Is it? Not sure, but the Coin team went gangbusters on the promotion and it seems to have worked great for them. I couldn't visit any social site today without someone talking about Coin. But I've a feeling that payment cards are far from a winner-take-all business.

The Protean Echo, OTOH, has been in development for some time. Thiago first gave me the demo at the Tech Brewery in Ann Arbor, MI and it blew the doors off anything we'd ever seen that was remotely similar. The form factor of the card itself — clear “Gorilla glass”, like the iPhone screen, with embedded circuits — and the whole user experience are beautiful. I just wish they'd hurry up and release it!