Dreamed up by Kim Young Suk, the One Card is almost too great to ever actually become reality. It would come with a media card slot to add credit card information, a knob to select which card you want the magnetic strip to mimic, and a display which would show either the selected card or corresponding receipts.

Only trouble would be that you're kinda screwed if you manage to demagnetize the card somehow. [Yanko Design]

The Price: $30

The Verdict: It does what it claims, which is hold two of your credit cards/ID cards simultaneously, but it's a pretty snug fit. The slight bending or bowing that your cards go through to fit into the slot shouldn't be enough to break it, but the two will scrape against each other because the space is so small. Which is good and bad.

On the one hand it's good, since it means your cards won't fly out of the slot when you're whipping out your phone. But it's also bad, since you'll have some slight difficulty in pushing out your cards. But it's not unusable, and it's not anything you can't overlook if your whole reason for getting this is that you don't want to carry a wallet on you.

Our only complaint would be that there's only room for two cards, and very little room for cash. Technically you're not supposed to even put cash into the slot, but if you fold up a couple bills, it'll still squeeze into the limited amount of space given.

Those of you who carry money clips will be familiar with only having your ID, one or two credit cards and some cash in your pocket. With this, you'll cut down the need to even have a money clip in addition to your phone, the convenience of which is probably worth $30 to you.

It does what it claims and holds two cards snugly

Slightly hard to remove the cards once they're inside

Not a lot of room for cash

"Until now, there hasn't been an affordable and effective solution for consumers to securely protect
their credit card data while shopping online" said Daniel McCann, President of NetSecure
Technologies. "Hackers have extremely sophisticated methods of circumventing traditional internet
security to steal your personal information right from your computer. SmartSwipe facilitates
transactions that leave no trace of credit card data, guaranteeing your information remains secure.

If it's worth it for you to have a little added security and the ability to bypass typing in your credit card number, the SmartSwipe is available now for $100 CAD ($87). [SmartSwipe]

SmartSwipe Revolutionizes Online
Shopping
World's first truly secure personal credit card reader keeps PC safe while shopping
online
Regina, SK – July 14, 2009 – NetSecure Technologies is proud to offer US consumers the
immediate availability of SmartSwipe, a personal credit card reader that keeps your credit card
information and identity completely safe when you're shopping online. Plug the SmartSwipe into your
computer's USB port, visit your favorite online stores, and swipe your credit card exactly like you
would at a shop. SmartSwipe then scrambles and encrypts the user's credit card data before it
reaches the user's computer or internet providing instant protection from malicious software attacks.

Traditional online security only protects your sensitive information once it has reached the internet,
but not while it's sitting on your computer. Credit card companies, online retailers and security
professionals spend millions every year to make the internet a safer place for credit card transactions.
Despite these constant advances, credit card data is stolen every day due to the vulnerability of
personal computers. Hackers and thieves make a living taking your credit card data and personal
information right from the desktop.

"Until now, there hasn't been an affordable and effective solution for consumers to securely protect
their credit card data while shopping online" said Daniel McCann, President of NetSecure
Technologies. "Hackers have extremely sophisticated methods of circumventing traditional internet
security to steal your personal information right from your computer. SmartSwipe facilitates
transactions that leave no trace of credit card data, guaranteeing your information remains secure."

SmartSwipe features simple plug and play installation and also eliminates the need to manually enter
credit card information saving time while you shop online. The SmartSwipe works with nearly every
major credit card and credit/debit card combination including Visa, MasterCard, American Express,
and Discover. System requirements include Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Internet Explorer 6 or
higher. It also features a 90 day no-hassle return policy should you not be 100% satisfied

We want you to take photos of card skimmers you stumble across while getting cash. To spot these crime-ridden machines, here are a few things to look for:
• Ill-fitted card slots
• More than one mirror (some actually may have two mirrors)
• Suspicious lighting
• Unusual ATM error messages
• Difficulty inserting or removing your ATM card.
• If there are other ATMs around, compare them side-to-side, if one of them looks unusual, it's time to pull out your cameras.

Take photos of them in—camouflaged (or not) on the ATM—and then e-mail them to us at tips@gizmodo.com with the subject line "Card Skimmer Beatdown." Please don't forget to contact the authorities/bank managers before you leave. In the war between card skimmers and Gizmodo readers, it's time to fight back.

Sean Seibel was inside a local Chase bank where he inserted his ATM card into one of two side-by-side automatic teller machines. When the machine told him it could not read his card, it took him a bit of jiggling to get his card back. He tried it a couple more times and got the same results. Before trying the other machine, he inspected the slot of the current ATM he was using and realized that it had a false plastic cover attached to the slot. The amazing thing about the cover was that the translucent green plastic matched the card reader slot perfectly, meaning that it was made specifically for Chase ATMs. After snapping a few photos with his iPhone, he alerted the branch manager and explained what happened.

As he was leaving, Seibel remembered reading about card skimmers having small cameras in the proximity in order to read PIN pad activity, so naturally, he went back to the ATM to inspect, which is where he found an extra mirror attached to the vandalized machine that the other ATMs didn't have. Drilled into the mirror was a tiny pinhole with a camera inside, directed at the PIN pad. Seibel alerted the branch manager again and asked Chase why they hadn't inspected the ATM after he had warned them the first time. Chase honestly replied that they hadn't thought of it because they had never encountered that sort of thing before.

From the crazy amounts of feedback we received last night after we posted the first story, it seems that card skimmers are a common crime everywhere from Thailand to Mexico. But actually hearing about it happening to our very own readers here in America makes us want to help get the word out. Seibel says it best: "Take this as a warning and please inspect every ATM machine you use, no matter how secure you think the environment is." [Thanks Sean!]

Consumerist reader, Dan, was at a local WaMu ATM getting cash when he realized something didn't feel quite right. After examining the money machine, he realized there was a card skimmer in the slot. Immediately, he ripped it off—which was probably quite easy seeing that it looks to be held together by masking tape—and took pictures of it before contacting Washing Mutual and the authorities. Surprisingly, the police admitted that this was the first time they had ever seen a card skimmer before. One mystery down, and so many more to go. What's next? I'm banking on exotic, hungry, and extremely poisonous spiders hiding in your toilet. [Consumerist via BBG]

By simply pressing your card to the remote, you can make payment for VOD movies without the hassle of navigating an onscreen QWERTY.

How is all of this consumer magic possible? The remote contains an RFID reader, compatible with Japan's popular Edy cards—cards that are, incidentally, powered by Sony's FeliCa technology.

So it all comes full circle. You buy a Sony product to use your Sony card to buy Sony media that's easily purchased with Sony cards on Sony products. Genius. [Akihabara News]

Here's the deal: If you buy the TV with an American Express card, Purchase Protection covers your ass for up to $1,000 for repairs or reimbursement—though they are presuming you broke it after you bought it—within 90 days of purchase. Check out their purchase protection policy here for all the details.

If you guys know of other credit card companies with similar policies that'll rescue hosed Circuit City shoppers, let us know. [American Express - Thanks Gary and Fmuniz!]

The short answer is "red tape." There are simply far too many entities, players, middlemen and suits that each want a piece of the pie to make such a system practical in the U.S., for now. Indeed, popular and proven programs already exist in some major cities, like Atlanta, New York and San Francisco, but the effect has yet to grow into anything we could seriously call "critical mass."

In Japan however, the New York Times reports that the major players simply said, "this is how it will be" in the early stages, and moved on from there. The result is that a single carrier, NTT DoCoMo, accounted for more than half of the Japanese market from the moment of inception. Their leverage as the majority player "motivated" the system to take off among the financial institutions and handset manufacturers, but I have a hard time believing such practices, anathema to U.S. capitalism, would ever take hold Stateside.

Still, the same technology driving drive-by Japanese cell phone purchases in Akihabara is still managing to leak into other countries, albeit in different form factors. In London, for example, the Times reports that "Oyster" cards used for transportation feature the same Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range tech as Japanese phones. In the U.S., MasterCard's PayPass terminals allow consumers to wave their card instead of swipe it.

But these outlets only allow on CC# per card. Japanese phones, the nirvana of drive-by transactions, allow users to select from several accounts, and use the one they want.

The obvious fraud and theft issue is also addressed in the article ("safe" say experts), although with all the big time ID theft stories we've seen this past year the stigma will remain regardless of how many Kevin Fu's there are saying cell phone transactions are A-OK.

Fu is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His claim to fame is discovering a huge security hole in PayPass-type credit card transactions in 2006. His research led card companies to overhaul the system and institute fixes over the past three years.

One upside of this discussion (if you're in the pro-cell phone CC camp) is that MasterCard has already come out and said there will be no additional fees for these transactions, should they see a massive deployment. Of course, we're in the middle of a huge global recession right now, so we'll see if the credit card industry, often criticized as synonymous with the phrase "hidden fees and finance charges" will keep their promise.

If you're a betting person, the magic date for cell phone credit card transactions is 2012, when Key Pousttchi, head of the Wi-mobile research group at the University of Augsburg in Germany, says NFC tech will be in pretty much every cell phone on the market (and netbooks? Or will they have converged with cell phone by then? The article doesn't say).

Now, call me a Luddite traditionalist all you want, but I still don't mind reaching for my wallet. The moths that fly out of it when opened, well, that's another story. [New York Times - Thanks, Matt!]

Constructed of biodegradable PVC, 99% of the card's substance is said to be reabsorbed by the environment given exposure to soil, water, compost and microorganisms within 9 months to 5 years of its being thrown away.

So where did this magical biodegradable PVC come from? Treehugger speculates that since the idea is relatively new/rare, it might be purchased from a company named BIOflex who makes a PVC from a mix of limestone, plasticizer, and 20 percent petroleum.

If you're a Discover member, you can find the new biodegradable card under their "Standard Designs" section. Hopefully the bigger guys like Visa and Mastercard will quickly follow suit. [Discover via Treehugger]

Which means that, one, the no cash excuse will soon be gone forever, and two, even if there wasn't a five-dollar minimum, giving anything less than five bucks when you bust out the plastic would've officially made you a dick anyway, so it's an exceptionally shrewd maneuver. I think I actually feel somewhat violated by this, but how do you have hard feelings against a charity? I guess I am a dick. [Star Telegram via Crunch Gear]

The method can stop thieves in two ways. Those who copy down your credit card information will find that your account number and expiration date is not enough to place an order. And those who actually steal your physical card will find that they still don't know your pin.

While the cards house a 3-year battery, we're just hoping that they can stand up to a good pocket sweat. Because when we're roasting away in the summer sun, we need ice cream money to floweth from our plastic like a refreshing, icy deluge. [ITPro via gadgetell]

• 8gb solid state drive
• 32gb Patriot XT drive
• 2gb RAM
• Intel Wi-Fi A/B/G/N upgraded card
• 7" LCD with touchscreen
• Air Play installed so you can transmit all of your sound to an FM radio
• Custom copper heatsink installed because it's overclocked
• Bluetooth adapter
• 2 USB hubs so all the USB devices can hook up to the Eee PC
• web cam
• speakers
• microphone
• 3 USB ports
• one external VGA port so you can hook up an external monitor
• Windows XP Professional SP3 with all the drivers installed and tested
• Screen resolution is set a 1024x768 with the hacked Video Driver

All good, even if the motherboard now looks like the Millennium Falcon's guts. [eBay—Thanks Moe]

The three men were specialized in cloning credit cards at ATMs, always with the same method. As you can see in the video, the first opens one of the machines, then another one comes to help him with the installation of a black Eee PC. Then they always proceeded to disable the rest of the machines, so clients were forced to use the rigged ATM. All this while they were being recorded by bank security cameras, of course.

The bank manager noticed that the door was forced and all the ATMs were disabled except for one, so he checked the security video and discovered what happened the night before. He immediately alerted the police, who started to search among the usual suspects. It didn't last long: Idiotic Crook Number One went to a police station to denounce a car accident and the three of them—who had a previous criminal history for bank assault in other parts of the country—were aprehended shortly thereafter. [Globo TV—thanks Rafael]

It not only lets the few dozen people in that country who have credit cards swipe them in this device, but it also prints out a receipt and sends the charge data via the cell network to the mothership. Kidding aside, this might actually make life safer in Africa, eliminating the need to transport cash, a dangerous proposition since not that much cash is around anyway.

But what about the dearth of credit card holders on that continent? Given the nature of the subprime credit card companies here in the States, we're thinking there might be a rush to blanket Africa with credit cards now. [Swift Global, via bb Gadgets]

Oh, you'll pay for this indirectly; merchants will have to pay for these little trinkets, too—but at least the mini-RFID transmitters will further speed up purchases under $25 that used to require the exchange of filthy, dangerous cash. Never mind that we had a device similar to this stuck to our car's rear window to pay for gas ... eleven years ago. [Geek Zone]