Back on the cards [ID cards]

The UK's ID card is another piece of good news for the bullish biometrics sector but industry figures are now urging caution. The proposed card's changing shape since 1995 reflects the development of technology in that time: from magnetic stripes to smartcards with digital photos and biometric parameters such as facial recognition, iris scans or fingerprints. The biometrics industry is excited because such schemes could drive biometrics to the mass market. However, there are problems with implementing such schemes which are briefly discussed in this article.     

Getting smarter [smart cards]

The author reports how, once labelled as “a technology looking for an application”, new markets and a shift in software and hardware capabilities are prompting a major expansion in the demand for smart cards     

Britain's identity crisis [biometric ID cards]

To help in its fight against fraud, illegal immigration, organized crime, and terrorism, the British government proposed the issuance of a national identity card and an accompanying identity verification database system. The card-database combination is expected to provide a foolproof identify check for every person living in the UK. There are, however, several organizations such as the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) who are critical of the initiative for lacking well-defined goals and for its high cost. They claim that the design of the system is based on unreliable and inadequate technologies that could result in privacy and security problems. The LSE suggests an alternative method based on a distributed approach, which eliminates the need for a central identity verification system. The verification would instead only take place locally, making it simpler to implement and radically cheaper. As supporters and critics further scrutinize the ID cards' proposed legislation, the debate continues in Parliament.     

Safety in numbers [biometric identification cards and database]

This paper discusses the UK governments plans to build a biometric database of the whole population. It outlines the technology behind biometrics, including face recognition, iris prints, and fingerprints. It explains that biometric representations are soon to be a feature of newly issued passports, perhaps driving licences, and that national ID cards are being put forward as a practical proposition.     

Listening in [electronic spying]

The author addresses the following question: are the glory days of electronic spying over-or just beginning? Rather than the creation of ever more sensitive receivers or code-breaking computers, the hot areas of cloak-and-dagger information gathering include tapping fiber-optic cables (even at the bottom of the sea); using tiny bugging devices and old fashioned bribery, blackmail, and burglary to get at data before it has been encrypted; exploiting software flaws and poorly configured communications systems to bypass data security measures; and automatically winnowing the vast amounts of intercepted communications.     

Digital dullard [electronic science tutor]

This work presents Paul Allen's latest project to build an electronic tutor called Digital Aristotle. This project begun in 2003 as a contest, dubbed Project Halo, where three sets of high-powered researchers competed to create software that could do well on a high school advanced-placement exam in chemistry, and they all succeeded. In the second phase, the three teams will build knowledge-acquisition tools that will let Ph.D. students in physics, chemistry, and biology pass on knowledge of their subject area. The software tools they construct will have to be able to turn the classroom learning into the knowledge rules that an AI machine has to have in order to pass an advanced-placement exam. If the software can answer ordinary-language science questions, it can serve as a digital tutor for students taking science classes.     

CAS 101 [electronic engineering education]

This article focuses on undergraduate electrical engineering educational philosophy, pedagogy, and curricular content. In this article I present an academic philosophy believed to bring about excellence in the undergraduate electrical engineering program. This article also offers several general suggestions for strengthening coursework in the circuits, systems, and electronics areas     

Foreign parts [electronic body implants]

Feeling threatened by cyborgs? Don't believe the hype. Researchers at the University of Southern California have simply attached some electrodes to slices of dead rat brain and are wiring them up to an external chip to see what happens. The University of Southern California team hopes that its brain implant will eventually help patients brain-damaged from stroke, epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease. But such systems may not deliver anything remotely practical for years - if ever. Retina implants that allow 'the blind to see' are another particular favourite with the press. Over the last ten years, a couple of these stories have come out A of research pioneered originally at the Johns Hopkins Eye Institute in the US. The implanted blind people have temporarily been able see points of light, shapes, and contrasts between light and dark, as long as they were encumbered with terrifying-looking Heath Robinson contraptions of gadgetry clamped to their heads. This stuff is very worthy but what we read about it can be quite misleading.     

基于智能卡的电子钱包及电子存折的设计与实现

针对电子钱包及电子存折的实际应用,基于智能卡,利用Java Card技术对卡片文件结构、交易流程、交易命令、写卡片E2PROM位置及次数等多个优化点实施优化方案,提升电子钱包及电子存折卡片的交易速度。通过行业应用开通文件的添加及复合消费的设计,实现了金融与多行业应用结合的智能卡电子钱包及电子存折应用。在Java Card应用程序体系结构卡片端完成电子钱包及电子存折应用程序的设计、开发及测试。测试结果证明,该电子钱包及电子存折在投入市场前的性能、功能等检测项均符合国家银行卡检测中心及住建部检测要求。     

Workhorses of the electronic era [microcontrollers]

A closer look at the machines and appliances almost always reveals a microcontroller within. Controllers are embedded in cordless and portable telephones, point-of-sale retail electronic cash registers, scanners of all kinds, security systems, automobiles and gas pumps, automated tellers, computers, and compact disks and disk drives, not to mention phone-answering, fax, vending, and washing machines. Here, the author describes how today's microcontrollers are performing better than ever through their use of high-level languages and multitasking techniques     

Keeping tabs on criminals [electronic monitoring]

In the United States last year, there were 1.4 million offenders in prison-twice as many as there were 10 years ago-and another four million out on parole or probation. Criminal justice costs have kept pace: they now come to some US $90 billion a year, about a third as much as the bill for national defense. Yet bulging law enforcement budgets have made little dent in crime and none, it would seem, in the fears of law-abiding taxpayers. Public safety has become the prime concern of city and suburban residents, according to many recent polls. Technology could do more in their defense, an especially hopeful area being the electronic monitoring of the movements of victimizers. Here, the authors describe how public safety could be improved and incarceration costs cut if new electronic monitoring schemes were put into effect     

Something in the air [electronic nose]

No electronic nose can match the capabilities of its human counterpart. But, as the author reports in this paper, advances in sensor technology are transforming the capabilities of the all-electric hooter     

如何编制电装装配工艺过程卡

电装装配工艺过程卡,是用于产品电装工艺全过程的工艺文件,是组织生产管理的基本文件,是各类工艺资料的集中反映,是指导工人操作和验收的依据之一;对于如何编制电装装配工艺过程卡,历来争议较多.在提出电装装配工艺过程卡编制原则的基础上,详细叙述了以"企业标准和典型工艺规范作为编制电装装配工艺过程卡的基本技术基础,以操作工人必须具备的应知应会作为电装装配工艺过程卡的编制前提,以满足研制产品和批量生产要求的电装装配工艺过程卡(亚卡)为装配工艺过程卡的管理模式"的思路.     

Techno cops [police robotic and electronic technology]

The LA. sherriff's deputy Sid Heal is creating a world-renowned test bed for police technology to combat criminals. This paper describes Heal's technology project which was started in 1997 with the emphasis on nonlethal weapons such as the taser. In 2001 the technology development project was opened up beyond nonlethal weapons to include anything useful to the bureau. He assigned a SWAT team to be his technical-assault squad. Though this squad still trains and operates just like the other SWAT teams, its members are also responsible for deploying robotics and electronics equipment as needed, and for scouting out and evaluating new products.     

Cowry shell to smart card [electronic cash]

Cash, cheque, credit card, debit card, store card-methods of payment can seem bewildering in their variety. Here, the author describes how the Mondex system of electronic cash could bring order, convenience and security to the inescapable need to pay for goods and services     

Donald O. Pederson [electronic engineering biography]

The paper presents a biography of the father of the SPICE program and driving force behind the development of IC simulation who will receive the 1998 IEEE medal of honor     

Passport to nowhere [electronic passport with biometric information]

Undue haste led the US government and the 27 countries in its visa-waiver pool to start a program to embed radio-tagged ICs in passports. These chips encode the physical characteristics of the bearer starting with the face. Its goal is to provide foolproof passport identification using a combination of biometrics and secure radio tagged ICs. The US initiative, included in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, gained overwhelming support in the US congress and among the other 27 countries. Because of foot dragging and incompatible technologies, the system could not make its planned rollout and had to be postponed for a year. It was found that electronic passports wouldn't stop terrorists from getting into the country, which means that the reason for its development was not achieved. This paper discusses the factors, which made electronic passports not a suitable solution.