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Startup Touts All-in-One Digital Credit Card
First time accepted submitter NoImNotNineVolt writes "Coin, a Y Combinator-backed startup, has started accepting pre-orders for a device as slim as a standard piece of payment plastic that can hold eight credit, debit, and gift cards in its dynamic magnetic stripe. Paired with the Coin smartphone app via Bluetooth low energy, card details can easily be swapped in and out of the device. A minimalist user interface on the device itself allows the owner to toggle between the loaded cards and then swipe just as they would their ordinary card. All card details are encrypted (both on the device and in the smartphone app), and the device's on-board battery is expected to last for two years of typical usage. No support for chip&pin (EMV) yet, so this may have limited utility outside of the USA. They expect to start shipping in summer of 2014."
This style of card is becoming more common in Europe right now, and a lot of automated terminals won't take a card that only has a magnetic stripe, apparently.
It is almost universal in Europe (95% of terminals, 85% of cards, two years ago), and plenty of other countries. A card with a chip is almost essential if you travel to Europe -- I can't remember the last time I saw a ticket machine (or similar) accept a magstripe.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/american-travelers-guide-emv-chip-cards-1271.php is informative. I'm not convinced by '"In fact, as a late adopter of EMV, there's a great upside for the industry in the U.S. because we can avoid much of the cost and complexity involved in deploying older-generation chip cards, while still reaping all of the benefits of reduced counterfeit fraud,"' -- the US industry has had 10 extra years of fraud! (I have to phone my bank before using my card in the US, and give them the dates I will be travelling. Numbers are stolen in Europe, and used on fake cards in the US.)