Chameleon Card Changes Stripes

The Chameleon Card's black strip covers a programmable transducer that mimics the information on the magnetic strips of the cards it is replacing. A new handheld device from Chameleon, the Pocket Vault, programs the Chameleon Card to take the place of any credit card the consumer chooses for a transaction.

Shoppers will be able to swipe their Chameleon Cards through the same magnetic readers used in stores and banks today. And instead of reading bar codes off the back of customer-loyalty cards, retail bar-code readers will scan the bar code displayed on the Pocket Vault itself.

…First-time users of the Pocket Vault will read their old credit cards with the device, which stores their information internally and backs it up to an online or local database in case the Pocket Vault is lost or stolen. Each credit card stored on the Pocket Vault is then represented by an icon on the device's touch-screen display.

The Pocket Vault also prompts its owners to place their fingerprints on the device's reader pad to create a biometric profile.

To use the Chameleon Card for a credit card transaction, a shopper taps the logo on the Pocket Vault's display representing the credit card account he wants to use. Seconds later, the Pocket Vault spits out the shopper's Chameleon Card, with the selected credit card account number, expiration date and logo imprinted on its flexible display, and its transducer reconfigured to work in the store's or bank's magnetic card reader.

The Pocket Vault, which Burger expects to sell for less than $200, will also replace ExxonMobil's Speedpass and similar radio-frequency identification applications with its own, built-in RFID chips.

…The Pocket Vault will only power up when it detects its owner's fingerprint. And unlike an ordinary credit card, the information stored on a Chameleon Card becomes unreadable (and the transducer inoperable) within 10 minutes. [P6: emphasis added]

The Pocket Vault also switches off shortly after ejecting a Chameleon Card.