Olivier Diebold plans on opening the first Mac only Cybercafé in Lima, Peru. But he has a problem.
“In order to be competitive with the PC based Cybercafés, I want to implement a technology that no one has here yet: Smart Card technology,” he told MacCentral.
On July 9, 1999, MacCentral reported that La Poste (the French postal service) has instituted a program to bring the Internet to its customers. What’s more, it has installed an iMac in each of 1,000 post offices throughout the country.
La Poste sells a card that is like a phone card but allows its owner to have access to his personal e-mail account and keeps track of time spent online. The iMacs have a card reader attached. The iMacs also have an internal system backup that can be restored if the primary one fails.
This is the type of thing Diebold says he needs. But he’s having trouble finding a solution.
“I was at the last Macworld Expo and spoke with some people at Apple,” he said. “They told the technology was there but hasn’t been implemented yet. I even spoke with the person who supposedly is in charge of Smart Card technology, but he failed to mention the La Poste case. I have searched the net for more information, such as which company implemented this but so far, I had no luck.
If anything can help Diebold, drop him an e-mail. And MacCentral will keep you updated on how this plans for a Mac Cybercafe progress.