Topic: bitcoincard.org - page 15. (Read 29284 times)

This can't possibly be a real product:

- It would take another 50 years of research to get a battery capable of being that small with any amount of charge.... More likely you would need constant "solar" input which means holding it up in direct sunlight as you do everything such as type on the back (where you cant see the screen anymore?)

- If it needs constant sunlight for all its peer to peer action going on, that means custom hats as well. Or the really cool "makers"/people will tape it to their hair and existing hats

- Any "real product" you have seen of this already is going to be stripped down bullshit with only basic screen and keyboard functionality, wireless communication is way too power hungry to ever work off any kind of battery they could fit in there. 

If you invest in this... You will lose your money. Unless you wait the 50 years or so years required for better battery technology. Batteries have been the bottleneck in most mobile electronics for years now.

Solar Cell Powered Smart Card With Integrated Display And Interface Keypad - Patent 5777903

Well, when you can design a credit-card sized device that can hold and process the entire Bitcoin blockchain, you let us know! 

Well I have been rooting for mesh networking a while but I think a normal open source BTC smartcard would be better for btc and a phone would be a better... phone.

Their design includes a trusted server, which should NOT be necessary for bitcoins.

That said it sounds technologically impressive.

Fascinating.

And I'm pleasantly surprised at the FAQ having some level of detail, even if it includes info that wouldn't be seen as entirely positive (like a hard limit in the amount it can carry.) It's as if the creators (*gasp!*) actually know a little something about how bitcoin works, enough to toss more than just a few lines of fluff on there.

Cannot wait to see how this develops.

Sounds very very interesting.

I've spoken with the creator via phone this morning. I do not believe the device is vaporware. Pricing is in the range of "extremely low."

They've been working on this thing for about 5 years, long before Bitcoin. When Bitcoin came around, it made some of the card's former features obsolete so they've retooled it to be heavily Bitcoin-focused. They said they found Bitcoin to be "far superior" to any of the community currencies the device was intended to be used with.

I'll be talking with the creators more and I can say perhaps in a month or so there may be some more solid information/news/review of this thing. In the mean time, just stay tuned and remain appropriately skeptical

First I have to say... WOW.  The video is great!  Whoever did that has a lot of talent!  It has style, it is clean, and shows enough to get you very excited.  Please make a video for bitcoin itself of that quality!!


Is this device even possible?   YES.  Just barely and with some tricks.  Can it do everything shown in the video practically and in the real world.. no.  But it can do most of what is shown and if made (if it has not been made already) will be a great boost to bitcoin and it's makers/investors.  COINLAB ARE YOU LISTENING? 

My rough guess as to the specs/device:

CPU: something in the ballpark of S3CT9KW.  Maybe 4x better but probably not.
RAM 144KB
ROM 320KB
CPU speed 5Mhz

Display:
flexible epaper

Due to these choices of a super low cpu speed and super low power usage on the display the device can run off of solar power and/or tiny battery.  With this level of power the device could SEND and hold bitcoins.  It could accurately display a balance of what is held IF the keys were not held elsewhere because it knows what it sent out.   

What can it not do?  Receive bitcoins and know the balance accurately.  It could talk to a central computer for that, but the device is not going to be able to hold the blockchain or process it on its own.  Still this is good enough! 

Texting/display:
This is all possible.  The device could communicate with others near it or more realistically communicate to a base station that did the relay work.  A commodore 64 could run a full BBS, a device with 4x the power could easily run a texting service.  Coupons, offers and ads could be delivered as shown.

Tracking:
Of course.  This is pretty easy.  The base station is doing all of the work.  The card is just providing a beacon and a GUID. 

Mesh:
This is where the device breaks down.  Mesh has been the most over exaggerated area of computing I have seen.  Mesh stuff simply does not work that well in the real world.  The device could communicate with others nearby and form a mesh.... but it would not have the power to keep up that mesh all of the time.  With devices being in peoples pockets and not getting much power, the mesh would not get the density it needed except in a crowded space with many users all holding them up to the light. 

Now base stations all over the place would fix this.  And this might be possible do to with a very low cost  base device.  But the mesh is going to be formed by the base stations, not by the cards. 

Did you actually use the product as well? Tested the functionality? Sent bitcoins with it?

I agree with others, pics or didn't happen...

Welcome to the mushroom kingdom.


Ripe for abuse.

Oh... I made the assumption that "playing with" the card meant using it with Bitcoins.  I got the impression that the card was made for Bitcoins.  Guess I was a bit wrong on that front!

I know, I know. It's a neat gadget I bet. But I would think that with all the bitcoiners that were using it and actually meeting with the developers that they'd even mention one single detail in praise of how bitcoin can be sent through it, wouldn't you?

It seems like it's a device that was created as a prototype at one point (probably sometime last year) and then bitcoiners picked up wind of it and someone convinced them to start developing it for Bitcoin (I bet I know who too  ).

What about:

Judging by the technology they claim they need to make it function, the method they're using to transmit, and the slightly over-the-top claims, I'd say it's highly unlikely in succeeding in this form and that they don't actually have a working system yet (or else we'd be hearing about how people were using it to send bitcoins at the conference etc)

Thanks.  It does sound like a pipe dream, but I hope they can make it work!

And how did you find that page??  I clicked on all the links from the homepage and they were all under construction...

The first thing that came to mind for me is that its just like the tube thing they had in Max Headroom.

Just call me "Blank Shire" 

sure,


for more info http://www.bitcoincard.org/bitcoincard_read_more.php

The video has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin

Ok, I can't watch the video right now.  Can someone give me a quick summary of what the card does?

(I hate it when companies release promotional videos without also explaining the content of the video in text form)

While there are several reasons to believe that it won't work very well for anything at all, since it looks like it combines about four different technologies that aren't really particularly mature, there's not any reason to think this wouldn't work for Bitcoin.  All you really need is a network connection and some basic processing.