I actually saw a while ago a similar system in development on lifehacker, sorry but it's already been done.

you're mobile will do just that for you, in few years...
Tommy

I have seen this card system in the magazine Business 2.0

done... and being improved =/

there are quite a few places that are allowing you to pay for goods and services with your mobile in Europe and Asia right now.

Will come soon.

You can add multiple cards on one. For example you can use multiple mag stripes on one card or multiple bar codes on one card. It just takes time, skill and the right set of tools. Also, you will get some odd looks from all of the people that scan it.

"pay for goods and services with your mobile in Europe and Asia right now." Yep, you know why? The calling rates are a lot less for sending that type of data. Here in the US we could do it if the greedy phone companies would drop the over hyped rates. For example some text messages in the US cost more then a regular calls on some plans in the US. But, the actually data sent and received in crazy small in size.

Also, take the phone off the hook you know the beeps you hear. If your phone company is not greedy then they will never stop. It can beep for hours on end. If your phone company is cheep they will cut the line off after 30sec or a min.

Any ways, ya...

I heard they have credit account loaded in their phones in Japan, and some phones they can point and push a purchase button for the transaction.

Sure the technology is there already, but I bet this never gets widespread. We can't even handle a single sign on, how are we going to have a universal card.

I still love the dream, and encourage anything that will get us there. I hate my thick wallet.

doneeeeee!

its done!

make it better...GUdluck!

I agree that this has been done. But I still have 30 different cards in my wallet. So something is still not right with our current cards. I'm just not sure that this idea has the solution yet.

I think we could solve this problem as a group, and make this idea work. But first we have to know why we have so many cards (and is that really a problem, I mean really how much does it weigh? a few grams?) ok for now lets assume that it really is a problem that needs to be solved.

In my wallet right now I have

1 A business debit card. visa logo.
2. A Super Cuts paper card. use 12 times get the 13th free.
3. A starbucks card. With about $7 of stored value.
4. Another gift card to a local restaurant. Value $20.
5. Blue cross Blue shield health insurance id card.
6. A health care Visa card. (a system to pay non covered medical expenses through pretax dollars offered by some employers.) mine is through wageworks
7. a paypal debit card. mastercard logo.
8. A student ID card. (I'm an MBA student at night)
9. Personal debit card. Visa.
10. On my key chain I have a frequent shopper card for Albertsons (a grocery store). It is supposed to give me discounts or something.

Which of these can we combine? What is the value of doing so?

I just realized that at the begining of my post I claimed to have 30 cards in my wallet. But then when I itimized them it was only 9 in my wallet. Maybe this problem is not as big as we imagine.

i missed the word CONVERGENCE....

Check this out: http://money.cnn.com...stversion=2007082407

Its called the iCache http://www.icache.com/
and its an all in one card, you swipe it once and it saves the code.

In my country this is still very much needed...
4stars!

I can see this working for store cards, etc, but if you start spreading credit/debit card data around, you're looking at major security/privacy issues...

Also, what happens when I lose it? :-P

honestly i like the idea... but how can you pull it through?

Yikes - I remember reading about this idea in Business 2.0 as well. Good concept...just not original. Or are you talking about doing something similar, but with different features?