The result: With the help of a junkyard magnet, a garden–variety refrigerator magnet and a professor with a vast knowledge of magnetics, we were proved right –– eventually.

A highly charged debate ensued after our “How to destroy a credit card” was published in September of 2009. Folks started weighing in on whether magnets –– especially those of the refrigerator persuasion –– actually had the power to strip a stripe. “Running a magnet across the strip will do nothing,” said one commenter on our video at YouTube.com. Others chimed in with their own experiences with credit cards and magnets.

So we put our cards to the test against a barrage of different magnets, even heading to the junkyard to swipe stripes with some serious electromagnetic forces.

But before we get to the results, let’s take a step back.

The Mystery of the Stripe

Credit card magnetic stripes carry more than just your precious financial data; they carry some mystery, too.
The stripe you see on the back of your card is a collection of magnetic particles –– each a very small magnet about 20 millionths of an inch long. It’s a commonly held belief that exposure of these particles to an external magnet can scramble the information and make the card unreadable.

That’s the theory. But does it really happen? We sought to find out.

Magnets on a Mission

Our experiment began with three different magnets of various strengths:

• A generic refrigerator magnet, similar to the one that’s probably holding up your kid’s artwork in your kitchen.

• A slightly more powerful magnet, which is capable of holding up to 72 pounds.

• A junkyard magnet, which can hold about 7,000 pounds and is also just plain fun to watch in action.

You never know when you’ll just happen to be waving your credit card around in a junkyard.

We swiped three separate cards –– all were tested and functioning properly before the experiment, by the way –– with one of these types of magnets; then took them to a local retailer who ran each card through a credit card machine to test which ones were still readable and which ones weren’t.

Once all preparations were in place, it was time for the big reveal.

Moment of Truth

Up first was the card exposed to the fridge magnet. It turned out that it was still readable by a credit card machine. The second, larger magnet was not, despite multiple swipes. Could we have been on the way to the major scientific breakthrough we’d been hoping for?

Not so fast. It was time to put the third card, the one exposed to the junkyard magnet, to the test –– and surprisingly, the card was still readable. It had survived the most powerful magnet in our arsenal.

This caused considerable confusion. Our initial assumption was that the strength of the magnet would play a role in the demagnetization process. Thus, a wimpy refrigerator magnet wouldn’t have the data–destruction powers of a gigantic junkyard magnet.

We were wrong.

Puzzled, we turned to an expert for answers.

Calling In the Expert

Totally stumped by the fact that just one out of three magnets (the one of medium strength) had rendered a card unreadable, we sought out the guidance of A. Dean Sherry, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Sherry is also associate director of the Rogers Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center and a radiology professor at the university’s Southwestern Medical Center. In other words, he’s got plenty of magnetic experience for our purposes.

He heard us out and politely corrected our assumption about the relationship between the strength of the magnet and its power over the data on the stripe. “The field strength isn’t all that important,” he said. “Even the refrigerator magnet should work eventually.”

So what was the deciding factor? Exposure time.

“It is well known that magnets will wipe out information on credit card stripes,” Sherry said. “However, it doesn’t always happen after one exposure. It may take several exposures for the card to be deactivated, but it will happen eventually.”

Huh. So armed with that information, we decided to replicate the experiment with the refrigerator magnet. We left the magnet exposed to the credit card stripe for several minutes and took a few more swipes for good measure.
Then we took it back to the store and … success. The card’s stripe had been demagnetized.

Not the Only Way to Destroy a Card

The safest, most practical way to destroy your credit card, however, is to cut it into tiny pieces using a shredder or a pair of scissors.

For an extra level of protection (or if you just want to replicate our very cool experiment), you can use a magnet on the stripe. Just be sure to expose it for a significant amount of time –– that goes for heavy–duty junkyard magnets, too.

• The Touch Mouse app for your iPhone or iPod touch.
• The Touch Mouse Server for your Mac or PC, which must be installed on any computers which user want to control with Touch Mouse.

Features of Logitech Touch Mouse:

• Multi-touch trackpad with option for two or three buttons
• Two-finger scrolling
• Keyboard with modifier keys
• On-screen text display while typing
• Show or hide the keyboard at any time
• Trackpad and keyboard are available in landscape and portrait modes

Logitech Touch Mouse works over Wi-Fi wireless connection to connect iPhone or iPod touch device with computer, effectively allowing user to control Mac or PC from anywhere within coverage range of the WiFi network. When typing with remote keyboard on Logitech Touch Mouse on iPhone or iPod touch, text is displayed on screen of mobile device too so that users can see what they’re typing.

To use Logitech Touch Mouse, follow these instructions:

• Navigate to www.logitech.com/touchmouse to download and install Touch Mouse Server software on Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.4 or above or PC running Windows XP or above.
• Install the Touch Mouse app on iPhone or iPod touch, which available from Apple App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touch-mouse/id338237450?mt=8
• Start the Touch Mouse Server on Mac or PC:
  Mac – Find the file iTouch-Server.app and double-click it. The server icon will appear in the Menu Bar.
  PC – Go to the Windows Start Menu and select Logitech Touch Mouse Server. The server icon will appear in the system tray.
  * Run the Touch Mouse app on iPhone or iPod touch.
  * Select the computer that want to control from the list. The server icon will change to when the iPhone or iPod touch connects to the Touch Mouse Server.

Once partnership is established, user can use the trackpad as mouse. Simply point by dragging one finger over the trackpad, scroll vertically or horizontally by dragging two fingers over the trackpad, or switch between portrait and landscape modes by rotating your iPhone or iPod touch.

“ThinkPad laptops are built for business with the performance, portability and wireless capabilities users need and the manageability, reliability and durability IT departments require,” said, Peter Hortensius, vice president, Think Business Unit, Lenovo. “These latest enhancements in processing speed, battery life and wireless technologies help users work faster, longer and smarter.”

The T410s provides a thin and light design with full-performance which is aimed for extremely mobile users, while the T410 and T510 are designed for full performance and mainstream business users. The high performance W510 mobile workstation is being designed to fit the needs of professionals in data and graphics.

Key features of ThinkPad W510:

• 16:9 aspect ratio displays.
• Available 95% color gamut display with optional color calibrator.
• Four SO-DIMM slots for 16GB max DDR3 1333 RAM.
• RAID 0, 1 via Bay Adapter.
• One USB 3.0 port and three USB 2.0 ports.
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M 1GB switchable graphics.
• 128GB, 160GB and 256GB SSD options.
• Core 2 Quad i7-720QM (1.6GHz), i7-820Q (1.73GHz) and Extreme i7-920XM (2GHz).

Key features of ThinkPad T410:

• 16:10 aspect ratio display.
• Entirely new mechanical design.
• Adds 4th USB 2.0 port.
• NVIDIA NVS 3100M 512MB switchable graphics standard.
• Core i5-520M (2.4GHz), i5-540M (2.53GHz) and i7-620M (2.66GHz) processors

Key features of ThinkPad T410s:

• 16:10 aspect ratio display.
• NVIDIA NVS 3100M 512MB switchable graphics standard.
• Core i5-520M (2.4GHz), i5-540M (2.53GHz) processors

Key features of ThinkPad T510:

• 16:9 aspect ratio displays.
• NVIDIA NVS 3100M 512MB switchable graphics standard.
• Core i5-520M (2.4GHz), i5-540M (2.53GHz) and i7-620M (2.66GHz) processors.

The ThinkPad T410s, T410, T510 and W510 laptops are expected to be available by beginning of 7 January 2010 via lenovo business partners and www.lenovo.com. The T410s is priced at $1399, T410 and T510 models are prices at $999, and W510 is priced at $1599.