By this time next year, for $200, this smart card could replace virtually your entire wallet. —Wired. After you read all your existing cards into its PDA-like ‘Pocket Vault’ holder, it will show an icon on its touch screen representing each of your credit cards, bank cards and (if you use them; I don’t) customer loyalty cards. You tap the one you want to use and it clones the account data into the ‘Chameleon Card’, which you can swipe as you would the original card. The Pocket Vault is biometrically protected by scanning your fingerprint and the Chameleon Card becomes inoperable within ten minutes, so the system cannot be used by anyone else if lost or stolen. It has RFID chip capability built in to replace Exxon-Mobil Speedpass and similar applications as well. Chameleon is reportedly within weeks of getting major credit companies and financial institutions to sign on with them.

Do I sound like I am waxing enthusiastic over this concept? I would probably be interested in one of these things (I’m not sure the $200 price point appeals to me, though), but I have two misgivings — I cannot carry it in my back pocket like my wallet, and it will add another gizmo to my current load of PDA, cellphone, mp3 player and digital camera. Although in general I do not approve of convergent, combination devices, since in general they don’t (yet) do the job as well as the independent devices they replace, I can easily envision this system incorporated into my everyday PDA instead. PalmOne ought to license the technology from them, IMHO…