Thank you Beeblebrox, 5 BTC received.
I'm not sure what you mean by "public" - taking it commercial will take a bit longer (the main showstopper being the actual hardware - I have a few of each of the various hardware form factors for the OtherCoin card and obviously need to get some initial stock and selling these to end users requires various little details like a manual, a logo (engraved or silkscreened) on the actual card, a streamlined card issuance/provisioning mechanism (right now it's all manual and I don't scale very well
). I also plan to have a limited beta test with a few users just to confirm that I haven't missed anything obvious.
My plan for the coming weeks is to raise enough funds (either via donations such as yours or by preselling exclusive distribution rights) to allow me to focus on this project exclusively and take care of these little details before I go fully public.
The source code for the Android app has just been published at
https://github.com/razvandragomirescu/OtherCoin - any interested party can take a look and verify that it actually works the way I described (keys are split between the smartcard and the phone, the card has no access to any network and communicates only to the smartphone, etc). It should also serve as a reference on how to interface with the various form factors that the OtherCoin will have (microSD card, external Bluetooth token or NFC token).
Regarding Samsung Knox, it already works with it. I've actually had Samsung wrap OtherCoin + the official Android Bitcoin Client + the helper tools for the Bluetooth OtherCoin and they all run from within the Knox container (tested on a Galaxy Note 2). The problem comes when interfacing with the OtherCoin card - Knox containers disallow communication to external storage (so no microSD or USB) and also block NFC. Only Bluetooth should work, but it doesn't (there's an exception in the BluetoothSocket system class - not in my code). I'm all over Samsung's support for this, they have specifically told me that Bluetooth should work but now they claim that only very specific "whitelisted" Bluetooth smartcard readers are allowed. But yes, it works in Knox, if you have a Samsung device that supports it let me know and I'll email you the wrapped APKs to try it.
Regarding user adoption, the plan was to get some early regional resellers that can help by promoting it at local Bitcoin meetups and conferences in their area. Preselling exclusive distribution rights (per country or per region) would also help us raise the necessary funds to turn this from something I'm working on in my spare time into a real business. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you're interested in acquiring the exclusive distribution rights in a certain area or country, make me a reasonable offer and I'll take it. You would not only get the exclusive rights for OtherCoin in your area but also the rights to the Card2Coin sub-project (see
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/distributed-btcusd-exchange-using-regular-chip-and-pin-credit-cards-339389) that will become part of the OtherCoin ecosystem, closing the loop by allowing you to exchange your OtherCoin keys to dollars directly, without ever having to touch the blockchain.
Depending on how much we raise from early regional resellers, I might take those 20 BTC you've offered as a loan, I really appreciate the offer. Thank you!
(we should probably move the discussion to the Project Development area sometime, right now it's a mix of tech + project dev)