JR East Japan will begin allowing Suica fare cards for purchases at shops in train stations in the Tokyo and Sendai area. There are a total of 196 shops in 64 stations that will begin accepting Suica as a form of payment.
Suica [1] is the contactless IC card system introduced by JR in the greater Tokyo area, which allows users to pass through the gate by simply waving the card over the fare machine - even when inside the wallet. More recently, however, Sony has developed the Felica system for NTT DoCoMo cellular phones allowing the same capabilities, but users wave their phones over the fare gates rather than a seperate card.
The Suica name comes from three different sources. First of all, it stands for "Super Intelligent Urban Card." Also, "sui sui" is Japanese for "smooth," which is the primary promotional factor of the cards. Finally, "suika" is Japanese for "melon," which explains the green color of the cards and logo.