If it is a joke then please explain the joke, because I just don't get it. The only explanation I can think if is it that the sticker in the background seems to allude to this thing having a secondary function mimicking a flash HuCard, which it doesn't, and therefor its misleading? In that case...that's all true, so its not a joke at all.
I took the title as a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, as it wasn't the article that was misleading but rather the title itself.
What I do understand though is that multiplying the costs of manufacturing a credit card by a factor of at least 1000 is utterly stupid.
If all it did was mimic a few credit cards, I'd agree, but it's also meant to store the receipts and whatnot that some people cram in their wallets, though he doesn't explain how they'd get into the device. It'd be better if it did even more..... like make calls. More on that in a bit.
You can't just duplicate a magnetic strip on your own legally, so anything like this would have to be done with the cooperation of any and all institutions who's data/accounts/whatever you want to use. In that case I'm sure they would rather just back a strip that contained a sort of "master key" to allow you access of all your accounts, or maybe to just have all the account numbers on there.
No doubt there's some serious hurdles, but feasibility always takes the back seat in a design charrette.
Having it actually change from one thing to another is pointless when it can just be everything at once with a $0.01 RFID chip.
I'd guess that he wanted to maintain compatibility with all the swipe machines currently in use.
The graphic on a credit card is little more than an advertisement for the bank. My point is that this this is stupidly over-engineered, I see nothing "moot" about that point.
That wasn't the point I took from your previous statement; I read it to mean that he neglected to address the most important part (the magnetic strip), which was untrue. If the 'over-engineered' complaint mainly refers to the screen, then you still seem wide of the mark, as the screen is not used solely for displaying the card's image.
Just think of all the IT people the banks would have to hire to support thing thing.
No more than what would be necessary to implement the 'pay by cell' systems widely used in other parts of the world (especially Japan). Such a device would be a lot handier than this 'wallet', considering most people already carry phones, though going entirely contact-less would make it impossible for people to use many existing devices. I'd think that not being able to use an atm or pay at the gas pump would be a big turnoff, though I suppose a swipe-able strip could be incorporated into a phone somehow.
BTW, I have no plans for a reply to the 12,000 word flame response that you are certain to add to this thread, so don't bother putting a lot of work into it. In fact, you might as well just skip it.