A credit card with a built-in microprocessor and memory used for identification or financial transactions. When inserted into a reader, it transfers data to and from a central computer. It is more secure than a magnetic stripe card and can be programmed to self-destruct if the wrong password is entered too many times. As a financial transaction card, it can be loaded with digital money and used like a travelers check, except that variable amounts of money can be spent until the balance is zero. See digital coins, SIM, Java Card, UltraCard and contactless smart card.
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| The Smart Card |
| Widely used in Europe, the smart card is rapidly gaining acceptance in North America. |
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| Reading Smart Cards on Laptops |
| SwapSmart from SCM is a PCMCIA card that contains a smart card drive. SwapSmart plugs into the laptop, and the smart card plugs into SwapSmart. (Image courtesy of SCM Microsystems Inc., www.scmmicro.com) |
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| Smarty Turned a Floppy Drive into a Reader |
| Fischer International's Smarty allowed a PC's floppy drive to read smart cards. The card was inserted into Smarty, whose circuits emulated the magnetic field of a rotating floppy disk and transferred the data to the floppy's read/write head. (Image courtesy of Fischer International Systems Corporation.) |
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