The Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless smart card used in an electronic payment system in Hong Kong. Originally launched in September 1997 as a fare collection system for the city's mass transit systems, it has grown into a widely used electronic cash system for convenience stores, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, parking garages and other point-of-sale applications, as well as to control access in offices, schools and apartments. Using a card simply involves tapping it against an Octopus reader, and recharging can be done with cash at add-value machines, or via directly debiting credit cards and bank accounts. Octopus has become one of the world's most successful electronic cash systems, with over 12 million Octopus cards in circulation (nearly twice that of Hong Kong's population) and over eight million transactions per day, with nearly 300 service vendors. The operator of the Octopus system, Octopus Cards Limited, a joint venture between MTR Corporation and other transport companies in Hong Kong, has won a number of contracts to extend Octopus-style systems to the Netherlands and Changsha.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

874: The bones of Saint Nicephorus were interred in Constantinople. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicephorus)

1639: New College in Cambridge, Massachusetts was renamed Harvard College, after its first principal donor, John Harvard. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University)

1781: William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_%28planet%29)

1881: Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in a Nihilist plot by Ignacy Hryniewiecki. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia)

1954: Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap unleashed a massive artillery barrage on the French military to begin the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the final battle in the First Indochina War. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others." -- Joseph Priestley (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley)