The data on the card is tamper-proof and has sophisticated features like fingerprint or iris scanning. The manufacturer claims that the card can withstand hot water, coffee, scratches, magnetic and electric fields. They add that even a punctured card can reproduce the data since it is stored between seven optical layers. The card has a life of 40 years.

Prilissa on the prowl
There is a new virus on the prowl. Called W97M.Prilissa.A, it infects Microsoft Word 97 documents and spreads itself by sending the infected document as an e-mail attachment using MS Outlook to the first 50 addressesin each address book. The subjet line reads "Message from `username'." The text in the body of the message reads "This document is very important and you've GOT to read this.!!" The virus also checks the system date to trigger its payloads and on December 25, the following text is displayed.

"Vine..vide..vice...Moslem Power never end. You dare raise against me...the human ear is over, the cybernet era has come." Worse still, the virus overwrites the Autoexec.bat file to format the hard disk. Symantec Corp has announced that users of Norton Antivirus are automatically protected.

Bunka Orient unveils JClass Chart
Bunka Orient India has introduced JClass Chart 4.0 from KL Group of Canada. JClass Chart 4.0 gives the power to create sophisticated graphs and charts quickly and easily. It is loaded with popular business and scientific charts as well as rich text format for customising labels, or mixing images and URLs with text. Packed with interactive features and integrated with all popular JavaIDEs, it supports a vast array of data sources.