Team Members
Timeline of Technology
Recent Applications
Potentials and Limitations
Major Players
Future Developments and Adoption
Other Interesting Information
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What is a Smart
Card?
Smart
cards are similar in appearance to credit cards. Instead of using a
magnetic stripe, computer chips are imbedded into the card, allowing for
up to 64 kilobytes of application memory for data storage as well as
manipulation.
What are Smart Cards
Used For?In
recent years, you may have heard stories and promises of a more secure
future in which personal information can be right at your fingertips-in
fact, conveniently stored in your wallet just like your driver's license,
phone card, frequent shopper cards, cash and bank and credit
cards.
Start
with a basic smart card. It's a card with a microprocessor chip in it.
This fingernail size chip has a memory equivalent to that of a brand new
computer in the 1980's. Just like a computer, information can be sent to,
stored in, and sent from the chip. The
product was first introduced in Europe. Each card had a small memory
chip in it that stored information about how much money was "on the card"
for making phone calls. Now more than 300 million European cell-phones
have built-in smart card readers. Someone can lend a cell phone to a
business associate who needs to make an international call and not worry
about the bill. The associate uses his own smart card to activate and pay
for the call.
In
the U.S. we are just starting to see examples of Smart Card use in eveyday
life. The Chicago Transit Authority rolled out smart cards for use
on city trains and buses. Universities are beginning to use smart cards to
combine college I.D.s, building access, meal plans, phone calls, and
stored value. Last year, former President Clinton used a smart card to
sign the digital signature bill into law.
Eventually,
the Smart Card Technology could replace your whole wallet, and the way
that you use wireless tools such as PDAs and Cell Phones.
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