the dozen of plastic cards I have in my wallet?”. I have plastic cards for almost everything: of course my credit card, ID card and driving licence, but also my various customer cards, membership card from various associations and finally frequent flyer card for different airlines.
I let you imagine what my wallet looks like at the end of the day. So it’s always a big deal, when I’m trying to travel light, to decide which card to take or to leave in a drawer.
One other issue is that every time one card expires, its plastic adds to the trash. So do the numerous receipts that we accumulate after swiping our CC.
But a wind of change might blow (soon?)…
The fundamental of the One Card Electronic Card is quite simple: it wants to eliminate the trash and give a break to our poor ever growing wallet (and resolve issues like identity theft via discarded expired CCs) by proposing to be this all-credit-cards-in-one device.
On one end of the gadget is a Memory Card Slot that will help the user upload their various card Details.
The other end has a turning-knob that allows one to choose the appropriate card to be swiped.
The display on the device reflects an identical copy of the card front, while the strip on the back mimics a card’s magnetic strip. Once the transaction is completed, the receipt generated is displayed on the device (no paper receipt) and the info gets stored on the memory card.
The concept is pretty clear in what it wants to achieve, namely combine all cards that a person uses under one umbrella, reduce generation of paper/plastic trash, identity security etc. The only block is the compatibility with various banks and the willingness of people to rely on a gadget for daily CC transactions. Yes, we do use online, virtual services, but something like this is quite different.
As a matter of facts this concept may one day revolution our approach to the concept of wallet itself! Imagine that this all-in-one credit card may give us the ability not only to pay our goods, but also services (a virtual e-ticket for public transportations or airplanes, social security, insurance) and feature everything from our secured personal data (passport/ID card/Driving licence) to the family picture we carry everywhere…
Of course there’s always the issue of losing it with all the critical information it carries… but it is just the same problem as loosing your real wallet. Except that we can imagine that this all-in-one wallet will be able to be deactivated remotely and thus safeguards all our data.
A very nice concept indeed.
Designer: Kim Young Suk
Very nice concept, but I think it needs to be tweaked to fit in reality:
* How does it draw power? When connected to the computer USB can provide that but not when it’s in use at the store…
* That control wheel is going to get in the way when you try to draw cash from the ATM…
* What about the SmartCard chip?
I agree with the general endeavour to fold all the different sorts of IDs and credit cards into 1 – technology certainly isn’t the limit here, but in my mind it doesn’t necessarily need to emulate the old systems…
I’d like my phone, passport, IDs and ATM cards to all be rolled into one. But I’m not sure you need a physical support for that: today I can shop online if I just know the numbers on my credit card, without necessarily having it on hand.
@ McThib: I guess this concept is only at a prototype stage for now. Of course there are some improvements that can be done to actually make the “concept” turn into a reality. There has been some great developments done so far in the field of micro electronic to allow bulky applications and data fit into small devices that can run for days without needing to be recharged (low consumption processor, lithium-ion batteries, etc). With regard to the habit of using anything but real coins or bank notes to pay our consumption goods, I think that most people in this world are ready for the revolution an All-in-one-electronic-card might bring: We already travel using our mobile phones (to pay for our metro/bus ticket, display our flight ticket), in Japan people shop using their smartphone and VeryChip has launched for some time now (2001 I think) its highly revolutional, but controversial, micro chip that is able to carry our ID information, health data, CC numbers (you scan have you skin scanned to pay what you shopped at your nearby supermarket!) and much more.
Today we have the technical ability to carry all our personal data within a single device. The shape it will take matters less. What is important is make it secure and get the confidence of its future users: you, me and the rest of the developed world.