Los Angeles International Airport may allow passengers to mail themselves prohibited items

Los Angeles International Airport may allow passengers to mail themselves prohibited items that they must turn over at security checkpoints.

Airport officials say they are considering a mail-back program, in part, because of a looming ban on lighters aboard commercial aircraft. They will meet this week to discuss the possibility, according to The Daily Breeze in Torrance.

Several dozen other U.S. airports already offer a mail-back service. LAX has been hesitant to start such a service because of space and security issues, but was taking a fresh look, said Paul Haney, the airport agency's deputy executive director of communications

"We're taking a fresh look at the possibility of offering this service and hope to have a near-term decision," he said.

LAX is a prime market for the service, said Heather Lowry, co-founder and president of CheckPoint Mailers, the country's largest airport mail-back business. Currently, most passengers relinquish prohibited items to screeners rather than leave the terminals to stash them in their cars or mail the goods themselves.

"We're doing everything we can to get into (LAX)," said Lowry, whose Charlotte, N.C.-based company operates in 19 U.S. airports including those in San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose. "Fortunately, this (lighter ban) will serve as a catalyst to get us into airports where we don't have a presence."

The lighter ban went into effect March 1, but the Transportation Security Administration won't begin aggressively enforcing it until April 14.

Most passengers likely won't quibble about giving up inexpensive lighters, but some brands â?? such as Dunhills and Cartiers â?? can cost up to a few thousand dollars and some of LAX's international airlines have expressed concerns about telling passengers they must discard them, said Frank Clark, executive director of the LAX Terminal Equity, an entity that's owned by the 34 air carriers that use the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

Wireless Dynamics releases RFID read/writer SD card
Wireless Dynamics Inc. is introducing the SDiD Card, the first RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Reader/Writer SD (Secure Digital) Card in the industry. Users can now utilise their Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and Smartphones as portable RFID terminals. Applications include reading and writing RFID tags for the health-care, pharmaceutical, retail logistics, and other industries.

RFID tag information can be communicated in real-time to the enterprise database through Wi-Fi, CDMA, GSM or Bluetooth connections associated with PDAs and Smartphones. The SDiD Card allows for safe and secure product and client information storage, updates and processing.

The SDiD Card also supports Near Field Communication (NFC) technology allowing consumers to use their devices to access product and entertainment information, compare prices and perform transactions. Consumers can make contactless payments, redeem coupons and points and receive instant promotions and rewards. NFC is a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies developed by Philips and Sony. NFC enables short-range radio frequency (RF) communication between personal electronic devices. The NFC based SDiD Card allows PDA and Smartphone users to access product information or entertainment content such as pictures, music and video clips by waving their mobile devices in front of a smart poster or kiosk. Users can also exchange such information with other users through NFC or mobile connection of their devices.

Wireless Dynamics offers two SDiD Card versions, the SDiD 1010 and the SDiD 1020. The SDiD 1010 is a NFC-based SD Card supports ISO14443A standard, NFCIP-1, Philips MIFARE tag and Sony's FeliCa tag. It is ideal for contactless payment, advertising and promotional applications.

The SDiD 1020 RFID based SD Card supports ISO 15693, ISO 14443A standards, Philips I-Code SLI and Texas Instruments Tag-it HF. The SDiD 1020 can be customized for industrial, enterprise and government applications.

Both the SDiD 1010 and 1020 Cards operate in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimeters. The SDiD Card supports PDAs and Smartphones with SD Card slots and an SDIO interface based on Microsoft Pocket PC OS 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, and Palm OS 4.1.

WebTV hacker gets time
A Louisiana man who launched an e-mail virus that reprogrammed some computers to dial the 911 emergency phone number has been sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $27,000 in restitution to Microsoft authorities said.

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