Users of the Blackboard Commerce Suite now have available two new point-of-sale registers from NCR featuring large touch screen monitors and more memory that will lower campus transaction time. By eliminating the need for ancillary equipment, the new embedded technology in the NCR devices will also help to conserve valuable counter space at the point of sale. 

Aiming to strengthen its end-user focus, Fargo Electronics has hired Dr. Glenn Bottomly as director of product marketing for ID software and systems. He comes from Lifetouch Publishing, where he served in various positions including marketing, manufacturing and management. He also holds a patent for the development of proprietary publishing software. 

Leading payments processor, Heartland Payment Systems, joins the ranks of campus card providers

By Andy Williams, Contributing Editor

Contactless technology is coming to the 8,600-student strong Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. But it won’t be a card. It’s coming via cell phone, thanks to a small tag not much bigger than a postage stamp.

When Slippery Rock’s students arrive for classes this fall, they’ll be greeted with a new campus card and an accompanying 13.56MHz contactless token designed to stick to the back of any cell phone. 

If you want your incoming freshmen and other new students to learn how to use their new campus card, manuals and brochures won’t cut it anymore. Today’s students don’t bother with them. The next choice is perhaps a workshop during orientation. But that will be crammed with students with other things on their minds: What classes will I get? Where’s the cafeteria? Plus, if they have a question about the campus card, it might be difficult to ask in a room full of his peers. There’s a third option: Create a hands-on style webinar that students and their parents can access at their leisure. 

Identification, NFC, contactless and Japan will all be major focal points during the 22nd edition of CARTES, coming your way Nov. 15-17 in Paris at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre near Roissy Charles de Gaulle international airport.

One of the major changes this year, according to CARTES Communication Director Hélène Tsounguy, is the coming of age of CARTES’ IDentification, which has been somewhat of a CARTES stepchild since its introduction in 2005. Then, it was an area dedicated to secure technologies. This year, it “takes its independence as a true exhibition near CARTES,” she said. 

NACCU is accepting proposals for next year’s Annual Conference presentations. If you are interested in speaking at the 15th anniversary event in Las Vegas April 6-9, start your planning now.

Educational tracks include Beginners, Business, Marketing and Innovations, Technology, Security, and Gold (for corporate members only). 

USA Technologies has begun offering its cashless payment technology to customers of the Blackboard Commerce Suite™ to allow students to make cashless payments at campus vending machines. The cashless technology will be embedded in Blackboard’s FlexVend reader and supports a suite of both wired and wireless applications that enable transactions on-campus and off-campus. The new FlexVend readers allow students to pay for products from vending machines with their Blackboard campus card, all major credit cards, as well as contactless payment systems, such as MasterCard’s PayPass.