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New Uses For LCD Technology

HaggiZ writes "A design student from the University of New South Wales has developed a postcard with a built-in camera and LCD display. As the article states, you simply snap the photos and send it to your loved ones and 'they tear open the perforations, fold out a little kick stand on the back and sit it on a bench top. Then it's as simple as pressing a button and it will go through a slide show of images.' I also found these credit cards with build in LCD displays. It sounds like the perfect solution for credit card fraud, with the card generating a One Time Password for each transaction."

9 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. eink by gadzook33 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they're not already using it, they should try this stuff.

  2. Re:Hmmm... by TubeSteak · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Snap+Send Postcard is still just a concept, but the young inventor says the technology exists to turn the idea into a commercial reality. It's just that he, as a full-time student and casual library assistant, doesn't have the money to finance it.
    ...
    He could have sold the rights to the clean-face kebab wrapper and the Snap+Send Postcard to keen companies, but prefers to just share his ideas while he's a student.

    "I'd rather use them to show potential employers my ideas."
    Sooo... he's not going to make this and he isn't going to sell his idea to anyone.

    Even if he did, I'm sure this idea has been thrown around before and someone could argue it infringes on their patent/idea.
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  3. cc fraud by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I also found these credit cards with build in LCD displays. It sounds like the perfect solution for credit card fraud, with the card generating a One Time Password for each transaction.

    Or clerks could stick to credit card processing policies. I walked into an Apple store today and asked an employee if it was OK to use a client's card, with a letter of authorization (in hand, signed by him, matching the sig on the back of the card.) The employee managed to finally get the attention of the manager, and the manager, who could barely be bothered, grunted "no". "Even with a signed authorization letter naming me, listing contact info that matches his account, and a signature that matches the card?" "NO." Oooookay.

    So I collected my $500 in items for the client, went to the cash register, swiped the guy's card, and when asked for a photo ID, handed the dude the letter- the manager was distracted and working elsewhere. "This okay?" "Mmm...yeah." "Want to keep it for proof the charge is authorized?" "Nope, you're good."

    Credit card companies establish merchant rates based on risk of fraud on the transaction. Some simply require "card presence", ie, a physical card MUST be swiped. Apple seems to require a photo ID, which probably knocks a couple tenths of a percent off their merchant fee or somesuch. Apple may transmit the signature or store it, and if the charge is contested, they can ask my client "is this your signature, or the signature of someone authorized to use it?" That's all the CC company cares about- that it was SOMEONE authorized to use it.

    Then there are the retailers where they NEVER actually see the card- I swipe it, and they never need to look for a valid signature or see whose name is on the card; it could be an old CC with fraudulent info encoded, for example. Or the places that take the card, but the cashier never flips it over to look for a signature. Nobody's compared my signature the card in years, and it used to be everyone did (then again, I'm also older.)

    1. Re:cc fraud by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      my boss sells tshirts (thefurryworm.com) and he keeps getting nigerian delivery addresses for big orders, with american billing addresses.

      the cc processing company doesn't care because they get paid for the transaction, and they get paid again for the refund.

  4. Seen this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit_card/index.html

    Just goes to show that almost nobody bothers checking cards.

  5. Re:It's not built yet by iamhassi · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "a disposable camera that can be used as a post-card."

    and the pics can't be deleted, once you take them they're there forever. It also can't be charged, or new batteries added, "the slide show could be watched a few hundred times and the camera could be taken to a developer to get the photos printed."

    How's this any better than the digital camera walgreens already sells for $11? Least photos can be deleted and has a flash, and you simply bring them to walgreens and they print them immediately and you can mail them to whoever you want.

    ok his idea removes the need to bring it to walgreens but still, it's double the price, doesnt have a delete button, and when the batteries die it becomes completely worthless, you really do have to trash the entire camera.

    The reason walgreen's idea works is because they're hoping to recoup the price of the camera because you have to return it to get your photos and then they can resell it. This guy's idea will never work because he cuts out the middle man and since the batteries can't be replaced it really does become disposable, for the same price it costs to make this camera a company could make a camera with replaceable batteries and sell it.

    you know what it'd take to make this work? Make the camera like it is, but when you're done you drop it in a pre-paid envelope that came with a camera with a list of who you want to get photos from it to mail it back to whoever you bought it from, they take it and send prints to whoever you want. That way they get their camera back to resell to someone else and your friends/family still get their "postcards".

    good thing he's a industrial designs student cuz he'd make a crappy business man.

    --
    my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  6. Coming soon to court rooms, etc? by Travoltus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "No post cards allowed".

    Heck, at this point, people at all sensitive places will be stripping visitors and workers down naked and only letting them in with special jump suits.

    You could feasibly now graft this camera technology into shirts, gloves, baseball caps, glasses, etc. And even James Bond himself will be bug eyed with amazement when the nanotech factor finally comes into play in this industry.

    --
    --- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
  7. OLED! by boingyzain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tiny screens that shouldn't use too much power? Sounds like a job for OLEDs.

  8. Re:It's not built yet by cheier · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes. In some of the washrooms at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, they have these LCDs above the urinals. Advertising displayed on these things is operated by Flush Media. I've seen things from movie trailers to home leisure advertisements on them.