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A secure credit card having daily changing security number is disclosed. The upper half portion of the secure credit card has a magnet strip and its thickness is same as a normal credit card, so it can be read by a credit-card reader. The bottom half portion of the secure credit card contains a processor, key or keypad, battery, display window and a program download port. The processor is loaded with a predetermined program so that the processor can generate date and a daily renewed security number that can be shown on the display window. The security number is the function of the date and their relationship is defined by the predetermined program. Giving a date, a corresponding security number can be generated by this predetermined program. The computer of the credit card company keeps this predetermined program and can compute the security number of the date by this predetermined program. The security number of the date computed by the credit card company is identical to the security number of the date shown on the display window of the secure credit card. So that the valid of the credit card and its transaction can be verified by the credit card company based on the cardholder's name, card number and the security number of the date. With this secure credit card, the credit card payment becomes very secure even through internet.

A system and method to help maintain quality control and reduce cannibalization of accessories and attached probes in a highly sensitive patient monitor, such as a pulse oximetry system. One or more attached components may have information elements designed to designate what quality control mechanisms a patient monitor should look to find on that or another component or designate other components with which the one component may properly work. In a further embodiment, such information elements may also include data indicating the appropriate life of the component.

Contact structures exhibiting resilience or compliance for a variety of electronic components are formed by bonding a free end of a wire to a substrate, configuring the wire into a wire stem having a springable shape, severing the wire stem, and overcoating the wire stem with at least one layer of a material chosen primarily for its structural (resiliency, compliance) characteristics. A variety of techniques for configuring, severing, and overcoating the wire stem are disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, a free end of a wire stem is bonded to a contact area on a substrate, the wire stem is configured to have a springable shape, the wire stem is severed to be free-standing by an electrical discharge, and the free-standing wire stem is overcoated by plating. A variety of materials for the wire stem (which serves as a falsework) and for the overcoat (which serves as a superstructure over the falsework) are disclosed. Various techniques are described for mounting the contact structures to a variety of electronic components (e.g., semiconductor wafers and dies, semiconductor packages, interposers, interconnect substrates, etc.), and various process sequences are described. The resilient contact structures described herein are ideal for making a "temporary" (probe) connections to an electronic component such as a semiconductor die, for burn-in and functional testing. The self-same resilient contact structures can be used for subsequent permanent mounting of the electronic component, such as by soldering to a printed circuit board (PCB). An irregular topography can be created on or imparted to the tip of the contact structure to enhance its ability to interconnect resiliently with another electronic component. Among the numerous advantages of the present invention is the great facility with which the tips of a plurality of contact structures can be made to be coplanar with one another. Other techniques and embodiments, such as wherein the falsework wirestem protrudes beyond an end of the superstructure, or is melted down, and wherein multiple free-standing resilient contact structures can be fabricated from loops, are described.

Improved techniques for enhancing, associating, and linking various sources of metadata for music files, to allow integration of commercially generated metadata with user-entered metadata, and to ensure that metadata provided to the user is of the highest quality and accuracy available, even when the metadata comes from disparate sources having different levels of credibility. The invention further provides improved techniques for identifying approximate matches when querying metadata databases, and also provides improved techniques for accepting user submissions of metadata, for categorizing user submissions according to relative credibility, and for integrating user submissions with existing metadata.

Improved techniques for modifying a playback rate of an audio item (e.g., an audio stream) are disclosed. As a result, the audio item can be played back faster or slower than normal. The improved techniques are resource efficient and well suited for audio items containing speech. The resource efficiency of the improved techniques make them well suited for use with portable media devices, such as portable media players.

Improved techniques for performing accelerated video presentation on a media device are disclosed. The improved techniques enable smooth, uniform accelerated video presentation by displaying key frames from a video file in a periodic fashion. The rate and direction of accelerated video presentation can be controlled. The improved techniques are well suited for use with portable media devices.

Improved techniques for rendering a peripheral device removable (e.g., unpluggable) are disclosed. According to one aspect of the invention, the peripheral device is rendered removable from a host computer without preparatory user actions. In effect, the peripheral device can be automatically prepared for removal in the event that its user removes (unplugs) it from its host computer. According to another aspect of the invention, the peripheral device includes a data storage device that is mounted to a file system of the other computer when the other computer desires access to the data storage device. Otherwise, the data storage device is normally unmounted so that if the peripheral device were to be removed (e.g., unplugged) no harm or damage to data stored therein would occur. These aspects of the invention can be utilized alone or in combination with one another. The invention is particularly well suited for peripheral devices that are media players which are “hot” unpluggable without detrimental consequences.