首页
登录
职称英语
For years, Europeans have been using "smart cards" to pay their way through
For years, Europeans have been using "smart cards" to pay their way through
游客
2024-12-27
32
管理
问题
For years, Europeans have been using "smart cards" to pay their way through the day. They use them in shops and restaurants, plug them into pubic into telephones as and parking meters. In France smart cards cover anything from a bistro bill to a swimming -pool entry fee. In American, smart cards are not nearly so common -- only about 43,000 are now circulating in the US and Canada -- but Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass. , predicts that number will balloon to 4.7 million by the year 2002.
What is a smart card, exactly, and how does it work?
Also called a chip card because of the tiny mixcroprocessor embedded in it, a smart card looks like the other plastic in your wallet. To make things more confusing, some smart cards pull double duty as regular ATM bank cards. The difference is that when you swipe your ATM ( or debit) card at the grocery - store checkout, you’re draining cash from your bank account. Smart cards, on the other hand, are worthless unless they are "loaded with cash value", pulled directly from your bank account or traded for currency. The chip keeps track of the amounts stored and spent. The advantage, in theory, is convenience: consumers bother less with pocket change and are able to use plastic even at traditionally cash -only vendors. The electronic transaction doesn’t require a signature, a PIN number or bank approval. Downside: lose the card, lose the money.
Most people are probably more familiar with stored -value cards equipped only with a magnetic strip, such as fare card issued to riders on the Washington metro or the New York City subway. The newer chip - enhanced versions, armed with more memory and processing power, have popped up in various places in the past years or so, from college campuses to military bases to sports stadiums. Other experiments are under way. A health -care claims processor in Indianapolis, Ind. , hopes smart cards will streamline medical - bill payments. In Ohio, food - stamp recipients receive a smart card rather paper vouchers.
Smart cards issued for general commerce are rarer, unless you happen to live in a place designated for a test run, such as Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But big bank and plastic - purveying kings Visa and MasterCard are hot for the idea, promising more extensive trials and more elaborate, multipurpose cards capable of rendering everything else you carry -- plastic, paper or coin-- superfluous.
Today’s smart cards may not be revolutionizing the way we buy the morning paper yet, but they could turn out to be right tool spur Internet commerce and banking. For the time being, though, smart cards are just another way to buy stuff. And it could be a while before even that catches on. Remember: some people still don’t trust ATMs either. [br] In the sentence "A health - care claims processor in Indianapolis, Ind. , hopes smart cards will streamline medical - bill payments" ( paragraph 4 ), the word" streamline" has the meaning of ______.
选项
A、make... into a stream
B、make... flow smoothly like a line
C、make... successfully
D、make
答案
B
解析
这里的streamline用作动词,只的是使交费过程简化,像流水线作业一样。
转载请注明原文地址:http://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3887019.html
相关试题推荐
Thedesegregationwasachievedthroughanumberofstruggles,wecouldstillrem
Shopsandrestaurantshereinthecapitalremainopenthroughthenastiestsnows
Retailsalessurged23percentherethroughNovemberoflastyear,mostbecause
TheChurchofEnglandislinkedwiththestatethrough______.A、theHouseofLord
Itissaidthatitisprimarilythroughidentificationofsocialgroupsthat
Throughoutourliveswehavemanyteachers,andparentshavebeenregardeda
Foryears,Europeanshavebeenusing"smartcards"topaytheirwaythrough
Foryears,Europeanshavebeenusing"smartcards"topaytheirwaythrough
Foryears,Europeanshavebeenusing"smartcards"topaytheirwaythrough
Theconcernthroughouttheworldin1988forthosethreewhalesthatwerelo
随机试题
•Readthearticleaboutthecashbasicofaccounting.•Choosethebestwordtof
Concernedpeoplewantto______theriskofdevelopingcancer.A、takeB、decreaseC、
列出版物进销业务信息资料中的指导性资料应专题立卷、分类管理。()
如果有向图中各个顶点的度都大于2,则该图中必有回路。()
不管是什么食品,都会有一个保质期,过了这个保质期就不能再食用。然而有的时候,食品
3,5,7,11,19,( ),307。A.51 B.37 C.23 D
教育生物起源论的代表人物是( )。A、 孟禄 B、 霍尔 C、 利托尔诺
我国进口设备时,若采用装运港船上交货价方式,卖方的责任有()。A.负责租船和订舱
某企业风机产生的噪声可能导致厂界噪声超标,采用隔声罩降低厂界处噪声时,主要应考虑
背景资料: 某施工单位承接了K0+000~K48+000段二级公路路面施工,
最新回复
(
0
)