The Felicia payment system has gone live in Japan this week, after successful trials last year. Running on the NTT DoCoMo network, the service allows users to pay for goods and services securely using their mobile phones. Customers can also check in for flights and withdraw cash from their bank accounts.
Felcia is based on a Sony smart card of the same name that stores persona details about the user, and runs on the Symbian operating system.
NTT DoCoMo’s 46.6 million subscribers will have access to the service if they can get their hands on a compatible phone.
One of the first phones to support the service is the Fujitsu F900ic, which even incorporates a finger print scanner for security. Additionally, the phone has a 1.2 mega pixel camera, an additional low-res camera for video calls, a 2.4 inch high resolution display, plus an additional one 1 inch OLED display for people who still don’t think it’s gadget-y enough.
Felcia
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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