The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless smart card used in an
electronic payment system in Hong Kong. Originally launched in
September 1997 as a fare collection system for the city's mass transit
systems, it has grown into a widely used electronic cash system for
convenience stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, parking
garages and other point-of-sale applications, as well as to control
access in offices, schools and apartments. Using a card simply
involves tapping it against an Octopus reader, and recharging can be
done with cash at add-value machines, or via directly debiting credit
cards and bank accounts. Octopus has become one of the world's most
successful electronic cash systems, with over 12 million Octopus cards
in circulation (nearly twice that of Hong Kong's population) and over
eight million transactions per day, with nearly 300 service vendors.
The operator of the Octopus system, Octopus Cards Limited, a joint
venture between MTR Corporation and other transport companies in Hong
Kong, has won a number of contracts to extend Octopus-style systems to
the Netherlands and Changsha.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card
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Today's selected anniversaries:
874:
The bones of Saint Nicephorus were interred in Constantinople.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicephorus)
1639:
New College in Cambridge, Massachusetts was renamed Harvard College,
after its first principal donor, John Harvard.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University)
1781:
William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_%28planet%29)
1881:
Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in a Nihilist plot by
Ignacy Hryniewiecki.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia)
1954:
Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap unleashed a massive artillery
barrage on the French military to begin the Battle of Dien Bien Phu,
the final battle in the First Indochina War.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen
both my admiration, and my contempt, of others." -- Joseph Priestley
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley)