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Plastc Card

plastc.com

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Re: Plastc Card

#261
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure nfc can be passive, the e-ink display doesn't use energy when not changing, and the "touch screen digitizer" could just be a button that is actually a contact (i.e. most of the time the microcontroller is passive). Also, you could make the card thicker in areas where it doesn't matter (away from the stripe and the PIN

You can't, actually. Consider things like the ATMs that suck in the entire card, or things like Metrocard vending machines that require you to insert the credit card in a slot.

Really good point. I doubt they'll ever[0] be able to put all that tech into a card that's actually as thin as a credit card that fits in an ATM.

But if they can do that, I want one, not to pay with, but for the programmable eInk screen with bluetooth connectivity (and touch? get real).

Then I'd hook it into my phone, that would somehow detect who is nearby/looking at it, reverse/stalk their social networks, local graph, location/environment context, little bit of magic, cold reading and random guesswork.

It would show exactly whatever they wanted/expected to see.

I'd have hacked myself a piece of Doctor Who's psychic paper.

[0] or at least for a few years :)

Re: Plastc Card

#263
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…

here's an explanation: *Plastc card will be available to use across all participating locations and with all participating payments types following an over-the-air firmware update in 2015 to enable Chip and PIN and contactless payments.

no sure why this is getting downvoted? It's right off of their website's fineprint... There was a time when an attempt to be helpful comment like this stayed at 0 in the worst case..

Re: Plastc Card

#264

Whilst I wouldn't go as far as to say "never going to happen", I am fairly cynical about this and similar products like coin. Not for any particular technical reason (although I'd be very interested to hear how they plan to make this work with Chip & PIN) but from a risk/liability perspective. At the moment most banks that I'm aware of provide an online fraud guarantee and a credit card fraud guarantee, so as long as…

It will end up being a similar situation as money dashboard, where using it voids your banks fraud protection.

Re: Plastc Card

#265

The ridiculous number of features on this card makes it really hard to believe that an unknown startup has the resources to pull it off in the form factor as thin as a credit card. Coin still hasn't gotten there yet (they claim it works at 85% of the locations they visited). Adding more features including wireless charging coils and unknown method for duplicating chip and pin makes me really skeptical that this will…

Although the product looks very attractive, I doubt they will be able to pull it off. This line from their TOS should be a little worrying: "We are engaging in a new industry, and there is no assurance that the products and Services will contain all of the characteristics set forth herein or in our marketing materials."

Re: Plastc Card

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implementing Apple Pay isn't a technical feat. There's a standard for it.[1] As long as the banks let you access their token generation service, it's straightforward. However, I haven't heard of anyone other than Apple getting that permission. It'll happen soon enough, but the chances that these guys are the first seems slim to me. [1] http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html

I think it might be a bit of a misrepresentation. They will have their own 3rd party payment service ala paypal but you will be able to use the card to decide which payment method associated with that account gets used. Just a guess! but it would avoid some pretty massive technical hurdles to international acceptance.

As far as the current public information goes, Apple Pay tokenizes your credit/debit card and uses that to pay, which means your bank processes the payment. Apple won't process the payments themselves.

Re: Plastc Card

#268
post #184
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they just found a way to implement ApplePay on their card.

The card connects to your iPhone (for proximity detection) perhaps the card accesses Apple Pay on your phone when making the transaction therefore your phone needs to be in your pocket while inputting the chip and pin? Just a thought.

Not a snowball's chance in hell. Apple's whole play for Apple Pay is security. They will not be allowing third party cards to receive credential info.

Re: Plastc Card

#269
post #35

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

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…

This really is something I don't get. I have a pretty busy digital and real life, and I really can't think of having more than a couple of CC (one Credit, one debt), an EC Karte and maybe a couple of cards for gym membership and (in this very moment) H&M giftcard. Even Apple Pay strikes me as a solution looking for a problem. Maybe that's a fundamental difference between the U.S. and Europe, but I really don't get the gist of all this "scrape the huge heap of card crowding your wallet" excitement.

Re: Plastc Card

#270
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, Chip and PIN is kind of broken... • "Chip and PIN is Broken" (Murdoch/Drimer/Anderson/Bond, 2010) [PDF] http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland10chipbroken.p... • "Chip and PIN is Broken" (Murdoch, 27C3, 2010) [Video]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_w352BS-Q • "Chip & PIN is definitely broken" (Barisani/Bianco/Laurie/Franken, 2011) [Video]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JABJlvrZWbY ...and s…

Well in defence of Chip and PIN (and I can't believe I'm saying this), the exploits listed above take advantage of "No Signature" provided. This is where the card just gives the basic CC information -- same as what is on the front. The bank can see this and banks only allow small transactions to go through with no signature. In the demo they buy coffee, etc. with it. You couldn't buy something more expensive with it…

That certainly isn't true of the Cambridge one.
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