Smartspace Software Share Discussion Threads

[spud] 07/6/2007 18:06

FWIW it would appear that by dropping the Bid, raising the Offer and thus widening the spread,the Market is attempting to discourage any buying whilst worrying some holders into selling and or hitting stops.

Now i wonder why??

spud

[garth] 07/6/2007 11:06

Here it is Bungler:

Festival wristband replaces wallet
Last updated at 11:44am on 4th June 2007


The crystal-encrusted wristband (top) will be given to VIPs at the 02 Wireless Festival

A wristband containing a computer chip that could act as a credit card, Oyster card and electronic ticket is to be used at a music festival in Hyde Park later this month.

The crystal-encrusted wristband will be given to VIPs at the 02 Wireless Festival.

By holding it close to electronic sensors, they will be admitted to backstage areas.

O2 says that if the trial succeeds, the technology could be used to replace most of the contents of people's wallets.

It is working with phone manufacturers, including Nokia, to build the chips into mobile handsets.

"This is the first time we have ever used this technology, but we believe that for most consumers the idea of having an Oyster card, credit card and ticket on your phone is great," said Mary Carol Harris of O2.

"It will mean that at music festivals all you need to have with you is a phone.

"You will be able to pay for drinks and food, and get in and out of tents and different areas.

"We think that within a year a lot of phones on the market will have these capabilities."

The bracelet will use the same technology as Oyster cards for the trial.



The Kaiser Chiefs will be performing at the festival


The festival, from 14 to 17 June, features The White Stripes, Faithless and Kaiser Chiefs.

It will also see the biggest ever use of mobile phone tickets, with more than £200,000 worth sold.

They allow customers to download a barcode to their handset, which is then scanned for entry.

"Mobile ticketing provides the consumer with an effective tool to prevent ticket touting, and above all else is an environmentally friendly way to enjoy their favourite concerts," said Stuart Galbraith of Live Nation, which operates the ticketing system.

Festivalgoers will also be able to upload pictures and video clips from their mobiles, which will then be shown on the large screens in the park

[bungler] 07/6/2007 11:01

Hi garth, Thanks very much for that - unfortunately the link to the daily mail article doesn't seem to work for me - just says article not found. Can you give me the gist if you can remember it? Either way thanks very much for the information .

[garth] 06/6/2007 15:17

Bungler,

The simple answer to your question is that Multefile is not bound to a traditional plastic card that you would carry in your wallet. It would reside in the smart chip - which could be in anything, including your phone or watch. It is entirely compatible with NFC as can be illustrated by the fact that ITSO are involved in NFC trials and SMRT are providing the core technology for ITSO. It is my understanding that SMRT are hoping to be able to announce their involvement in an NFC pilot at some point soon.

This piece might interest you:

in_article_id=459741&in_page_id=1965

This is a useful source on SMRTs involvement in ITSO:

[bungler] 06/6/2007 12:01

Hello please bear with me as this may be a very stupid question. I have tried to get my head around what this company does - and think I'm nearly there thanks to the excellence of this bb for which thanks to all concerned but especially garth. My question is this: how does this technology tie up - if at all - with the parallel development of mobile phones being used for Oyster-card-type payments? Would smrt's technology be used in mobiles - or is it purely applicable to cards? This following article from the Yoo thread - courtesy Robin Godfrey - might be of interest in this area: (apoogies for its length but I think it's interesting).




'Mobile eCash' could change the face of commerceNear field or far, far away?
By Rob Bamforth, Quocirca → More by this author
Published Thursday 8th February 2007 12:48 GMT
The Legal Risks of Uncontrolled Web Use and Email Content - Free whitepaper
Cash or plastic? From starting with seashells, gold coins, and rewarding soldiers with salt, payment systems have evolved to keep lowering the cost of making each transaction, and separating the real item of value from the point of the transaction.

Bank notes came to represent the value of gold held somewhere else and were far easier to carry, and credit or debit cards helped to identify an individual and link them to their remotely stored pot of gold, bank balance, or debt.

The anonymity, flexibility, and lack of an attached age limit makes cash still a compelling payment instrument, but in the networked age it limits payment to direct contact, and is getting increasingly expensive to process and handle. The dangers of fraud or counterfeiting on the one hand, and the costs and risks of theft or "shrinkage" on the other make cash an increasingly dangerous commodity.

The answer, at least from the smartcard industry, was to move cash to stored value on plastic - e-cash, or some form of prepay system. There have been any number of e-cash deployments, but success is often constrained to a closed group of users or narrow set of transaction types for a limited range of goods or services - transport tickets, or mobile phone calls, for example.

However, as more discrete solutions appear, we will all rapidly end up with a wallet full of e-cash cards to add to a range of credit or debit cards and a plethora of loyalty cards. At one time, smart card vendors offered the promise of universal multi-function cards. However, although the technology is willing, widespread deployment is hindered by the need to bring together diverse commercial agendas such as branding and customer ownership onto a limited piece of plastic real estate - and then there are the infrastructure costs.

There is another problem. If the card itself stores value, how much is on the card at any moment in time? The user might like to know, as although the smart card might have integral security, the anonymous and stored value nature means that once stolen or mislaid, the cash value is lost. Some solutions have pocketable readers with numeric displays, others rely on web portals and user access to the internet. Neither is appealing in a multiple service scenario.

The mobile phone probably is more appealing and is capable of serving such multiple requirements. Alongside their security and payment instruments - a set of keys and wallet or purse - the mobile phone is one of the three items most people are likely to take out with them.

Adding payment to the phone would seem a logical step: after all, there is the payment system in place with the operator, either billed monthly or pre-paid. However, much as mobile operators would like to expand the scope of that payment system, they are not banks, and are limited in scope by transaction value, the cost of processing, and their universal acceptance by merchants as a payment system.

A number of attempts have been made to provide a more uniform, network-independent payment system, along the lines perhaps of the online model for Paypal, but online levels of ease of use rarely translate well enough to a simple mobile experience. There are also software solutions that place an application on the phone, but the varied nature of the software platforms on mobile phones makes this a challenge.

A solution is required that is independent of individual network providers, and broad enough to accommodate multiple payment and receipt instruments in a single phone. While not reliant upon a particular technology, there is an idea to extend the phone hardware that makes this simple enough to be a hit with consumers - providing it can become widely deployed sufficiently quickly.

The current buzz around the edge of the mobile industry is Near Field Communications (NFC), which is essentially the same idea as contact-less smart cards where the user taps or waves their card next to a reader. Companies already use contact-less cards for security access passes and some for employee catering payment systems. Travellers in London or Singapore/HongKong use the Oyster and Octopus cards this way and some users of Mastercard's PayPass in the US will also recognise the concept.

Putting NFC in a device with a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) and the computing, communications and user interface capabilities of a mobile phone does several things. It provides a wallet for multiple payment systems, a screen to display balances, and the brand identity of the system currently in use, and a way to enter a PIN code to secure use. It also provides the cellular communications link to acquire, update, monitor and securely manage the payment systems.

To put such a solution in place requires skills from the payment services and telecoms industries. It also requires complete interoperability and acceptance by a wide range of companies of standards and common principles. There are already moves afoot to build this consensus, an NFC forum which brings together one group of diverse interests, and a consortium led by Motorola involving a European Commission co-funded initiative. Still early stages and, as yet, the mobile operator community is not as involved as it should be.

However, unlike many of the proposed "killer" applications for mobile phone users - TV, music, internet - which appeal to specific segments of the mobile phone wielding community, the potential appeal of a simple to use "Mobile eCash" is far, far more universal.

As the mobile industry approaches its annual festival of hype at 3GSM in Barcelona, NFC may not be one of the short-lived concepts getting all the (hot) airtime, but as an enabler for financial transactions that everyone could easily use, its impact in the mobile industry and beyond is likely to be far more significant.

The utopian dream of one, personally carried item that safely fulfils our needs for secured access - keys - securely supports our commercial interactions - credit cards, cash, tickets - and our need to communicate with friends and the world in general - the mobile phone - is taking a step closer.

[mistertibbs] 04/6/2007 10:17

Riv is another good un', just like yourself Garth. Put some car into my isa the other day myself.

[garth] 01/6/2007 16:12

Mistertibbs,

Used to post on CAR a bit like on here - leave that mostly to Rivaldo now, he does a great job. Got them in my ISA. DYS & CRPR going for it aswell at present! :0)

G.

[mistertibbs] 01/6/2007 16:04

Nor me. I woder if the Atkins mentioned in the first Welsh link today is the same mob who are involved in the London car charging. A nice wee smartcard would be ideal for car parking charges, with people topping up their cards and using them to pay rather than look for change for those bloody stickers. Just a thought.

hey Garth, hope you post fewer links in car as I just got into them this morning. Timing could.ved been worse.Sorry for the o/t

[hebgb] 01/6/2007 15:06

Yes, I'm intrigued by the amount of selling recently and how the price has held up. All little wonderings no doubt on the path to some real news.

[garth] 01/6/2007 12:56

Someone's selling a few....

[garth] 01/6/2007 09:53

On Calypso/ITSO:

Contactless Ticketing in the UK

ITSO was set up to build and maintain a specification for secure 'end to end' interoperable ticketing transactions, using relevant ISO and emerging CEN standards. ITSO determines business rules for how interoperable product sales and usage data are processed. The ISAM, ITSO Secure Application Module, will be installed where tickets need to be bought or read and will:
 Provide guaranteed usage data to be used for clearing.
 Frank and store the ticket usage and then controls the transmission of the data to the collection system.
 Be able to be used for other applications
Moreover ITSO has been mandated by the UK government for all government funded projects.

ITSO / CALYPSO

ITSO and CALYPSO are complementary: ITSO defines the system architecture and guarantees end to end integrity whereas CALYPSO defines the interface between the contactless card and the terminal. The first step will be to accept a CALYPSO card on a modified ITSO SAM. The other steps will include: data structure, extension of ITSO accreditation to include CALYPSO, common approach on standardisation...

[garth] 01/6/2007 08:53

And this observation tucked away in the latest ITSO newsletter just out:

""Southampton City Council is delighted that Unicard, as
supplier of its original SmartCities multi-application
smart card management system, is the first supplier to
achieve ITSO PersoPOST certification to specification
V2.1.1. This is an essential part of the Council's
migration to ITSO of its legacy bus smart card ticketing
operation, rendered even more important by the
probable requirement for ITSO National Concessionary
passes by next April."

Its a short newsletter and worth a read for info on the ITSO related part of SMRTs business (supplying ISAMs based on Multefile)

[garth] 01/6/2007 08:44

New ITSO compliant contactless reader being released at the Moving Conference. The significant aspect is that they appear to have finished bringing Calypso within ITSO. Not 100% sure, but I assume that means that they will be needing ISAMs as they upgrade existing Calypso equipment.

...................................

[06/01/07]
Assa Abloy Identification Technologies (ITG), one of the leading providers of products and services in the RFID market, introduces a new ITSO compliant reader. The new reader generation supports the latest ITSO specification - including Calypso - and reads all specified Customer Media Device (CMD) types. The contactless proximity read/write device is especially designed for the requirements of the public transport industry and is optimized for best transaction times. Through an incorporated ITSO application it can easily be integrated into new and existing systems. A live demonstration of the reader's functionalities will be given at Moving On conference in Cardiff, June 4th - 6th at the Assa Abloy ITG booth #15.

Typical usage scenarios for the new reader series are ticket vending machines, stationary ticket validators, on-board ticket validators, desktop ticket issuing or ticket production & personalization. The new reader is optimized to comply with the latest ITSO specification 2.1.1 as well as the new Calypso specification under ITSO. Especially designed for the requirements of public transport, the reader is equipped with two external antennas that can be connected and thus provides maximum flexibility during the integration process.

The reader autonomously processes all ITSO defined customer media operations and presents all data in independent formats to the point of sale terminal (POST). Four integrated SAM sockets ensure a high security level. All processing required by the ITSO Security Access Module (ISAM) to conduct customer media transactions is done automatically.

"Our new reader provides increased efficiency and optimized transaction times through the use of ITSO optimized commands in the communication protocol", says Denis Scheller, Product Manager of Assa Abloy ITG. "This allows simultaneous execution of multiple operations by the reader."

Through an incorporated ITSO application the reader can easily be integrated into new and existing systems. Via various interface options it connects to a PC or other host systems and a built in boot-loader enables firmware field upgrades via multiple interfaces.

Assa Abloy ITG will present this new reader at the Moving On Conference in Cardiff, which takes place from June 4th to 6th. For a live demonstration of the reader's functionalities please visit the Assa Abloy ITG booth #15.

For more information about the Moving On Conference please visit

About Assa Abloy Identification Technologies (ITG)

Assa Abloy Identification Technologies (ITG) is a leader within the ID management and RFID markets. The company develops, manufactures and markets RFID components, products, and services typically deployed within national ID and e-passport programs, corporate access control, supply chain management, animal tagging, financial transactions, transport and various industrial or manufacturing solutions. Assa Abloy ITG is a merger of ACG Identification Technologies, OMNIKEY, Sokymat and VisionCard and Novacard do Brasil.

Assa Abloy ITG has over 900 employees and 25 sales offices in all continents. The company's headquarters are located in Walluf, Germany. ITG is part of the Global Technologies Division of the ASSA ABLOY Group.

For more information, please visit www.aaitg.com

[spud] 30/5/2007 17:49

Perhaps they are getting a little greedy or perhaps their tap has dried up..

Awilson - I'll lay a pound to a penny you won't be saying that 12 months forward. Hindsight, ain't it wonderful!

spud

[awilson] 30/5/2007 13:18

Just been quoted 4.91p to buy - a little too dear, perhaps, compared with the previous one today.

[garth] 30/5/2007 09:57

They want you to pay a bit more for them today Spud - still not offering any more to the sellers though....

G.

[spud] 29/5/2007 21:08

No it is not your imagination :o)

spud

[longshanks] 29/5/2007 19:13

Is it my imagination or is someone hoovering up any loose stock

[garth] 29/5/2007 08:24

Stagecoach have just announced winning a 10 year contract to run the Greater Manchester Tram service.

This pdf from a few weeks ago gives Manchester's response to recent Government consultation on interoperable, cross-border smartcards. They are pressing for the government to fully fund ITSO as has been done in Scotland and Wales:

"ITSO compliant Smartcards have the potential to facilitate better inter-operability, interchange and cross-boundary travel. The government should fully fund the roll out of ITSO smartcards in England as has happened in Scotland and Wales"

"ITSO is the most comprehensive and secure ticketing interoperability ticketing standard in the world."

www.gmpta.gov.uk/uploads/agendas/2/73/Reports/Item%2010.%20H%20of%20C%20Ticketing%20Inquiry.pdf

[wjccghcc] 28/5/2007 09:25

Agreed. In the absence of EPR being likely to work across the NHS for a long time, a smart card with portable medical history would seem a much easier option.

I know IGP/Gemalto have recently supplied 500k smart cards to the NHS but I think those are for staff.

[mistertibbs] 25/5/2007 13:17

A very sad case but a prime example why there is a greater need for information technology being more widely used in NHS. A simple smartcard with all info linked to some type of portable machine or something along those lines a must. And if old Gordie, our new esteemed PM takes it as a reason for even more NHS reform you never can tell.

Small growing company. Always a danger they require more funds. Don't tell me I'm going through all this again?

[garth] 25/5/2007 07:33

Do they want more fundies or just an advisor who is going to give them a little more exposure....? I have to say that I could have written a more detailed broker note than the one that was issued following the results.....

Advanced Smart Change of Adviser

Advanced Smartcard Technologies plc

Change of Adviser

Advanced Smartcard Technologies plc, the Scottish based software group specialising in smartcard technology, is pleased to announce the appointment of WH Ireland Limited as Nominated Adviser to the Company, with immediate effect.

For further information please contact:

Advanced Smartcard Technologies plc Tel: [phone] David Braddock, Managing Director Stephen Naylor, Finance Director

WH Ireland Ltd Tel: [phone] David Youngman

[garth] 24/5/2007 19:22

Detailed article new today on RFID, NFC, Oyster, Mastercard, Paypass etc. Non-specific re. SMRT but useful guide on current state of play in the space.

RFID Payment Platforms Gaining Momentum

At last week's CardTech 2007 payments industry conference, Visa, MasterCard and American Express provided updates on their RFID-enabled payments rollouts.

[garth] 23/5/2007 22:00

ITSO in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, ITS (UK) and Smartex, will be present at the Moving On exhibition 4-6 June 2007, hosted at the prestigious Macdonald Holland House Hotel, Cardiff.

Peter Stoddart, an ITSO Suppliers' Sector Director and Independent Consultant as Sedna Solutions, will be delivering a brief on behalf of Neil Scales, Chief Executive of Merseytravel, covering English National Concessionary Travel Schemes (ENCTS) and the need for smart media, using this media to encourage more users onto public transport.


Join ITSO (Stand number 8) and other like minded organisations working within the public transport sector to share news and views about policies, new technology,
and how other sectors should work together.


More information can be found on the conference website www.moving-on-conference.co.uk