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  |
The Pocket Vaults |
One card for all charges
|
| 4/9/2001 |
| By Matthew
French |
A Waltham company is hoping to do
all it can to clean out your wallet. But there’s no reason to look
over your shoulder for a surly thug. Instead, look for a
Chameleon.
Chameleon Network Inc. was founded last year by
Todd O. Burger, a nearly 20-year veteran consultant from Arthur D.
Little, as part of a grand scheme to change his job.
“A few
couples went up to Vermont for a weekend where we were going to
brainstorm about business ideas we have because we’d all been
thinking about changing jobs,” Burger explained. “Everyone was
supposed to come with a few ideas, but most didn’t. I came with 14.
The Chameleon Card and Pocket Vault was number
eight.”
Burger’s concept was to have one universal card
substitute for all of the cards someone might otherwise carry in a
wallet or pocket book. But unlike the standard smart card technology
that has been adopted in Europe and Asia, Burger’s idea requires no
additional infrastructure at the point of sale, like a smart card
reader.
Instead, he created what he calls the Pocket Vault.
About the size of an average wallet, the Pocket Vault is designed to
replace every card you currently carry, from credit cards to library
cards to the MBTA or Commuter Rail passes.
The Pocket Vault
contains a blank reprogrammable card called the Chameleon Card. On
the card is a chip similar to that on a smart card, which is capable
of carrying information from several hundred different cards.
“When a person needs to make a transaction, they can go up
to the counter with the Pocket Vault, hit the Visa or MasterCard or
Discover logo on the touch screen, and out pops the Chameleon Card,
complete with the logo of the chosen card,” Burger said.
“After 10 to 15 minutes, the logo on the card disappears, as
does the information from whatever card the person chose. It becomes
just a blank piece of plastic.
“If the person then goes to
the library and needs their library card, they hit the library logo
on the touch screen and out pops the Chameleon Card. This time, it
will serve as the person’s library card for 10 to 15 minutes. That’s
why we called it the Chameleon Card; it can adapt to any
situation.”
The Pocket Vault operates with a touch screen
interface, eliminating the need for a stylus or keypad. The
Chameleon Card doesn’t actually have the magnetic strip commonly
associated with credit cards. Instead, it has a closed circuit coil
that creates a magnetic charge, allowing a normal magnetic stripe
reader to read the information contained in the card.
The
front of the card has a small grayscale screen that will display the
logo of the card and either the name of the user or a readable
barcode like those found on supermarket discount cards. Using what
they call “soft encoding,” Chameleon will program the power supply
laminated inside the card to last only for 10 to 15 minutes, at
which point the card reverts to its inert form.
The
information contained on each of the credit cards is actually stored
in the Pocket Vault and transferred to the Chameleon Card on a
per-need basis. Since the information relies on a thumbprint to
access it, security is virtually guaranteed, Burger said.
To
charge the battery inside the Pocket Vault and update the
information contained within, the device will come with a connection
for a USB port that can be attached to a laptop or PC.
“The
ability to take a card and reprogram it to retain information for a
short time is not a new concept,” he said.
“A company in
Australia does it to test credit card scanners and magnetic stripe
readers. They will enter a fake card number onto one of these
programmable cards and run it through the machine when it comes off
the assembly line. Then the information goes away and they can do it
again. We’re just taking that one step further and housing the
information in the Pocket Vault and transferring it to the Chameleon
Card when a customer needs it.”
He said he expects to have
the first prototype Pocket Vault and Chameleon Card completed in
about eight months and expects a first generation will be available
for shipping in 12 to 14 months.
The company plans to form
partnerships with some major credit card distributors, as well as
distributors of cards of a non-financial nature.
“We can
program this to contain information from an MBTA ‘T’ pass or a
library card or even a room access key card from a hotel,” Burger
said. “Any card that contains information that is read either
through a series of numbers, magnetic stripe or even a barcode can
and will work on the Pocket Vault.
“But if we can get one
major credit card company or a major lending and credit bank, such
as CitiBank or First USA, that would get us off and running in the
right direction.”
Credit card companies and banks have to
pay several dollars per card to issue it to a recipient to pay for
the actual card, the magnetic stripe, encrypting the data, embossing
the card, laminating the card, mailing the card and setting up an
800 number for users to activate their cards. Burger said all of
that can be eliminated by electronically issuing a “card” to the
user, where the information would be downloaded straight into the
Pocket Vault.
The Vault is expected to start retailing around
$180 in its first generation, but should come down by 50 to 65
percent by the second generation. |
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