This looks like essentially a multimedia business card. Remember when people were doing these on mini CD-ROMs? Trouble was, you had to actually put the thing into your computer in order to see the content - and sometimes they even got stuck in there (many drives couldn't handle the odd sizes).

This one, by contrast, is a self-contained player. You load it up with content via USB (so clearly it'll be re-loadable), and it's got a battery that lets it display content independent of a computer.

In addition to the obvious business-card use, I can also see this playing a role in a sweepstakes - kind of a multimedia scratch & win, maybe.

From the Gizmag article:

[N]ow this novel new technology that lends itself to countless business applications is hitting the market at a cost of around USD$40 (though previous predictions had the price at $25).

The number of potential business development applications for the device are huge - photo companies can sell them to customers to use as an updateable digital portfolio, real-estate brokers can load images of properties onto the card to tempt prospective buyers, product reps can build relationships by presenting new services on the card to prospects at trade shows or on sales calls, pharmaceutical firms can educate physicians about new treatments via the card and retailers can run promotions and giveaways using information presented on the card.

From the rCard site:

It is an electronic device the size of a thick business card with a high-resolution, color screen that displays slide shows, graphics, photos, text and videos.

Thanks to Rob Webber for the lead.