In the year 2009, Credit Card Company invented a technology similar to the Octopus card. The new credit card could make a payment by scanning in front of a microchip reader machine. It was firstly occurred only in Hong Kong city, but then people found the benefits and expanded the technique into the whole world. This was the first notice that people would be paying all bills by the electric money in the future. Few years later, Credit Card Company announced the combination with the Octopus Cards Limited. The news shocked the whole Hong Kong city. Everyone thought the Octopus card would extinct, so they kept all their Octopus cards at home. There was a comparable situation in 1997, where people kept all the Queen’s Head coins (Octopus Card, 2009). Some people even lined up in front of the Mass Transit Railway (known as MTR) stations early in the morning trying to buy a collection of the last Octopus card. The new company then presented a card that included both the properties of credit card and Octopus card.

Since then, people just carried a single card on the street. Paper bills soon vanished in the world because everyone paid by the new Octocredit card. Banks stopped printing paper bills; while they started translate all their business online. But there was no requirement for any identification to access the card, so everyone could able to use others card. Therefore, many people march in groups to complain for the problem. They scared their money would be used by other parties in some days, and hopefully the company would increase the security of the card. Due to the complaint, the company nearly bankrupted, so they paid the scientists to explore the solution for the problem. After years of investigation, scientists finally invented a newly technology, the Octoprint. People could buy anything by putting their finger onto the Octoprint reader. The machines stored every single finger print’s memory since everyone has different finger print, so it is safer than using Octocredit card. The duty of keep tracking of the electric billing is left to the banks. Furthermore, this decreases the opportunity for people to defraud the revenue. It is because the government strongly forces all banks to take the taxes away from people’s accounts.

Within 50 years, the Octopus card’s evolution is rapid. The first purpose of inventing Octopus card was totally changed. This is proved that people are greed. When they have accomplished a main task, they will try to make it complete more tasks in it. First, the company presented the Octopus card for paying the transportation fee, then the cards could purchase for many consumer products. Nevertheless, the Octoprint will not be the end of the evolution because people will want to complete many tasks within less procedure.

Reference:

Octopus card. (2009, April 04). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved on April 05, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card.

Octopus Card in Contemporary Society. (2009, Feb 12). WordPress. Retrieved on April 05, 2009, from http://hahebu.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/octopus-card-in-contemporary-society/

        The Mass Transit Railway (also known as MTR) and the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) started their trains operated in Hong Kong in the late 60’s (The History, 2003). Since then, they used paper tickets first as the payment proof. At that time, people always tried to escape from paying the fee. So, there were many fake tickets appeared in the society. Then, the company invented the Common Stored Value Ticket. It had a better quality than the paper ticket because it made to be waterproof. It was a ticket card that when passengers want to get on the train then put it to the machine, where the ticket will reduce the charge from the remaining balance in the card. It is a similar idea as the octopus card. But passengers could not recharge after they used up all the money inside the card, so they need to buy another new card. People could not copy the design since the card needed to go through the machine, so it raised the difficulty for counterfeit. Its physical design was similar to the current U-pass in Vancouver. Although it allowed people paying without coins, it could not last forever.

Therefore, the company retrieved the drawback of the Common Stored Value Ticket by presenting the rechargeable contactless stored value smart card, Octopus Card. The card was like a disease that spread around Hong Kong. One of the reasons was “the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China, often referred to as the Handover, ocurred on July 1, 1997″(Transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong, 2009). The event marked the end of British rule, and the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong back to Chinese rule. As this event made lots of change in Hong Kong, one of the changes was the Queen’s Head coin. The Queen’s Head coin was remarked Hong Kong as the colony of the United Kingdom. Therefore, the People’s Republic of China replaced the Queen’s Head to the Chinese redbud. “There was a belief that the older Queen’s Head coins in Hong Kong will appreciate in value, so many people stockpiled the older coins and waited for their value to increase” (Octopus Card, 2009). This caused the Octopus card is widely used in Hong Kong now. It was because people were keeping their coins, where buying an Octopus Card could reduce the chance of using coins for daily transit. Nevertheless, the card also can “purchase for many consumer product at many stores in the territory” (Octopus Card, 2009). Therefore, nearly everyone in Hong Kong own at least one Octopus which similar owning an ID card.

At first, the Octopus Card was design only for people to purchase the MTR’s and KCR’s fares, soon the payment system passed to all public transport in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the evolution of the card had met lots of failure. Learning by the mistakes, the company knew that the old paper ticket could forge, then they invented the Common Stored Value Ticket. Unfortunately, those tickets could not last forever, so there came up with the Octopus card. It took a long time to improve the technology to become the current Octopus Card.

References

1.      Octopus card. (2009, March 16). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 17, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card.

2.      Transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong. (2009, March 14). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 18, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_sovereignty_of_Hong_Kong.

3.      The History. (2003, October 27). Hong Kong Mass Transit InfoCenter. Retrieved on March 18, 2009, from http://www.theskytrain.net/hkmtr/Past_History.htm.

wall: http://www.sfu.ca/~wtc3/p1.jpg

info: http://www.sfu.ca/~wtc3/p2.JPG

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke. (2009). Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

        In the StudioLab 3, we made up a wiki website that collected information research on a topic: crowdsourcing. This experiment worked because each group member had a different topic to research on the same idea and combined the results together on the wetpaint website. It is a proof of crowdpower effect on a wiki post. Moreover, crowdsourcing usually has more research on one topic as everyone has an individual idea of a same subject. There will have a greater breadth of data than one person has. A person might see a side of a good apple, where the other person sees the opposite side has a dark hole on it. When a topic contains more than one idea makes it clearly stated. The style may have slightly different due to different people are editing, where if a research is done by one person then the style will be remain the same. It is obvious that the structure of a sentence is different as two separate people write it at a time.

        In the old time, people could only go to a library in order to do their research. They needed to pay more time on researching materials required. Some data had taken by other people; then the research would be incomplete. Compare to now, people can sit in front of their computer and type in what they want onto the web; the computer will find all the related articles for them automatically. Information will not taken by others, although people are viewing on the same point. It is a huge difference between using wiki and using the system with other people in a same room.

         Octopus Card is a rechargeable contactless smartcard that produces by a company, the Octopus Cards Limited (OCL), in Hong Kong. It is designed for people to carry fewer coins for their public transportation fares. This is a social technology. “Each Octopus card contains a built-in microchip that stores all payment information of the cardholder” (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2007). Users just need to hold their cards against the Octopus Card Reader machine, a sensor for the microchip, and then the machine will give a beep sound which means the fare already paid. Once the cardholder used all the money inside their cards, they can always recharge them in any railway station.

The first Octopus Card was launched on Sept. 01, 1997 in Hong Kong. At first, the Octopus Cards were mostly used in the Mass Transit Railway (also known as MTR) and the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR), both are similar public transport as Skytrain in Vancouver. Within three years, the three public bus companies: the Kowloon Motor Bus Company Limited (KMB), the Citybus Limited (Citybus), and the New World First Bus Services Limited (First Bus), finished installing the Octopus system in all their buses (The Kowloon Motor Bus Company, 2003). Now the card can pay for all public transport in Hong Kong. Moreover, it can also purchase in many stores, such as, 7-Eleven, McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. And many soft drink vending machines, pay phones, photo booths, parking meters and car parks contain Octopus payment system too (Rego, 2004). The system is widely used in Hong Kong, and nearly can pay for any fee.

In 1997, there were four types of Octopus Cards came out: Child, Student, Adult, and Elder with different amounts of fare based on age. Soon, they produced a rainbow-coloured card, called Personalised, where holders could place their pictures and names on the card. Then the Student Octopus Card stopped manufacturing and replaced by the Personalised “student status”. Since the Personalised card contains personal identification, many schools in Hong Kong use it to record student attendance (Wikipedia, 2009). It helps teachers more easy to know the absent students’ names. There is one more type of card produces especially for the tourists, named Airport Express Tourist Octopus. Therefore, all passengers in Hong Kong do not need to worry about carry coins for their transport fare.

An Octopus Card is “becoming as essential as a Hong Kong residence card” (Rego, 2004). Laura Rego thought the Octopus system increased the usage of public transportation as passengers did not need to worry about the fare. Everyone has at least one Octopus card in Hong Kong, even new students. Moreover, it also advances the economic system in Hong Kong. Since many stores had the Octopus systems to purchase their product, the OCL presented a new payment system, the Electronic Payment Services (EPS), in February 2007 (Wikipedia, 2009). It is a system that automatically recharges the Octopus Card when its value reaches zero or negative. Due to the EPS system, banks got many benefits from it.

In Rego’s article, she said that “major U.S. cities should look into adopting the Octopus card or a similar program” (Rego, 2004). In many ways, the system has a positive effect towards the society. Now, many people use the Octopus card to pay most of their fee. It has similar functions as credit card, but with a smaller maximum stored value of HK$1000. If the system grows more mature in the future, there is a high probability that the octopus card will replace the credit card. As the payment is directly reduce from the bank account, and stops paying when it reaches zero. There will be less chances of overloading. Furthermore, people may only bring the card out instead of their wallet or purse.

References

1.   Legislative Council Secretariat. (2007). Operation of the Octopus Card in Hong Kong.Retrieved on Feb. 06, 2009, from http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr06-07/english/sec/library/0607in08-e.pdf.

2.      Rego, Laura. (2004, February 5). View from abroad: Hong Kong’s ‘Octopus card’ technology puts even credit card to shame. Retrieved on Feb. 11, 2009, from http://badgerherald.com/oped/2004/02/05/view_from_abroad_hon.php.

3.      The Kowloon Motor Bus Company. (2003). Development of KMB’s Octopus Payment System. Retrieved on Feb. 06, 2009, from http://www.kmb.hk/english.php?page=next&file=news/service/news3q03/news2003112701.html.

4.      Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2009, February 09). Octopus card. Retrieved on Feb. 11, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card.

I born in Toronto, but I didn’t grow up in there, I went back to Hong Kong  instead. (so I am a CBC, but not banana haha…someone might know wt it meanXDDD) Four years ago, I went to Victoria and studied in there. Now I am in Engnieering Science first year, hopefully, I can graduate from it, Amen

My favourite technology is computer actually…coz it’s amazing. I can connect to the whole world easily by click the internet explorer, reading news, watching youtube, checking ppl’s blog n knowing wt r they doing