In today''s world, smart cards play an increasingly important role in everyday life. We encounter them as credit cards, loyalty cards, electronic purses, health cards, and as secure tokens for authentication or digital signature. Their small size and the compatibility of their form with the magnetic stripe card make them ideal carriers of personal information such as secret keys, passwords, customization profiles, and medical emergency information. This book provides a guide for the rapid development of smart card applications using Java and the OpenCard Framework. It gives you the basic information you need about smart cards and how they work. It shows in detail how to develop applications that use smart cards by guiding you through examples step by step. A smart card provided with the book will help you to quickly get some first hands-on experience.