Card Technology articles from April 2007

Card Technology archives from April 2007

Bo Diddley and the Beginning of Wisdom: Recognizing how difficult it is to understand what we are seeing is the beginning of wisdom.
April 1, 2007... "We are a nation of slow understanders," Bo Diddley, the aging but still active rock music legend observed in a radio interview I heard this morning. He might just as well have said "world" as "nation," for all of us, regardless of nationality,...

Sony Seeks To Break Out Of Japan With FeliCa: 'We exchange keys. The key to Europe, we (Sony) get. NXP gets the key to the Asia market.'.
April 1, 2007... Japan's Sony Corp. has had a good run with its contactless technology, FeliCa, in the past 18 months. Thanks to fast-growing sales in its home market of Japan, Sony shipped 100 million contactless, FeliCa, chips over that period. That's as...

Newswatch: Europe.
April 1, 2007... MORE NFC TRIALS ON TAP FOR GERMANY Germany's national railway, Deutsche Bahn, and local and regional transit operators plan to launch trials this year allowing commuters to ride by touching their NFC phones to RFID tags at train and tram...

A Domestic Affair.
April 1, 2007... Sony's says it has hit the 200-million mark for FeliCa contactless chip shipments since 1996. 100 million of those chips have been shipped over the past 18 months, most in its home market of Japan. Major Projects ...

Profits Fall For Smart Card Vendors.(Financial report)
April 1, 2007... Publicly traded smart card vendors Gemalto and Oberthur Card Systems both reported lower profits for 2006, which they blamed mainly on falling SIM card prices. Gemalto, the largest maker of smart cards worldwide, last month reported net...

Newswatch: Americas:.
April 1, 2007... SMART CARDS STILL POSSIBLE FOR NEW U.S. DRIVER'S LICENSE The U.S. government has again declined to mandate that U.S. driver's licenses be smart cards. But the proposed driver's license rules released in March by the U.S. government do open...

Newswatch: Asia-Pacific.
April 1, 2007... SOUTH KOREAN MOBILE SUBSCRIBERS WILL TAP TO RIDE Subscribers of South Korea's three major mobile phone network operators will be able to tap their phones to ride buses and subway trains by the end of June. All three of the mobile operators...

Registered Traveler Program Draws More Competition, Criticism.
April 1, 2007... The FLO Alliance has announced a Registered Traveler agreement with an airport in Huntsville, Alabama, making it the third vendor group to win the right to develop airport programs that allow prescreened fliers to pass more quickly through...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2007... April 24-25 SIMposium - Berlin Organized by SIMalliance E-mail: simposiumle-public-systeme.fr Web site: http://simposium-simalliance.com April 24-26 SIM Summit - Prague Organized by Informa Telecoms & Media...

Does EMV Really Push Away Fraud?
April 1, 2007... Here's the theory: Deploy hundreds of millions of chip cards throughout the world with the antifraud protection of the global EMV standard, and watch the criminals, like rats escaping a flood, scurry to places where cards don't offer the same...

Japan's Mobile Wallets Fail To Inspire-Yet: Japan's mobile telcos and payment card players haven't yet convinced subscribers to think of their handsets as mobile wallets. But the massive investment continues, and backers of the "Osaifu-Keitai" concept hope 2007 will be a turning point.
April 1, 2007... When the industry used to refer to such things as "killer applications," Suica would have easily fit the bill. Carried by 19 million commuters in what is reputed as the world's busiest mass transit system, East Japan Railway's Suica...

Japan's Contactless-Payment Push Continues.
April 1, 2007... With five schemes rolling out and another on the way, contactless payment is nothing new to Japan. The major players are encouraging consumers to tap for purchases with cards and wallet phones-all seeking a share of the more than 90% of...

Who Will Respond to the First Responder Card?
April 1, 2007... Whether it is a terrorist bombing in Madrid or a tsunami in Thailand, catastrophes produce chaos. One of the many tasks of disaster response coordinators is to identify those on the scene who can help and to figure out what they are qualified...

NFC: Ready to Roll?: Excitement is building for contactless mobile payment and ticketing using NFC phones. Rollouts will happen, but not before mobile operators and service providers sharpen their business cases.
April 1, 2007... When Finnish mobile network operator Sonera introduced what is believed to be the world's first mobile payment service in 1997-allowing subscribers to "Dial-a-Coke" from vending machines-the mobile industry took note. Sonera a couple of...

Where To Put The Applications?
April 1, 2007... Vendors are proposing various models for placement of the secure element to store payment and ticketing applications. The first two models are expected to get the most market play. The leading contender for NFC-based payment and ticketing,...

Gearing Up For Service.
April 1, 2007... As NFC pilots proliferate and thoughts turn to the first rollouts of NFC-based commercial service, major players are emerging among vendors, mobile operators and service providers. Some call it a budding NFC "ecosystem." {CHIPS} ...

NFC-The Key Trials.
April 1, 2007... While more than 100 NFC trials have launched in the past two years, both publicly and quietly, a handful of important trials are pointing the way toward commercial rollouts. Location Launch Service provider/ Mobile...

Advertising Index.(Directory)(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Advanced Card Systems Ltd. 15 Tel: + 852 2796 7873 Web site: www.acs.com.hk E-mail: infoacs.com.hk Arthur Blank & Co, Inc. 14 Tel: 617-325-9600 Web site: www.arthurblank.com E-mail: abcoabco.com Bayer...

Fall In Profits.(Financial report)
April 1, 2007... A Slow Start Gemalto, the result of the mega-merger of France-based smart card vendors Gemplus International and Axalto last June, closed its first fiscal year on a disappointing note. Sales and profits dropped thanks in large part to...