News | March 29, 2011

ACS Introduces ACR122L VisualVantage NFC Reader

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The new ACR122L VisualVantage is ACS's first NFC Reader to feature an LCD for rich user interaction in many contactless applications. Developed based on ISO 14443 RFID and ISO 18092, ACR122L supports a variety of contactless and NFC cards and tags.

Advanced Card Systems Ltd. (ACS, wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Card Systems Holdings Ltd., SEHK: 8210), Asia Pacific's top supplier and one of the world's top 3 suppliers of PC-linked smart card readers, introduces its first LCD-equipped Near Field Communication (NFC) reader—the ACR122L VisualVantage—which features a wide range of interfacing options for many contactless applications..

NFC has increasingly gained popularity in recent years, with e-Passport and mass transit projects being its key drivers (Frost & Sullivan, August 2010). Barriers caused by the lack of infrastructure supporting NFC have nearly been removed, in view of the release of innovative products like NFC phones from leading handset developers, looming to unlock the boundless possibilities NFC applications offer. With a number of NFC commercial roll outs now in full swing, including the major European NFC city pilot in France that began in May last year, the promising outlook on the wide acceptance for NFC technology across the globe is finally coming to fruition. In response to this optimistic development, ACS has developed and launched commercially its new ACR122L with LCD specifically for e-payment applications with NFC phones or other NFC devices.

"As one of the pioneer developers of NFC readers, we are proud to add ACR122L to our revolutionary line of contactless readers, ACR122 Series, which includes the world's first CCID-compliant NFC and FeliCa card reader," said Mr. Gilbert Leung, ACS's Sales Director. "ACR122L provides users with the advantage of having an LCD, a visual guide on the contactless operations they are performing. Ultimately, it presents a more interactive experience for the users and caters for a wide variety of applications where such an advantage is important."

ACR122L was developed based on the ISO 14443 RFID and ISO 18092 NFC technologies, and supports ISO 14443 Type A and B cards, Mifare cards, FeliCa card, other NFC tags, and all three NFC modes, namely, reader/writer, card emulation and peer-to-peer. With its anti-collision and selective card polling features, it ensures smooth contactless operations by only communicating with the correct card, even when multiple cards are presented. It also has 3 ISO 7816-compliant SAM slots for enhanced security. Furthermore, besides its 2-line graphic LCD, the ACR122L also features multiple language support, 4 LEDs and buzzer capabilities, fully demonstrating its versatile interfacing options.

ACR122L comes with a Software Development Kit (SDK) to facilitate development of various applications, including applications for payments, customer loyalty programs, public transportation, and network and physical access control. The SDK includes sample codes, tools and utilities, and application demos simulating payment and loyalty applications.

Learn more about ACR122L at http://acs.com.hk/index.php?pid=product&prod_sections=0& ....

About ACS
Advanced Card Systems Ltd. (ACS, wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Card Systems Holdings Ltd., SEHK: 8210), founded in 1995, is Asia Pacific's top supplier and one of the world's top 3 suppliers of PC-linked smart card readers, as well as the winner of the Product Quality Leadership Award for Smart Card Readers from Frost & Sullivan. One of the companies on Forbes Asia's 2010 "Best Under a Billion" list, a prestigious list of 200 top-performing companies with sales between US$5M and US$1B, selected from 12,930 publicly listed firms in Asia Pacific, ACS develops a wide range of high quality smart card reading/writing devices, smart cards and related products and distributes them to over 100 countries worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.acs.com.hk/.

SOURCE: Advanced Card Systems Ltd.