Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Valueman who wrote (2493)	4/6/1998 1:48:00 PM
From: Geoff	Respond to of 10852

"but they (Verifone) also have the best solution for internet commerce" Valuer, I would be most interested in what that best solution for internet commerce is. I am heavily involved in ecommerce, and see Verifone's solution as a good 3-5 years away -- smart cards are not big in the US (and there are no computers yet that someone can simply pop their Smart card into). They are big in Europe, but again, no computers to tap them... Partnering with HP (and Verifone) is good long term positive for C*, but there are other solutions coming as well, and credit cards and debit/atm cards are firmly entrenched in America. Verifone's dream is going to take a while to realize... don't get me wrong, I like their ideas, but things change overnight in this biz... geoff

To: Valueman who wrote (2493)	4/6/1998 5:48:00 PM
From: Dragonfly	Respond to of 10852

Valueman- I'll see your "endless possibilities" and raise you a "current need". In other words, here's an existing application that will need this technology and is in place all over the country. About 10 years ago, I attended a magnet school in the South that was working on a program to teach gifted students thruout the state using distance learning. This school, because of its budget and that it was a magnet school, had a lot of resources that rural schools didn't. The rural schools were too small to support special classes in calculous, advanced biology, visual arts, etc. Since they would often have only 20 people in the four classes (these are high schools) students would be held back by the lack of advanced courses. So, they set up a television learning system whereby a teacher would sit in front of a video camera with a tablet, and the students would watch the teacher on TV, and have their own tablet. One teacher could teach large classes made up of students that were spread around the state, and they could interact using this whiteboard tablet application. With cyberstar, this same application could be done withe full duplex video and audio, and at about 1/200th the cost of the system I saw... the key is being able to have a sat data uplink. Even to GEO sats, this will work very well for an educational system, and I cannot think of a single state in the union, except maybe rhode island, that could not need such a system. If you add college level education its amazing how much this could be used-- satellite campuses would consist of just some rooms and a dish, and eliminate a lot of the driving teachers are now doing and greatly broaden the courses that can be economically taught by high schools, colleges and universities in small towns. I read thru the cyberstar partnership agreement. I just wish they had said when they were going to have an initial public offering. For G* didn't the IPO occur a number of years before launching the first of the LEO sats? If they followed the same pattern, shouldn't they be raising money this year to support the building of the LEO segment of C*? Dragonfly

To: Valueman who wrote (2493)	4/7/1998 9:44:00 AM
From: Geoff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

One more thing about Smart Card technology -- in this week's issue of Internet World, a study is cited from Forrester Research, a top notch Internet market research firm, that expects 903,000 Smart Cards will be issued in the US and Canada for all applications in 1999, 1.2 million in 2000, 2.3 million in 2001, and 4.7 million in 2002. There is still some time before Smart Cards become a reality, but I agree with the article in IW, that Smart Cards will become a widely accepted standard in e-commerce. geoff