Smart Machine

Smart Card Machine- The grass is smart on the other side.

Smart Cards are the latest in identification technology, which has completely changed the way things are perceived. Use the word ‘smart ‘ in the context of intelligence or for the size, anything works. The smart card is a high end, pocket sized chip that works wonders. Ingrained with integrated circuits, a chip card, a smart card or an integrated circuit card (ICC) is basically made of plastic (polyethylene terephthalate) but have multiple functions. It’s like a magic wand that can be used for authentication, identification, processing applications and storage of data up to many GBs and comes with best possible security.

Smart Card Machine- or a magic wand

The use of smart card goes as back as 1983, when it was first used publicly in France for pay phones as telephone card. Although it was first invented by two German engineers Jürgen Dethloff and Helmut Gröttrup in late 1960′s, it was Roland Moreno, a french inventor, that made it possible.

What are smart cards without smart card machines?

Smart card machines are machines that support smart cards. There are numerous machines that support all kinds of smart cards like Master card, Visa, Matrix, etc. An example of smart card machine is an ATMs machine. It may only accept a debit/credit card of its own bank or may be able to run any debit/credit card that run through it.

Another widely used smart card machine is a mobile/cellular phone. It uses a smart card to contact people all over the world through SMS, MMS and calls.

Security machines are also a form of smart card machine. The smart card carries bio-metric identification and can be integrated with digital certificate. Mostly, the smart card is swiped through the smart card machine which identifies its user and if so, accepts its entrance or permits it to go further where ever he/she was headed.

Parking lot meters, laptop card readers, simple card readers, digital cameras, wireless internet connection routers, cafeteria cashiers, taxis electronic meters, Laundromats and vending machines are all various forms of smart card machines which use the smart card to store data, transfer data, secure data, recognize, pay bills and help people connect with each other.

Another milestone, another step into the future

A smart card is an important invention in the technological world as it’s secure. It is due to a smart card that a person roams around with less weight, enjoying his surrounding rather than worrying about losing one thing or another. Had it not been for the smart card, people would still be sewing secret pockets in their clothes to hide money, writing long letters to each other, making expensive long distance call and signing registers and passing through long line of metal gates for security purposes. Smart card has helped in globalization of earth far quicker than the internet did. Mobile phones are now being equipped with NFC technology that allows you to pay bills or buy bus passes by waving your phone over a sensor.