RSSSony to Supply Advanced Student ID Cards
By Tim Conneally | Published November 7, 2007, 8:02 PM
Blackboard Communications Systems announced Wednesday that it would be partnering with Sony to begin developing contactless identity card systems in the U.S. Blackboard designs "one-card" systems for campus transactions, bridging financial, data, access, and authentication systems into a single "network transaction environment."
The company's swipe-able card systems are in place in many academic institutions across the globe. By partnering with Sony, and utilizing its successful FeliCa system, Blackboard systems will be able to produce student identifications that work like SpeedPass and EZPay.
FeliCa works on the industry standard Near Field Communication (NFC) protocol, which has been successfully integrated with door access readers, point-of-sale terminals, cell phones, as well as other attended and unattended devices. And not just Sony devices either: mass transit systems in Japan, China, Thailand, India, The Phillipines, and Hong Kong all utilize FeliCa chips in various capacities for fares and ticketing.
In addition to protected financial transactions, a contactless identification card system is able to take student attendance, and grant them access only to approved areas.
With headlines of school shootings becoming an almost weekly occurence, on-campus security measures have become a major concern for students, parents and faculty in American learning institutions. The need for an efficient emergency announcement system and an effective means to remotely "lock down" a campus were especially apparent after the Virginia Tech shootings in April.
If Sony's FeliCa technology is placed in students' phones, like the "Osaifu-Keitai" marketed by NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile in Japan, students could start using the Blackboard system not only as a key, identification and credit card, but also as a system to send SMS updates to all students in the event of an emergency lockdown, or on a more positive note, for a snow day.
instead of wasting money on such system y not keep a track on all the students. see/find if they r mentally healthy or not, r they under any pressure etc etc...
I feel thankfull m not in so called developed world where guns roam round in universities.
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Clearly, you "r" not currently near any college. I am. I get e-mails every week from the school asking me to take some survey about college life; what I like, what I don't like, what food I want in the food court, what resources I've found useful, what I'd like to have that they don't already provide, etc.
Plus there's about 20 different seminars/conferences/whatever you want to call them every day about coping with college life, social life, current issues, etc.
If anyone's messed up, it's not because they didn't have any help available to them - at least not here - and I'm not exactly at the largest school in the state either (actually the smallest university in our state).
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God you lot really are embarrassing.
A load of spotty crybabies it seems.
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That is funny coming from you.
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No card will keep you safe. No system will react to a gunman. This is fearmongering.
Students, who are often the murderers, would have lots of access all the same.
Besides, it's a Sony. It will malfunction at the crucial moment anyhow.
Don't give up your privacy, people! You never get it back once its gone!!
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"Besides, it's a Sony. It will malfunction at the crucial moment anyhow."
I think you have Sony mixed up with M$. IF M$ was doing it, your statement would be true. Look at the failure rate of the 360, how unstable Windows is, etc...
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Your pathetic.
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You misspelled "you're."
/grammar police
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Hello Pit$ingo.
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I would think that students are going to love these.....
After all, they will come with a free "root" kit :)
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As a student at a University, I, for one, wouldn't mind this kind of system. My college already has so many tracking systems in place to monitor "everything" as some would put it, but they hardly use them. That's because they simply don't have the manpower or resources to actually look at all the information and use/abuse/misuse it. IMO, having a system like this in place would not be a breach of privacy, because it would never be used unless there was an emergency, which - amazingly - is exactly what it's for.
To be honest, I would much rather have this kind of tracking thing be automatic - as described - than the intrusive, inconvenient systems in place now. It's really annoying how long I have to wait in line because someone doesn't know how to swipe their card to get through a turnstyle.
I realize not every school is like mine, but seriously, who would have the time or even the desire to "invade" someone's privacy? What would they have to gain from knowing that I stayed out all night playing Smash Bros. at my friend's dorm?
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Meet my new Big Brother, Sony.
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The new cards will contain built in DRM which will hide files and folders on the host system beginning with a consonant in the English alphabet. This is designed as a way to protect the user from potential virii and hacks found to reside in files which contain consonants in their names.
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Yeah, but will they burst into flames?
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Yes, and thats an intended feature. If the card thinks its been compromised, it bursts into flames to ensure it is destroyed to prevent unauthorized disclosure.
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This message will self destruct in 5 seconds....
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There's going to be a security update to address the bursting into flames as well as the well known backdoor of using all vowels to exploit the students.
They're going to make the cards explode now into fragments in a 10 yard radius, and the system now also deletes all information that has either consonants OR vowels, numbers, and any special characters, as well as updates for pictographic asian languages.
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The card will also cost about $900 to manufacture but Sony will sell it for only $599 because it has a Blu-Ray in it. But they took out the Emotion Engine to save money so you can't play PS2 games on it. You have to buy a PS2 'Bolt-On' for that.
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