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THERE'S AN ATM IN YOUR HOME COMPUTERTHE U.S. LAGS WAY BEHIND Europe and Japan in the use of smart cards--credit cards with embedded chips. The chip functions as an electronic purse, disbursing digital money to pay for phone calls, parking-meter time, bus fares, and retail purchases--all applications that will be tested in the U.S. this year. Fischer International Systems Corp. has come up with a gadget that may catch Americans' fancy and hasten the spread of smart-card use: a portable device that allows the cards to be plugged into any PC. Fischer's Smarty resembles an ordinary 3.5-inch floppy--but with a slot for a smart card. Slip one in, pop the Smarty into a floppy drive, and your PC becomes a bank. There's no need to visit your local branch to add more cash to the card--just download some money from your checking account. Or transmit funds to cover the cost of an online purchase. With Smarty, ''your home computer becomes a home ATM,'' says Arthur C. Burton, vice-president of sales at the Naples (Fla.) company. The product is being introduced at $55 in Europe and Asia, where Fischer International expects to sell several hundred thousand units this year. But the price will drop below $40 before yearend, Burton predicts. So U.S. consumers will get a bargain when the Smarty comes home.
EDITED BY OTIS PORT
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Updated June 15, 1997 by bwwebmaster
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