Now here's a practical smart card application

This is only peripherally connected with payments and I can't decide whether it's fun or silly. In any case it comes from Trendwatching which is the sort of website marketing types spend a lot of time surfing.

>"the Nespresso Chipcard (which stores coffee preferences for registered individuals, and when inserted into a vending machine, communicates with a central database to brew a personalised cup of coffee)."

One wonders about the need for a central database though, given it's a smart card...

Comments

[Paul Guthrie]

They used to have a similar thing at MIT's media lab... a RFID tag on the bottom of a mug with preferences, tied in to a little system that read the tag when the mug was put under a high-end Saeco expresso machine (which happens to come with a serial port) and starts the machine up with your preferences.

Thankfully no servers involved or records kept!

[davebirch]

Is it some sort of Department of Health thing? Perhaps if you order one too many lattes, a health visitor will pop round to lecture you on the dangers of caffeine.