Wireless World: Smart-cards vs. RFID tags

CHICAGO, April 1 (UPI) -- Very soon, international travelers will be able to breeze through customs checkpoints using passports outfitted with contactless smart-cards, experts told UPI's Wireless World. With the new technology, travelers will present their passports to customs agents, who simply will swipe them across a card reader, just as checkout clerks run bags of potato chips over a laser scanner at a grocery store. Likewise, as part of a directive signed by President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to issue smart-card identification badges that will include digital images of fingerprints. The smart-cards, which contain wireless chips, will be inserted by the U.S. State Department into all new American passports starting later this year. They will contain up to 64 bits of memory, storing each traveler's name, date of birth, city of origin and other identifying information -- including a digital image. Because of its growth potential, major manufacturers such as Philips Semiconductors, Symbol Technologies, On Track Innovations Ltd. and others have entered the smart-card field. Though they are similar in function to radio frequency identification devices, or RFIDs, smart-card advocates are quick to point out their differences."These are passive tags," said Dave Engberg, chief technology officer at CoreStreet, a technology developer in Cambridge, Mass. "That means they don't have a power source in them. All the power comes from the induction of the magnetic field generated by the device that reads the chips." By Gene Koprowski