A new card programmer from HID enables customers to manage the total issuance of iClass® contactless cards onsite. Customers such as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln can now stock blank cards and program them with access control numbers, PINs, and custom application data at issuance. With four distinct fields capable of holding 16 characters, the option […]

The U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii is the second important naval base to deploy biometric readers from Bioscrypt and contactless smart cards from HID. The system is designed to help further secure areas of sensitive access adding the fingerprint biometric to card and PIN requirements. U.S. Pacific Command Headquarters Selects Bioscrypt V-Smart iClass […]

< ? $key="0430"; ?> Frequency: The basis for all RF technologies The ability to ‘tune in’ to specific frequencies makes possible all wireless communications–from mobile telephony to wireless data transfer. It beams our television signals, brings music to our radios … and it makes contactless cards contactless. Read the full story Modulation: Enabling radio waves […]

The following letter was received in response to last month’s review of the basic tenets of the ISO standards for contactless cards, Contactless Card Standards: Making Sense of 14443, 15693, and 10536. David Dressen, Product Development Manager for Atmel and member of ISO WG 8 committee (contactless cards), clarifies the requirements for ISO 14443 compliance. […]

Another one of the basic technical concepts of RFID is anticollision. To understand anticollision we first must define a collision. An RFID collision involves multiple cards crashing into each other within a reader’s field. This crash need not be a physical touching of cards but rather sending a response to the reader at the same […]

With an understanding of radio waves and frequencies, we can progress to a discussion of modulation–the process by which meaningful data is transmitted using radio waves. In essence, data is ‘carried’ on radio waves. Imagine that the radio waves are a conveyor belt. The belt moves on a steady pace never stopping, never varying. At […]

In the late 1800s a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz created radio waves in the laboratory. A century later, we are still expanding upon Hertz’s discovery. Radio waves make possible all wireless communications–from mobile telephone conversations to wireless data transfer. They beam our television signals, bring music to our radios, and make it safe to […]

So just how does the modulating of radio waves enable data transmission? The answer is found in the concept of coding. Coding refers to a modulation pattern that is understood and shared by both a transponder and a receiver. Like Morse code–the series of dots and dashes used to transmit data in the past– radio […]

If the purpose of the recent SmartTalk Teleconference hosted by the Smart Card Alliance was to generate enthusiasm and optimism for contactless technology, it certainly succeeded thanks to the latest positive results of contactless trials reported by two of the majors–MasterCard and American Express. “The conference went fantastically well,” said SCA Executive Director Randy Vanderhoof. […]

For those needing to support both contact and contactless cards in the same environments or for those wishing to use contactless in existing PC-based applications, there is a new reader just for you. Omnikey’s CardMan® 5121 supports the major contactless flavors and supports contact chip cards via the standard PC/SC protocols. OMNIKEY Announces Affordable PC-Linked […]