Using NXP TapLinx SDK with SpringCard PC/SC couplers

NXP TapLinx SDK (formerly Mifare SDK) is an high-level sofware library provided by NXP to work with their Mifare, Desfire, NTAG and ICode products.

Written in Java, the TapLinx library has been initially developed for Android, running over Android’s NfcAdapter object to communicate with the contactless cards or NFC tags through the tablet’s or smartphone’s integrated NFC interface.

Recently, the library has been ported to the standard JDK, making it usable in any Java desktop applications thanks to the JRE available on Windows, macOs, Linux, and more. In desktop applications, the TapLinx library relies on the system’s PC/SC stack (javax.smartcardio API in Java) to access the contactless cards or NFC tags through a standard-compliant PC/SC coupler.

This makes TapLinx an interesting solution for developers of desktop applications that have to process NXP cards or tags. This article shows how-to get started with this SDK, in the aim of using it together with SpringCard devices.

Read more

Using SCardControl under Linux and from a Java program

SCardControl is the PC/SC function that makes it possible for the application to invoke ‘proprietary’ functions, implemented either in the PC/SC reader itself (CSB6, Prox’N’Roll PC/SC, EasyFinger or CrazyWriter) , or in its driver running on the PC, or in the PC/SC middleware. The prototype is: LONG SCardControl( SCARDHANDLE hCard, DWORD dwControlCode, LPCVOID lpInBuffer, DWORD nInBufferSize, LPVOID lpOutBuffer, DWORD nOutBufferSize, LPDWORD … Read more

SpringCard and Effitic ready for ‘at-home’ card-based services

Effitic, a french software engineering company, has set up a working demo that demonstrates how public transportation cards could be reloaded at home thanks to SpringCard’s contactless readers. In this architecture, all the business logic and the security components (SAM or HSM) are centralised in Effitic’s back-office server. A lightweight Java applet runs in a … Read more