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If you worked at Tamiya, the Japanese model-kit company, you’d have the chance to hand out the coolest business-card ever made. At first glance the letters on the “card” look like a stencil cut into plastic. Peek a little closer and you see that it is itself a tiny model kit.

Break the letters from their surrounding frame and then snap them together. Depending on which card you have, you’ll end up with a Formula One car, a warship or a fighter-plane. According to the Coloribus advertising archive, the cards proved so popular that they had people “rushing to the shops” to ask for them.

The downside? Once the recipient has ripped your card apart to make a model, he no longer has your contact details. Oops.

Model Kits Shop: Tamiya Business Card [Coloribus via the Giz]

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Source:wired.com

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Jonas Jger took the dying business card, rolled it onto its back and placed his palms on its chest. Taking his weight on his knees, he pushed down firmly with the heels of his hands an pumped three times. Leaning over, he put his mouth over the dying cards face and blew. The card fluttered in the breeze, stiffened and then coughed. It was alive!

And so it was that Jonas extended the life of these ailing slices of dead tree. The Augmented Business Card uses tech similar to that already seen in baseball cards. On the front, it is a normal business card, but – like a mullet – once you get around back the fun begins. The rear is printed with a QR-code, one of those square, mosaic bar codes. Next to that is an AR (augmented reality) marker, a blocky black shape for tracking the cards movement.

The card-owner uses software to make a presentation which is then uploaded to the web. When the lucky recipient puts the card in front of their computer (and fires up the Flash-based software), the cards info is read by the webcam and they enjoy a 3D experience overlaid onto the card. They can then twist and turn it to control various parameters.

Its a great idea, but users still need to navigate to a Web site before they can use it. Once this wrinkle is taken care of, though, the humble businessmans comfort-blanket can live on for a few more years.

Product page [Toxin Labs. Thanks, Jonas!]

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