Emue debuts anti-fraud credit card with e Ink technology

Emue Technologies has a pretty interesting credit card with an e Ink display and a keypad - but seemingly no thicker than a regular credit card, The Gadget Guy reports. Emue's press release is also available.

Apparently the card has an e Ink readout, and a small keypad wrapped in a package no larger than your regular Visa or MasterCard, and with a 3 year battery life to boot. To authenticate the card for an online or phone transaction, the user enters the transaction information and receives a one-time use authentication code. This prevents the merchant taking the information from ringing up subsequent, fraudulent charges, since the authentication code immediately expires after use.

The concept is very similar to how RSA's SecurID product works. Employees receive a SecureID token, which can be a keychain sized device or a credit card sized device. Fancier models do have a keypad for input of a pin, others just display a six digit token that changes every 30 seconds. The combination of the employee's username, password and that temporary token is used to allow remote access to a company via VPN. Those devices are much thicker than a credit card, however, and may be the next industry segment to look at emerging technology such as e Ink.