Happy New Year! We start of the year with our customary gentle poke at the ludicrous ways technology is implemented in our ever – increasing desire to techno-fy everything in our paths.

Now, a question, of all the tech gadgets you’ve owned over the years, which gadget do you think is statistically the most often lost or misplaced? Here are a couple of hints: it’s usually attached to your keys or keychain, it usually gets plugged into a laptop, and it more often than not has replaced the floppy drive in most people’s computer systems.

If you guessed “flash drive”, you’re absolutely right – and here’s the funny thing: VISA and Shinhan Card of Korea has decided to roll out a USB Flash – based “credit card” to ease transactions online and verifications off-line.

On one hand it’s a pretty good idea – there will be no need to enter your credit card numbers onto the computer when doing transactions online, but on the other hand, the above-mentioned foible of most flash drives exempts not even this particular implementation.

                                             My wallet was doing fine until this came along...

That’s not to say of course that consumers will not take special care not to lose this particular flash drive, but fate or chance or the great BandyWagen is against them, statistically. Putting aside the off – chance, this little blue device reminds me of a PQI flash drive – those invulnerably tough little flash drives that collect in dank, dark couch corners and the rear of computer desks – but this one’s a lot thinner.

                                             Citibank RFID credit card.

Perhaps this kind of technology only needs better biometric and ID technology, after all you can’t easily lose a finger (or fingers) – sorry for the morbid thought – but for that advancement to happen, we have to start somewhere. But unless VISA adds in some very strong security features and guarantees into this product, I’ll be begging off for now – I don’t need another little blue flash drive to join the ones in my couch. Perhaps when they start implanting RFID’s into my palm...

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