| Microsoft chairman Bill Gates recently called on vendors to help boost secure e-commerce by mobilizing to reduce the cost of smart cards and biometrics technologies.
The proliferation of smart cards would eliminate the use of weak passwords and help spur the wide spread acceptance of public key infrastructure (PKI), Gates said.
“The dominant (future authentication) approach will be physical possession of a smart card or smart card plus password,” Gates said at the Networld + Interop conference. To speed up acceptance of smart-card hardware PC vendors must speed up integration of smart-card readers into their systems while software vendors integrate the cards with authentication technology. | 
