Smartspace Software Share Discussion Threads

[colsmith] 29/3/2006 15:55

And her head is where the chips should be so maybe she's takes a few BYTES and eaten the lot. Question is does she then stick her head into the reader or bow to it as she passes if its wireless. Still maybe its merely the 21st century sandwich board.

[bonty] 29/3/2006 15:06

...or maybe this is the new hi-tech method for getting photo i.d. on to a card.

[garth] 29/3/2006 14:54

Don't know about the card being tied to an individual Colsmith - the one in the photo looks like it's been ingeniously designed to hang around the neck. That has to be attractive as it avoids any damage caused by tying it to the eye and leaves hands free by not needing it to be tied to a finger. ;0)

[colsmith] 29/3/2006 14:28

And interesitingly the cards can be enhanced with new software as additonal applications are added without issueing a new card. 16Mbytes gives plenty of room for application software and loaded money! Also the enabler to move off passwords - probably a selling point for at least some of the councils customers although maybe not all as a unique card tied to an individual (eyes or finger) may be too good for some. Current chip and pin of course only tied to a password not a person! And as they allow - as TESCO do - a swipe transaction even the card ain't verified. Pity that VISA and Mastercard started with 2o year old card systnes when real smart cards could have bene adopted. Oh well it will come.

[garth] 29/3/2006 10:38

Its an interoperable smartcard that rationalises all the cards in your wallet. Using cutting edge design technicians have glued velcro patches to the back of the new entitlement card allowing other smartcards to be easily affixed.....

[hewhodares] 29/3/2006 10:35

Right enough, need to make a bit bigger so you don't loose it.

[garth] 29/3/2006 10:34

Bonty,

Don't be an idiot - they're that big so that they can fit on all the different applications that Multefile is going to manage.... ;0)


Great find HDW. Its a nice upbeat piece. This section is particularly interesting if you look at the collaborating evidence from the December issue of ITSO on international interest.....

"'Marvellous' technology

Colin Mair, chief executive of the Improvement Service, jointly run by the Scottish Executive and the councils, said: "The cards that will be issued for travel purposes on 1 April will also be able to be used for a wide variety of other purposes.

"We have been giving advice to our colleagues down south but also internationally - Canada, America and so on.

"The speed at which we've moved on this one and the rate of development is regarded as particularly impressive."

That says it all, IMO.

:0)

G.

[bonty] 29/3/2006 10:26

You would think so, although, looking at the photo, I think they need to do something about the size of the card!!

[hewhodares] 29/3/2006 10:01

Got to be good for us ?

[kirkosh] 28/3/2006 14:34

This is rocket fuel!

[highlander2] 28/3/2006 14:33

Why are the MM's holding the share price at 3.5p
and reducing the BP to 3.9p??

Are they trying to off load a large block
of shares by enticing buyers to buy in small
lots?

[garth] 28/3/2006 11:25

Bonty,

Either way it would seem (if I'm reading it correctly ) that there is a sizeable market for SMRT with either or both scenarios, not to mention the rest of the world.

Thats the one :0)

Colsmith,

thanks for that. Looking at Ecebs website, the Multos biometric card, the French certification of Multefile and the London Routemap document it is clear - as you say - that Eceb's Multefile provides for larger, more versatile & secure cards than Oyster can ever hope to offer. TfL are talking 4K mifare cards at present..... The answer to all this - as I think you intimate - will be that Oyster becomes just one of a number of applications on a ITSO compliant interoperable card managed through Ecebs Multefile middleware.

And ITSO is just one application of the Multefile technology.... What are RBS in this for???? And then there are the medical records, the anti-counterfeiting measures etc.....

DYOR.

G.

[bonty] 28/3/2006 10:47

Garth.
Thanks for that. Living in the North, it's not easy to understand the London transport/ KL politics involved in all of this. If as you say the whole of the national rail network goes ITSO then it would seem silly for TfL to do otherwise, but then again London does seem to us northerners to have been isolated from the rest of the country for many years! Either way it would seem (if I'm reading it correctly ) that there is a sizeable market for SMRT with either or both scenarios, not to mention the rest of the world.

Quite right...Four Letter Acronyms....also known as TAFLAs.....3 & 4 etc...

B.

[colsmith] 28/3/2006 10:37

Guys, seeing above posts a few braindumnp ideas come to mind.

SMRT are software developers and vendors of terminals and smarcards with others. As a market there is I guess then three opportunities:

1)to provide turnkey system for cards and terminals
2)to provide only terminals
3)to provide only cards

For 1 an industry standard (International or country in case of ITSO) is not needed and a proprietary standard can get the contract. Oyster is efectivley a proprieatary standard. For 2 and 3 an industry standard is needed. Over time it would seem better for the Oyster to move to the country standard. However, an interersitng question is "can a card developed for ITSO and used say in Scotland, be used in London on Oyster termnals?

If the answer is "yes it can" then Oyster don't need to move unless their system is less secure than ITSO. Its important to appreciate that the two key needs of this market are interoperabilty and security. One must not compromise the other. It seems that SMRT have a market leading card that can hold up to 16MBytes (or some 6 floppies of data) and has contact and wirelss terminal options.

Anyhow whats the point of the comment? Well I guess that London will need to move towards accepting cards developed to an industry standard otherwise it wont be user friendly as smart card take off more widely - in fact a single card for credit debit and all other purposes is what could be the eventual scheme in a few years ahead. Oyster in that envionment can't exist unless it admits of interoperabilty for different cards. So unless you are as big as Microsoft (*) your proproeatray standard cant survive - it will become redundant unles it admits of interoperabilty! London is big but in a country or world context it isn't. Either way SMRT have an opportunity in an embryonoic and almost certainly large developing market.

* and even MSFT ditched their own communication protocol a few years ago for the indusry internet protocol developed by the IETF.

[garth] 28/3/2006 09:48

Arch,

I'm no expert - I've been invested for a few weeks and that is the extent of my contact here. I'm just trying to look at the evidence available and try not to make 2+2=5 or 55.

That said,

* When the conditions were laid out for smartcard ticketing on the underground one of those were that the sucessful bidder(Transys) would have to ensure compatibility with the Department of Transport's national standard. That standard was not ready by the completion of bids but remained a condition. That standard is ITSO.

* The evidence from links I have posted this week and last is that Local Councils are being advised that they will have to adopt ITSO. Those items also state that the national rail network will go ITSO compliant. Eventually.

* The railpro piece along with alwaystouchout link suggest that Transys have a vested interest they are fighting for - and that is extending their own IP residing in Oyster. If they do that and exclude ITSO then they appear to breach one of the fundamental conditions of their contract.

* Transys offered network rail operators free Oyster readers if they would adopt Oyster. It is unclear whether they declined on the basis that they would give too much away to Transys or whether Transys itself withdrew the offer. Transys was clearly attempting a land-grab.

* New powers detailed in the alwaystouchout piece suggest that TfL have been given the go-ahead to acquire sections of the national rail network that fall within the reach of greater London. It is suggested that they want these powers at least partly because the national network is heading towards ITSO.

* At the same time, Cubic (a Transys member) are running several ITSO pilots around the country (One at least in London - due to finish this month, and another on the South Coast). The Rail pro piece explains that Cubic have held off throwing their technology into the ring until it is clear what other parties are offering. The link to the Cubic website shows that their FASTIS offering is ITSO compliant.

So there seem to be conflicting messages. Should the TfL/Oyster land-grab be seen as a move which goes against the condition that it becomes ITSO compliant or is it simply that if the whole of the UK gradually turns ITSO then Oyster has little opportunity for growth and so is making an early fight for significance so that when the time comes it can claim sufficient significance to be allowed to run alongside ITSO? This would mean that Oyster goes ITSO compliant but also retains its own enlarged revenue stream? What is for sure is that granting the new powers will standardise London - which ideally needs to happen for 2012 - that way visitors can be given one pre-paid ticket and travel wherever they want within London.
But what it also means is that having already turned the whole of London a nice sade of Oyster it would then be a simpler task to add in a hint of ITSO.

Interesting the way Cubic are playing it as a late horse to the stable - in Oyster and also ITSO ready.....

Just my musings though. It would be interesting to hear how others are reading it.

I added a couple of pieces to the other thread yesterday on ITSO in South Africa. I'm trying to put the ITSO/Oyster stuff here and everything else there.

Regards,

G.

[garth] 28/3/2006 07:41

Bonty,

Its interesting the tussle that is going on over the Underground-Oyster vs London section of the national rail network-nonOyster. TfL want interoperability between the two networks and so are wanting to extend their control so as to extend Oyster. On face value, with the main rail network eventually heading towards ITSO, that looks like bad news. Except it is quite clear that ITSO pilots are running and Cubic(part of the Transys consortium) have produced ITSO compliant technology and are participating in those pilots. So is that actually good - does interoperability actually come faster that way via ITSO compliant Oyster? It would be nice to speak to a Rail analyst....

G.

[garth] 28/3/2006 07:33

Bonty,

Might be being dense..... FLAs?

Four Letter Acronyms? :0)



G.

[garth] 27/3/2006 15:08

Plenty of Wayfarer technology provided to South Africa via Questek who by 2002 had 70% of the national market....

"Questek believes there is one existing world standard that will satisfy the above – ITSO – an end­to­end solution......" Chris Pretorius

G.

[bonty] 27/3/2006 15:04

Thanks Garth, interesting reading, although it's taking me some time to get my head round all the FLAs !
B.

[garth] 27/3/2006 15:01

;0)

WAYFARER BUS TICKET MACHINE IS FIRST TO RECEIVE ITSO CERTIFICATION
Wayfarer Transit Systems' TGX150 has become the first -and so far the only- bus ticket machine to receive ITSO conditional certification.

Wayfarer's landmark achievement was confirmed following six weeks of rigorous testing of the technology in Belgium by Integri, the independent test facility employed by ITSO.

The development is the culmination of a four-year technical programme at Wayfarer led by the company's Director of Technology, David Ellis, and involving a team of 14 engineers.

The achievement means that the thousands of Wayfarer TGX machines already in operation across the UK can be modified to become ITSO compliant while, from April onwards, the company will be delivering an upgraded ITSO certified TGX product range.

In addition, those bus operators who will be part of the Scottish Executive's Concessionary Card Scheme can now confidently go ahead with the replacement of their existing equipment.

Comments David Ellis: "Ticketing equipment is at the heart of the ITSO vision. This certification is therefore a fundamental development in turning the ITSO concept into reality for local authorities and bus operators and in proving the advantages of ITSO to potentially millions of smart card users."

"We will now be working very closely with those at the leading edge of the ITSO programme – including the Cheshire and NowCard projects – to move quickly to full ITSO smart card implementation using Wayfarer's TGX equipment. We will also be talking to our many other TGX customers about ITSO modification and highlighting the significant benefits of this development to bus operators involved in the Scottish Executive entitlement card project."

www.wayfarer.co.uk

Ends

Media enquiries to:

Philip Colley, Harvest

Tel: [phone]

[garth] 27/3/2006 14:14

A bit more here on the political tussle between the national rail network and Ken's Kingdom:


;0)

G.

[garth] 27/3/2006 14:05

Ok. A bit more here for anyone prepared to take the time to read.

TfL - Oyster - Transys - Cubic - Fastis - ITSO - Ecebs

The UK Government to fund making Oyster ITSO compatible?
"The future of Ticketing is Tickety-Boo" Rail Professional, March 2006


Cubic are part of the Transys consortium who deliver Oyster for TfL. Their Fastis system is already ITSO compatible:

Cubic's Fastis:


Cubic currently in ITSO/Oyster pilot in London:


Remember, every ITSO compliant reader needs an ISAM..... Ecebs provide ALL ITSO ISAMS.

DYOR.

G.

[garth] 27/3/2006 13:07

Or someone in the background parting company with some of the shares they bought at 3p?