On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 15:44 +1000, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: > On 15/04/2008, Marghanita da Cruz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: > > > > > On 15/04/2008, Martin Visser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > I understand your need to keep it vague, but if the data owner loses > > > > his card/token/barcode (his copy of the data) and the motorbike rider > > > > meets a grizzly end, is a whole village going to be very upset - or > > > > will regular paper bookkeeping be trusted enough as a backup. > > > > > > > > > > Nothing should be dependent upon a particular person, device or > > > storage medium. The village might be serviced by different people with > > > different laptops each time. There are lots of people fulfilling this > > > function, each with his/her area to service. The data from all these > > > people only comes together at the central office. The laptop should > > > only really be storing the data it picks up on its travels, not > > > carrying a repository of millions of account holders. > > > > This is becoming a little like a game of charades. > > Sorry about that. I'm trying to get permission to release the details. > > > But is it only one > > motorcycle borne reader/writer who accesses the card? > > There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of motorcycle-borne people, each > servicing an area within their country (this is a global effort). We > cannot assume that the same person, with the same hardware, will > always visit a settlement. > > > As ERG and the NSW government have discovered the card and reader are not > > the hard bit, but there might be some relevant information here. > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card> or here > > <http://www.erggroup.com/products/index.asp> > > It looks to me that the Octopus card still requires a connection back > to a remote server somewhere to run the transaction. It's also geared > more as an ID device rather than a data storage medium. >
Nope, it can be synchronised to the main servers later. In the case of bus travel the details from the box in the bus gets uploaded at the end of the day. T-card was working that way too. > We'd prefer to avoid proprietary hardware, and stick with commodity > solutions as much as possible. Low cost and avoidance of lock-in are > important. -- Peter Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jabber Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM Id & Yahoo Id: pjhacnau
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