Smart Cards, Smart Phones and a Cashless Society
Smart Destinations Delivers Contactless Tourist Card to Chicago
September 7, 2010Contactless News - Smart Destinations is launching its contactless smart card program at 26 of Chicago’s top tourist attractions, according to squidcard.com.
To use the Custom Chicago Explorer Pass, users go online to choose which attractions they want to visit in advance and Smart Destinations mails them a custom made contactless card.
The card allows tourists to tap into a number of attractions at a discounted price, including the John Hancock Observatory and the Museum of Science.
According to sQuid, the firm intends to roll out the program to other US cities including Las Vegas, New York and Boston.
Russia Chooses Contactless Transit System for 2014 Olympics
September 6, 2010Contactless News - NXP Semiconductors announced that its MIFARE Plus contactless microcontroller has been chosen by the Russian city of Sochi to power the Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system of its ground transportation network during the 2014 Winter Olympics.
NXP is working with several partners to complete the system, including solution provider and equipment manufacturer Strikh-M, inlay manufacturer SMARTRAC and card manufacturer Novacard.
Serving Sochi’s population of 500,000 residents and one million tourists annually, the MIFARE Plus-based system is designed to improve operational efficiency by eliminating the need for cash. Instead, passengers will be able to purchase and fill up contactless travel cards and season tickets at automatic smart-card payment terminals.
This marks the first rollout of MIFARE Plus in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, according to NXP.
CEA-Leti Demonstrates New Communication Technology for Smart Cards
September 3, 2010Contactless News - French researcher CEA-Leti announced that it has demonstrated a contactless, high-speed interface for smart cards. Leti has created a prototype of a complete phase modulation system, a reader and a card, that now achieves speeds of 6.8 Mbit/s. Phase modulation’s spectral characteristics are superior to those of amplitude modulation, allowing considerably higher speeds than the current limit of 848 Kbit/s.
Leti’s current work on optimization of signal processing aims to attain speeds greater than 10 Mbit/s. Leti is also holding discussions with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in partnership with Gemalto, to take full advantage of this work.
The very high-speed contactless interface is the fruit of research that Leti has carried out since 2003 and Leti’s work on the MEDEA+Onom@topic project. That project, which ended in 2009, involved 16 European companies and research organizations developing a set of international standards related to e-identity and mobile transactions and to demonstrate concrete implementation of these standards. At the heart of the project were advanced prototypes for a new generation of e-ID cards or SIM devices.
Clear2Pay, Edenred Launch Contactless Employee Meal Voucher Program in Belgium
September 7, 2010Contactless News - Clear2Pay and Edenred are partnering to launch the first contactless card-based employee meal voucher program on the Belgian market.
The electronic voucher, which will be used for the payment of food expenses at retail stores and restaurants, aims to provide a more convenient and eco-friendly alternative to current paper-based employee benefit programs, according to Clear2Pay.
Under the partnership, Edenred will issue the electronic voucher on behalf of its enterprise customers, and Clear2Pay will provide the card program’s expertise, technical specifications and Integri test tools.
According to Clear2Pay, the program will benefit merchants and caterers through reduced administrative work and speedier payments, while customers will enjoy improved security and convenience.
The program was already piloted successfully in 2009 by Edenred in the Belgian cities of Brussels, Antwerp and Namur. Over the course of a year, 950 employees from 15 companies tried and tested their contactless luncheon voucher, ‘Ticket Restaurant,’ at 70 merchants.
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