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Plastc Card

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Re: Plastc Card

#201

Post by saryant »

JTon wrote: post #149
mattmaroon wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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 i…

For loyalty cards, why not use passbook or equivalent?

Good luck getting Lufthansa to accept a Passbook version of a United premier card.

Re: Plastc Card

#202

Post by tadfisher »

wahern wrote: post #125
bradfa wrote: post #93

What would actually be slightly lower in cost and leverage existing infrastructure better would be this Plastc card but remove the bluetooth, the touch interface, chip-n-pin, and the internal battery. Just have an app on your NFC phone and have it send the card data over NFC to the card when you want to use it. In this way you could just have an app on your phone which can work with the bank over the Net to generate…

Yes. Keep all your financial information on a general purpose consumer computer accessible over the network, and never worry about the safety of your financial data ever again ;)

Or keep it in plain sight, embossed on a card and in a magnetic stripe for which readers are ubiquitous and inexpensive ;)

Re: Plastc Card

#203

Post by sturmeh »

natrius wrote: post #16

They say this supports chip-and-PIN, but I don't believe them until they explain how. If I have a chip-and-PIN card from my bank, the chip has an unreadable secret used to generate one-time cryptograms to verify the authenticity of the card. There's no way to get that secret onto my Plastc card. You'd need partnerships with banks to get a new secret the way Apple Pay does. Without those, this sounds like it'll be use…

They will never get the chip to work with a majority of card providers.

They may get the NFC component to work with all the providers which allow them to, just like you can currently use your phone to make NFC payments. :)

Re: Plastc Card

#205

Post by abalone »

zo1 wrote: post #198
abalone wrote: post #181

Faked video. I downloaded it and went frame-by-frame and you can see the card display contents move around with changing margins. It's all CGI. Not that it's inherently wrong to do simulations, but this is notable because they don't include a "this is a simulation" disclaimer (AFAICS).

It was quite obviously either completely rendered, or rendered on top of an actual video. It felt like a plain commercial, with "cgi" added ontop of it for effect. I mean, no one expects little flying transparent windows to pop out the side of their card, do they? Of course not. So I don't think they were doing it surreptitiously, but merely to make a pretty "commercial" to sell their product.

I'm talking about the product itself, not the explanatory popups.

Re: Plastc Card

#206

Post by duckingtest »

easytiger wrote: post #137
untog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 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.

Is that satire? I'm not kidding... To a British mindset that video on https://www.myvessyl.com/ feels exactly like satire.

I actually like it, it provides a tiny amount of utility. If I was a multimillionaire I would buy it.

Re: Plastc Card

#207

Post by yasth »

Bud wrote: post #175
yasth wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like it displays the logo, so it isn't out of the question for banks (now starting to be scared at being disintermediated) to maybe throw in some "support" (aka tepidly allow access). After all, apple pay also reduces branding ( and Apple takes a cut), and threatens a lot of the industry as what you pay with becomes a minor manner (and also massively encourages a single default card).

Does Apple Pay actually reduce branding that much? I bet I'm not the only one who saw the Apple Pay demo and noticed that it displays a nice, large, full-color image of the card being used. Cards with a certain cachet, then (AmEx black, other high-end cards) will still be quite prominently displayed. Indeed, a backlit display might even make more of a brand impression than the physical card, in some situations. I als…

Eh, as far as default goes, it is another step; the second page of google results is easy to get too, but people don't. Part of what generates alternate card usage today is the messy wallet, sometimes the card isn't in the right place, or doesn't come to hand.

Also there are some practical in RL issues that come up with most NFC payment readers (namely a lot of the installed readers have short range, and awkward pad placement) which makes non default much less attractive.

As for the display issue, the issuers concern is that they are pretty limited as far as making things distinct. I mean hell, every card company is going to have black cards. There are no sideways cards, no premium materials, no metallics, etc. They have a relatively small image, which has to still look good even if cropped to lose the bottom 80%. Basically they get space for bank logo, card logo, and a non distracting background.

So if they are willing to give up on all that and a fee, it doesn't seem all that out of the question for them to allow their logos to be used on a flexible card, and (presumably) not pay a fee.

Re: Plastc Card

#208

Post by beggi »

This is a either a future vaporware from naïve people or a straight up scam. Either way, I'm betting that before the tech will be good enough for this kind of product the Apple Pay and similar products will be ubiquitous - this is simply a faster horse.

Re: Plastc Card

#209

Post by objclxt »

jrockway wrote: post #70
bravo22 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm calling shenanigans after reading their specs. Here are my reasons: NFC + EMV secure elements are issued by banks and can't be reprogrammed. You can't switch between them on the fly. You can only house "multiple" EMVs if you can by some grace of god magic convince the different banks, and Amex to take your card to their facility and program it with their secure info and then give it back to you. E-ink displays ar…

There are several variants on the NFC protocol. Some contain secure elements (with a CVV3, which is a cryptographically-signed incrementing number), but I believe they can also just dumbly-send the normal card data over the air. I've also seen credit cards made from glass. I think they're NFC-only, though, because of the thickness, but I could be mistaken.

> I believe they can also just dumbly-send the normal card data over the air.

Only while the US still is supporting that. Once the liability shift occurs next year it'll be EMV or nothing.

Re: Plastc Card

#210

Post by jedmeyers »

eclipxe wrote: post #182
timdorr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the fact that their home page video features some poorly motion-tracked simulated display. That alone instills some fear in me that this is just complete vaporware.

Of course it is vaporware. They're trying to prove the market exists, sell the product up front, then go build it. Will it ever ship or be remotely as thin and svelte as this mockup? I'm guessing no, but if they pull it off, kudos.

You are telling this as if "go build it" is the least important part.
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