Smart cards: integrating for portable complexity

Abstract

The decreasing cost of embedded chips is one of many factors that have spurred growing interest in smart cards. Today, typical markets for smart cards fall into three broad areas: electronic currency, an application in which smart cards replace cash or traditional credit cards in pay phone, transit, and toll collection systems; electronic identification, which permits controlled access to buildings or systems (like computers or cash registers); and data warehousing, applications that must opportunistically store and retrieve data, such as medical records, object tracking information, or process verification information. Such applications are only the beginning-future applications could make smart cards an integral and almost transparent part of our daily lives. Two factors seem to be converging to make this possible. First, as the world we live in becomes increasingly complex, smart cards offer a way to integrate that complexity into a compact and portable package. Second, the increasing functionality developers can integrate into a smart card opens new avenues for application development.