Tokyo going crazy for Pasmo

Less than a month after introduction, Pasmo cards completely sold out. Pasmo being new prepaid smart cards for public transportation in the Tokyo region. Click here for an introduction into Pasmo and its competitor Suica. With over a million sales in the first four days, the entire stock of 3 million open Pasmo cards was [...]

A ubiquitous society

From January through March 2007, a number of streets in the luxurious shopping quarters of Ginza in central Tokyo were plastered with thousands of RFID chips. People with a special PDA-like device could access all kinds of information by way of communicating with those chips. Where is that cute second-hand bookstore again that I can [...]

Contactless smartcards for public transportation

 
Japanese railway corporation JR East is the world’s largest people mover. The company gets 16 million people from A to B on a daily basis. As a way to increase station capacity and enhance customer convenience they introduced Suica, a prepaid IC card taking away the necessary chore of buying [...]

Getting the show on the road

 
This is it, then. The first week of work drawing to a close. High time to introduce you to the project, its scope and its partners.
What’s going on?
RFID (for Radio Frequency Identification) is a hot topic. At least, for policy makers and ICT businesses. Just in case your IT-acronyms are a little rusty: RFID is [...]