CardSmith announced that it has implemented its card program management service at three continuing care retirement communities - two in North Carolina and one in Virginia, all of which are managed by United Church and Home Services.

Under the program, residents of the facilities are issued personalized cards with pre-paid spending accounts that can be used at designated point of sale kiosks across the facilities. ▸

A San Jose State University student brought an apparent glitch in the campus’ Career Center Web site to the attention when he discovered that logging in required only his student ID for the password, according to the Spartan Daily.

When visiting the site to log-in, the student read a message which instructed users to enter their student ID number as their log-in password. The Career Center’s Web site database holds an array of personal and confidential information, left by students. ▸

Blackboard unveiled its Blackboard Mobile platform in Mexico and Latin America. Now available in Spanish, Blackboard Mobile enables students to access campus services via a smartphone or Web-enabled cell phone.

The platform allows institutions to provide a mobile application for student users to access course catalogs and campus maps, e-mail professors and classmates, and receive real time updates on course schedules, campus events, news and sports directly on their mobile devices. ▸

Providence College students will soon be able to use their PC Cash, stored on their student IDs, at local participating vendors, say The Cowl, the school’s student-run newspaper.

Currently, CVS, Golden Crust, and Frankly’s Pizza have all signed contracts with Blackboard, who was contracted by the campus to implement the new payment system. ▸

The Australian government announced plans for a national student ID to track progress across schools or states, says The Sydney Morning Herald. The new system would enable student course performance to be monitored throughout the duration of their school life, as they move from school to school.

The number would be attached to the government’s My School program, which posts school’s results on the Internet. The identity of students would be covered by privacy protections, allowing access to only parents and teachers - to assess student’s strengths and weaknesses. ▸

Keene State College in New Hampshire is considering a new student ID card system that would enable students to load money on their campus cards for buying textbooks, paying for laundry and gaining access to campus facilities, reports The Equinox, the college’s student newspaper.

While there are no comments on who the college will go to for this new system, administration is surveying students, faculty and schools that already have similar card systems to determine what, if any additional functions should be under the new card system. ▸

CardKing unveiled its iPhone App, now available on the iTunes Store. The free App turns any iPhone camera into a portable bar code scanner, capturing student ID and discount bar codes into the phone for retrieval later.

Students can instantly display bar codes associated with student discount programs and campus cards to enable merchants to scan the bar code directly from the iPhone’s screen. There is also the option to manually enter membership numbers for cards without bar codes. ▸