Tag: January 2005

The World Heritage Taj Mahal, built in the 1600's by the
Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a shrine for his wife, is to
open on moonlit evenings for the first time in twenty
years. But before you get too excited, only 400
visitors will be allowed entrance each night, and there will
be parking restrictions around the Taj Mahal.

Singapore's Changi Airport has introduced immigration
kiosks that read fingerprints and facial features and double
as automated check-in counters, in a bid to cut flight
check-in times. The project, known as Fully Automated
Seamless Travel or FAST, cuts the time needed for passengers
to register for flights and check passports on arrival to
from 15 minutes or longer, two minutes.

The system, which began trials in November 2004 at Changi,
Asia's sixth-busiest airport, requires users to lodge
facial details and thumb prints as biometric data on an
identification card the size of a credit card.
Passengers insert a card into a kiosk and then look into a
camera and press their thumb onto a plate to check their
details.