Smart Cards Irwin Professional (USA) ( 01 November, 1996 ) Book Our Price : £ 20.27 List Price : £ 22.52 You save £2.25 (10% off) Prices subject to change. usually dispatched within 7 to 8 days.

How Smart are Smart Cards?

Smart cards are poised to invade two billion wallets and purses by the year 2000. If you have a credit card, chances are it will have a spider-like chip holding all your essential data. Even your mobile phone uses a smart card. But there are more applications to come, and with it diverse business opportunities for the organisation or individual who is always looking ahead. Smart Cards, edited by Catherine Allen and William Barr with Ron Shultz, breaks the mindset of looking at smart cards merely as an electronic purse. It expounds on the many possibilities that this wafer-thin chip-in-a-card can do to revolutionise the finance and retail sector. In short, it talks about smart-card technology. But dont just take it from me or any of the authors--arrive at your opinion from the cast of major players in the smart-card industry that the authors have assembled. Besides streamlining commercial transactions, the smart card will also have a hand in decentralising the storage of personal information. Hospitals will be able to access a patients medical history just by reading the individuals smart card, thereby saving precious time in an emergency. At the airport, the smart card will make queues at the check-in counter disappear as travellers can check in electronically with their cards. Besides focusing on the application benefits of smart cards, this book also addresses the stumbling blocks of electronic commerce, namely privacy and security issues. A whole section of the book is catered not only to the issues of privacy but also the existing technologies to counter this problem. Innovative business individuals interested in leap-frogging ahead will benefit most from this book as it forces you to re-think standard business models in electronic commerce. Smart Cards also provides fertile ground for new smart-card applications because it showcases many ongoing trials and pilot projects. My only disappointment with the book is that its research is mainly based on corporations in the United States, a country whose advanced telecommunications infrastructure is actually a disincentive to the adoption of smart-card technology. Europe and some part of Asia, on the other hand, have been more than enthusiastic in their use of smart-card technology, and should be able to offer more real-world insights into the nature of the beast. On the whole, Smart Cards provides a good reading of the pulse of the industry and gets you up to speed with the business opportunities of "intelligent cards" that may soon slim that inch-thick wallet of yours--maybe in more ways than one!

Missing data on 2 of diamonds.

I like every part of the book...it seems very accurate and insightful...even with relationships...I did notice while comparing relationships...the 2 of diamonds were wrong...its a misprint...it is exactly like the 2 of spades...so, if the author is reading this review...please fix this...thank you.

essential knowledge for understanding relationships

Although I was skeptical when I began reading this book, I found it to be accurate and insightful.Based on the premise that every birth date is linked to one of the 52 playing cards, ones destiny and personality characteristics can be described. Variables such as ones ruling planet and other cosmic influences allow for the changes encountered throughout ones lifetime. By understanding the individual motivations and desires, and studying the individuals relationship to others, problems likely to surface in a relationship can be addressed or circumvented. Amazingly every person I applied this to fit their birth card and I was able to see the basis for their actions.Similar to realizing the differences described by Meyers-Briggs interpretations, Camps astute descriptions aid us in achieving more harmonious relationships. This book would make a great wedding present for any young couple starting out or for older couples open to improving on many years of marriage. For those new to a relationship, a glimpse of future pitfalls might give them just cause to run while a perfect match might convince them to quit shopping.