Smart card readers

A smart card reader is an electronic device the reads smart cards. Smart cards are often used to store data on them which can be accessible by a computor with a reader. Keyboards,laptops and plenty of other hardware imput devices may contain smart card readers.

Microphones

A sound or voice recording imput device.

magnetic stripe readers

A magnetic stripe reader is another input hardware device capable of reading information encoded on a magnetic bar or "stripe" present on the back of a plastic card or badge.

Bar code scanners

A barcode reader, also known as a barcode scanner, is an electronic device capable of reading printed barcodes on different objects. It operates simply by pointing the light source which is a scanner at the black and white barcode. That sends an inscribed message to the computer it is linked to.

radio tag

A radio tag is the piece of hardwair that is detected through radio frequency identification by a device, that serves as a terminal, capable of detecting this tag using signals. It is similar to a sticker and is placed on objects that need tracking.

radio frequency identification (RFID)

Radio frequency identification functions through machine that communicates via electromagnetic signals to exchange data between its terminal and an electronic tag placed on an object. The porpose of this is to identify and track these tags.

magnetic ink character recognition (MICR)

Magnetic ink character recognition is yet another form of character recognition. This process functions by  a machine capable of reading a specific type of ink. The scanner is then able to process what it scanned into chracters. For well printed MICR documents, the "character not recognised" rate is usually less than 1% while the substitution rate of a character is in the order of 1 per 100,000 characters.

Optical character recognition (OCR)

Optical character recognition is the scanning of images and 'handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine encoded text' according to wikipedia. Functioning similarly to an OMR, optical character reading devices are more develloped.

Optical mark recognition (OMR)

An optical mark recognition device contains a scanner that shines a beam of light on a form or paper. This scanner is capable of recognizing certain marks or patterns at predetermined positions on the paper. Often the paper is filled out by a human and then submitted to the optical mark reader’s scanner.

Keyboards, mice, touch pads

Keyboard: A device that inputs alpha-numeric characters through the punching of their designated keys. The keyboard set includes functional keys to perform certain global tasks which are most common to operating the computer.

Mouse: graphic based input device that functions through the representation of an arrow over the screen, controlled by the user who moves it on a two dimensional surface. The user friendly device makes it possible to position the curser over a desired text or icon and click on it to perform specific operations.

Touch pad: Having a similar role to that of the mouse, a touch pad is composed of a sensitive surface capable of recognizing the motion that is exerted on it. Using that function it is able to direct an arrow on the screen with the same capabilities of a mouse. Commonly used for laptops.

Input and output devices

- Keybords, mice, touchpads.

- Optical mark recognition (OMR), optical character recognition (OCR), magnetic ink character recognition (MICR), radio frequency identification (RFID), radio tag, bar code scanners, magnetic stripe readers.

- Microphones.

- Smartcard readers.