by Chris Velazco
I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to all these newfangled mobile payment methods. Fan as I am of Google Wallet (and all the Wawa coffee I bought with the included $10 prepaid card), I can’t help but want something more immediate, something more widely-usable.
The big sticking point that comes with the NFC-based payment systems that companies like Google and Visa love is they require buy-in from the people and companies you actually want to buy from. When your favorite mom-and-pop store can’t be bothered to jump on the NFC bandwagon though, well, that’s just a bummer.
And that’s where the truly awesome iCache Geode comes into play.
In short, the Geode is a (rather handsome) iPhone case that lets you replace all of the loyalty and credit cards tucked away in your wallet in one fell swoop. Once you create an account in the companion app and load up some info, the Geode can display the barcode of any saved loyalty card on the small e-ink display on its rear end.
That by itself is pretty dang useful, but what really gets me is the rewritable card mounted just above it. Once your credit card information has been registered with the Geode, the included Geocard’s mag strip can be rewritten on the fly, effectively turning it into whichever credit card you want it to be.
on TechCrunch – click to read more