As the title states, these seem to be first-gen plastic credsticks, only in card form. I imagine it'll be a matter of time before they realise that a round, pen-like form are easier to manage (and much more Shadowrun-y).

I'd call that second gen. I think a plain old credit card is a first gen credstick (Hence the name 'cred')

Edit: Oh, and the problem with making it pen-like is that it wouldn't work with any current technology, so that small adjustment would require every store that wanted to use it to buy a new reader to read the pen shaped stuff. This is highly unlikely to catch on when credit cards are so well established. At least not with some serious pushing of the technology.

A pen shape isn't easier to manage, anyway.

Awesome. And I'm sure you could tape or glue a pen to it, to give it that look and feel. Also, when you have to sign the slip you got one right there.

Note that after credit cards came smart cards ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_card ).
After that came RFID payment systems. ( http://www.gilbarco.com/pdfs/P2319.pdf )
Mobile phone systems are primed to finally break into the big time. ( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../BUL31FF41D.DTL
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/vi...payment-systems <- 2 different recent articles)

Yeah, seriously, how often do you lose pens compared to a credit card?

How often is a pen worth hundreds or thousands of dollars?

Sometimes. I dunno how that's relevant to the shape, though. Cards are small and flat; it's convenient.

As often as you want to spend that much buying one. Some Johnson is thought to be spending over a million dollars on one.

http://most-expensive.net/pen-world
http://penscollection.com/pens/top-10-most...-the-world.html

Cheers, -- N

Eh, the only reason why Credsticks are pen-like in Shadowrun is because that's how they appeared in Max Headroom.





-karma

I honestly think of them as a USB/harmonica style.

My sarcasm was lost in the interwebs.

I got it. It's just more fun to discuss it.