Activities

Provision of secure transaction systems and services to the international banking, telphony, retail, and security markets, using a range of smart and magnetic card solutions

In the recent Agm the chairman said "the company has made a positive start to the financial year and the board remains optimistic about prospects for the business."

Pre-tax losses have also nearly halved from 6.4 mln to a loss of 3.4 mln on cost cutting. They have also had a successful fund raising.

Also chart indicators show that it may be time for the next leg upwards past recent resistance at 7.5p. and please remember you are responsible for the timing of your own buying and selling actions.




gf.

how long can even this low price hold when it's sell..sell..sell ;-/

nice bit o'blue expected red few trades for days mainly sells hope it trigers some positive trades ;O)

Might have something to do with the chip & pin adverts on TV.

mourning to ?no one visits here anymore slip slipping away new bottom how much further ????????????? !

Loosing heavy on these Douggie but medium/long term looking good

;o/ ?? !

IDD must be a bargain buy @ 3.25! watch this space, getting ready for a top up. goal.

Copy of post on ADVFN

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Gazzzz - 19 Sep'04 - 17:42 - 1158 of 1159


Interesting stock this one. Although I don't have any IDD been watching it for a while now.

Talking to the chartists on the Faraj thread, there is a clear divergence emerging between price falling and macd rising. This is quite beneficial to the stock as it means it is gathering momentum despite the price drops ie. it is likely the stock will move upwards very quickly - sooner rather than later.

Thought I'd share, G.
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Had this one on my monitor for about 9 months and had sort of forgotten about it until today. MMs have pushed up the price to entice some sellers by the look of it, and succeeded to a small degree, (nearly 1 mil sells). It makes you wonder why they want them? Although there is a positive divergence on the MACD histogram, (and it is the most reliable of MACD signals), but would also be looking for this to be backed up by a Moving Average Crossover, and then a Centre Line Crossover, neither of which are there just yet. Interesting all the same though when you take into account that the results recently issued are in the price, Director buying, MACD, and MM activity. Might be worth a dabble sooner than later. DYOR etc etc.

Regards

PTH

Sun Plans To Transform Java Card

In the biggest change to Java Card since the popular smart card platform was launched eight years ago, Sun Microsystems and the Java Card Forum plan a complete overhaul of the software, Card Technology has learned.


This next generation Java Card will represent a sharp departure from the past, making Java Card more like Suns Java platforms running on mobile handsets and PCs. Smart cards would become much more integrated into the IT family of devices, speaking, for example, the Internet language of PCs and that of third-generation handsets that will take advantage of new high-speed mobile networks.


The implications for Java Card issuers are huge, both in what they would be able to do with smart cards and in the potential for problems with backward compatibility.


Its really clear, backwards compatibility is a very, very important issue for the card-issuing community, and anything we do going forward is going to have the backwards compatibility that the card issuers rely on, assures Peter Cattaneo, director of Suns Java Card business.


But he and other backers of the new Java Card acknowledge that, while a high priority, backward compatibility is not a sure thing.


That could mean card issuers, such as mobile network operators and government agencies, would have to maintain two Java Card infrastructuresone using the current 2.X series and the other the more advanced version, dubbed Java Card.Next.

Sun and many of the members of the Java Card Forum, which represent some of the more than 50 licensees of the software platform, seem to think that unlikely but troubling possibility is more than offset by the benefits of completely revamping the platform. They recently decided to move forward from the concept phase to writing the specifications, which they hope to finish by late 2005.


The decision to remake Java Card mirrors broader development work going on in the industry to give smart cards more in common with other IT devices. At present, most smart cards speak a unique language, known generally as the 7816 protocol, named for the ISO standard that governs the underlying technology for all contact smart cards. The protocol is at least 15 years old.


The smart card is a little island in an ocean of IT, and why it is so different from the rest of the mainstream? asks Marc Kekicheff, technical director for smart card consortium GlobalPlatform and vice president for emerging technology at Visa International. The smart card 7816 is a very bizarre communication protocol. It was invented because of limitations of the technology at the time.


Backers of the new Java Card say the revamped platform would allow issuers to take full advantage of larger, more powerful smart card chips available or expected on the market over the next few years. It would continue to allow issuers to buy their cards and applications from multiple vendors. But it would offer more of a full Java, instead of a shrunk-down version of the platform for smart cards.


Issuers could run multiple applications at a time or load megabyte multimedia files onto the card all at once. Smart cards could be plugged directly into PCs or cell phones, without loading extra software onto the devices, as is now required.


For example, smart cards could authenticate a consumer to download or copy a Java game to his handset. This is possible now, but handset makers have to load a special application programming interface onto their devices to enable the SIM to communicate directly with the Java-based handset applications.


In addition, smart cards could digitally sign transactions on PCs or authenticate a customer for voice-over-Internet protocol service, as is also possible now. But no software drivers or special translators for the smart card protocol would be required on the PC. In fact, the card and PC need not even be at the same location because the smart card or chip token could become just another point on the Internet.


The first next-generation Java products could be on the market by 2007, says Simon Reed, director of applications and technology for Germany-based card vendor Orga Kartensysteme, and a representative to the Java Card Forum. The group helps maintain the Java Card specifications and recommends changes to Sun, which has final say.


By 2007, 3G handsets and networks will have been operating for some years, and so will wireless local area networks, which enable users of portable computers to get broadband Internet access on the go, notes Reed. And more handsets will be equipped to run the Internet protocol TCP/IP. If the smart card industry does nothing, it will find itself out in the cold, he contends. The smart card technology will become much closer to IT technology, and we shouldnt be frightened of that.


But Sun and the Java Card Forum will likely get resistance to the move from some card issuers, especially bankers. Bankers take a relatively long time to certify the security of their new smart card platforms and, therefore, dont like the standards to change too often.


Many mobile network operators would welcome the change in order to take advantage of the extra functionality the next-generation cards would offer They could, for example, authenticate a customer to download a piece of music onto his handset using a cryptographic key stored and processed on the tamper-resistant SIM, while charging him from a SIM-based payment application at the same timeall the while allowing the customer to talk on his handset.


But many operators might change their tune if the next generation Java Card is not backward compatible with todays generation. To date, more than 600 million smart cards have been issued running Java Card, most of them by mobile network operators.


Backers of the next generation Java Card say they could support the 7816 protocol on the same card that runs, say, TCP/IP or other popular protocols. Moreover, the position of the contacts on the chip and other physical dimensions governed by ISO 7816 would not change, they say.


If Sun and JCF find it unfeasible to keep the 7816 protocol in the next generation, its always possible they would abandon that effort. After all, Suns Cattaneo says the current generation of Java cards can do many of the things the next generation would do. The new platform would just make things easier, faster, better.

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One vendor, United Kingdom-based ID Data, says the talk of a new generation Java Card is creating uncertainty in the market. ID Data owns Origin-J, which it says offers a full Java smart card platform today, complete with multithreading, or the ability to run several applications at the same time. A major smart card chip manufacturer has agreed in substance to license the platform in order to sell directly to card issuers, bypassing the major card vendors, says Origin-J sales director Terence Warmbier. He declined to name the chip maker.
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We see it very much as a big opportunity, he says. While Java Card is undecided, we have a product we can roll out.


Suns Cattaneo scoffs at the challenge from ID Data, which has few if any Origin-J cards in the field. I cant comment on things that are not real, he says, adding that the future of Java Card is not uncertain. Were going to do Java Card.Next the same way we did Java Card; were going to work with all of our partners in the industry.


Given Suns desire to bring Java Card in line with its other Java platforms, such as J2ME for mobile handsets and J2SE for desktops, and the gathering momentum in the smart card industry for bringing smart cards more firmly into the IT world, issuers should expect big changes ahead for Java Card. o

Dan Balaban


This story is reprinted from the September edition of Card Technology released today.


(2004-09-20)
http://www.cardtechnology.com/cgi-bin/readstory.pl?story=20040920CTDN045.xml

Good post azhar.goal.

;o(..........still only sliping away

Anyone any idea why these are crashing down today???????????? :-{{{{

I wish i knew Doug.. I was hoping these will start to shine soon !!

could it be linked to report posted on RTD thread?? huge no's geting lost in post, and other theft
could this be a problem for card producers? or advantage as more to make I don;t know but fear more a problem, seems posible cause of loss of share value

;-{ !!! red again

;-) nice bit of blue

Yes I still have high hopes for Idd.goal.

Up 15.79% nice.

Up 21% on low volume, but hey.