wallet

If you're feeling a bit like George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode "The Wallet," chances are you have a few too many scraps and cards stuffed into your carryall. Luckily, we live in the digital age, where much of the information you need to keep on your person can be stored in your mobile phone. For example, for those of us who cart around a cadre of gift cards from various establishments, JunoWallet provides an app for that.

On the surface, JunoWallet is a pretty simple iOS app that serves to securely store the numbers and pins … Read more

With holiday shopping in full swing, spending can spin out of control faster than an iPhone drops your call (OK, maybe not that fast). But what if your wallet could give you tactile feedback on the status of your bank and credit card accounts with every transaction?

That's the basic concept behind the Proverbial Wallets. They are prototypes done for a project by the Information Ecology group at the MIT Media Lab.

The wallets--called the Bumblebee, Mother Bear, and Peacock--link by Bluetooth to a cell phone and use it to connect to your online accounts. Each wallet has a unique response to the conditions of your finances: the Bumblebee vibrates every time there's a transaction; the Mother Bear gets more difficult to open as you approach your budget limit; and the Peacock gets larger as your account grows.

I think the Bumblebee is probably the best one.… Read more

Shopping is supposed to be fun, dangit! But it's invariably a hassle-filled experience, especially at this time of year.

That's why I never walk into a store without these three iPhone apps at the ready. They're all free, and they make shopping faster, easier, and sometimes even a little less expensive.

CardStar Newly updated with an improved interface and support for 75 additional merchants, CardStar replaces various discount, reward, and membership cards in your wallet. To digitize a card, just enter a merchant name and your barcode number. When you get to the checkout, pull up the … Read more

With just two weeks to go before Black Friday, online-coupon site FatWallet announced on Friday that it has launched a Black Friday page where Web users can track all the latest deals for the big shopping day.

Currently, the site lists all the latest Black Friday ads that have surfaced, as well as news and rumors surrounding the day. It also has information on Cyber Monday, the Web's big shopping day, which falls on the Monday after Black Friday.

Of course, FatWallet isn't alone in this space. Several companies, including BlackFriday.Info and DealTaker to name a few, … Read more

iPhone stands come in all shapes and sizes, from $40 luxury models to no-cost hacks you cobble together yourself.

Personally, I want something that goes where I go, that always rides shotgun, that I won't accidentally forget to bring along.

Something like the GoGoStand, which has the credit-card dimensions necessary to fit in a wallet but unfolds to form a solid, adjustable stand for the iPhone or iPod Touch. (It can work with other devices, too, natch.)

As you can see in the video, the GoGoStand is just a specially cut piece of plastic. But the design is quite … Read more

While some programs focus only on passwords or account information, eWallet promises to help keep all of your important numbers together in one secure place.

This program's colorful, busy interface looks overwhelming at first, but there's an excellent Wizard to guide you through the process. The interface has a large central screen to view a selected record. Along the left side is a file tree that is dedicated to your virtual wallet and all the records it will contain. The top of the screen houses the commands that allow you to develop this wallet. Adding an item is … Read more

I'm a sucker for geek nostalgia. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you are, too. Or you know someone who is.

Enterprising Etsy seller NilesZ repurposes old Atari cartridges into wallets. Yep, that's right. You just pop it open, and your stuff is inside. He estimates that each wallet--made almost entirely from the original cartridge--holds 6 to 8 credit cards and 15 to 20 bills.

He offers a fair variety of cartridges to choose from, with varying prices. I noticed that there aren't any wallets made from third-party games for sale, which is … Read more

FatWallet.com, a company that provides online coupons and exclusive offers from retailers, announced the launch of a new site design Wednesday. Along with a new navigation tool, the site has added Coupon Search, which allows users to find valid coupons from retailers worldwide. According to the company, the redesign will also give users more chances to "share" and "subscribe" to the site via e-mail, social bookmarking, and RSS feeds. The site's new design is live now.

Spark Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in Internet and new-media companies, including Twitter and Boxee, announced … Read more

You learned recently that the iPhone and iPod Touch are not as secure as we would like them to be.

Luckily for iPhone and iPod Touch users, third-party vendors are supplying applications that help fill some security holes. Acrylic Software makes software that fills some of these chinks. Its Mac software, Wallet 3, costs $20 CDN ($15.62 US); upgrades are priced at $5 CDN ($3.91 US) and requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard--sadly, there is no Windows version. A version of Wallet for the iPhone and iPod Touch (iTunes Link) costs $3.99 US.

Wallet for iPhone … Read more