Chances are, you had forgotten all about Sony and NXP's
little initiative to cooperate on a NFC (near-field communications) standard, but the two seem to have finally worked out all the kinks and are ready to move forward. The joint venture, dubbed Moversa, will seek to "drive global adoption of contactless smart card applications in mobile phones," and it's already planning to develop, produce and market a Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) that "incorporates both MIFARE and FeliCa operating systems and applications." Essentially, the duo is hoping to accelerate the adoption of integrated contactless support, which would enable users to
make payments (among other things) easily via their handset. If you're curious about availability, we're hearing that samples should be shipped out in mid-2008, but commercial deployments aren't scheduled to happen until the end of next year.
[Via
Yahoo / Reuters]
Mobile security firm Gemalto has hooked up with LG to offer phones supporting its Smart Card Web Server technology, which essentially drops a web server and content right onto a phone's SIM. There are a number of value propositions here, but Gemalto appears to be primarily pushing two of them: one, this allows portions of a carrier's portal to be accessible from anywhere regardless of whether the phone is within network coverage, and two, it'll give carriers customization capability (albeit in a very limited capacity) even to unsubsidized, unlocked phones that are brought onto their network. LG handsets capable of using the goods should be available by mid-year, though there's no telling when or if carriers will get on board.
