This number would do for everything-it would make my phone ring, it would appear on my checks and credit cards, it would adorn my passport, it would get me a video.

Inexpensive holograms and holographic foils have their serious moments, to be sure: they are used as seals to authenticate boxes of videotapes or software, or they appear on credit cards or even currency to insure, theoretically, against counterfeiting.

Ikea's familiar blue-and-yellow logo could soon be appearing on credit cards in its Russian customers' wallets.

The sound button, which will have a battery life of three years, will begin appearing on credit cards sometime toward the end of the year.

He also listed a higher price if the deal included the card's CVV2 code, a printed security code that appears on credit cards and is supposed to prevent fraud.