Charlie, could you give us some tx IDs of some of your test transactions with them?
Ah! I'm an idiot for not getting that! I'm meeting them later for dinner so will get a few of the tx's.
There's a pic on my blog of us testing:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/6/8/bitcoincard-in-vienna-day-1-coffee-missing-atms-and-some-tes.html With that much money behind it I assume it's not meant for Bitcoin use exclusively, or?
Interesting thought. So, they've been developing this for about 5 years, before Bitcoin was around.
The purpose of the card, was for an anonymous messaging system that worked on a mesh network.
For the past 2 years, they've redone their whole plan to exclusively do this for Bitcoin. The device still does messaging.
Intersagno, Bitstamp, Bitcoin Austria, Gavin, Erik, Roger, myself and many others have been tinkering and discussing with these guys the past 3 days.
They want to rely heavily on your and our input on this, and we're planning a test rollout by Q1 2013 of a few thousand pieces.
Alot of the technical aspects we all had to sign a non-confidentiality however Erik (who is a MUCH better writer than I am has been preparing a blog post)
Is that the opposite of a non-disclosure agreement?
LOL yes Matt you got Charlie there
It was indeed a non-disclosure agreement that we signed. We are basically allowed to talk about functionality, appearance, pricing etc, but not about some of the technical specs of the internal components (many of which were developed in house by their team). Since I can't understand tech specs anyway (beyond my expertise) I wouldn't be able to divulge that info regardless
Does that NDA cover explaining how anything works? If you say that it can fly but someone asks "how", is that something under the NDA? The video on Vimeo that they "drifted" into the public is heavily cropped and does not give a clear indication of any actual activity. So the first question is this:
1) Do you have proof that it actually sends bitcoins, on it's own, without being hooked up to -any- other devices, wires or batteries, after walking for 10 minutes into the forest, in a dimly lit area where trees shade the device, and your friend 5 feet away holds the same type of device?
The NDA covers explaining the hardware and software technicalities. The device can run 1 month on 1 full solar charge.
1) YES. As I've states above, I'll get the TX ID's when I go back to the office. I think Amir and Nejc are still there though.
1) Do you have proof that it actually sends bitcoins, on it's own, without being hooked up to -any- other devices, wires or batteries, after walking for 10 minutes into the forest, in a dimly lit area where trees shade the device, and your friend 5 feet away holds the same type of device?
Yes I saw it do this with my own eyes. Though the screen on these prototypes is not backlit so if you were in darkness you couldn't see the screen.
2) How many transmissions can you make before the battery runs out and does it require a full recharging if you actually use it all day?
The device has a 100-200 meter range outdoors and 50-100 indoors. Two devices can speak to each other, and once any device is comes in 200 meter range of a dongle that's connected to the internet (a standalone USB key that can be inserted into any computer) it automatically confirms the transaction and inserts it into the blockchain.
-Charlie