RFID in Japan

iD is a service to turn NTT DoCoMo's RFID-chipped phones (wallet phones) into credit cards. . RFID-chipped phones are first introduced in Japan in July 2004 and quickly became popular. About 10 million RFID-chipped phones were sold by January 2006. Without the iD service, users need to charge money before they use phones as wallets.

Convenience store chain FamilyMart teamed up with DoCoMo to introduce new services at FamilyMart convenience stores. Their first project is to introduce the iD service at 100 FamilyMart stores by the end of April. They intend to introduce iD at all FamilyMart stores across the nation by the spring of 2007.

They may introduce other new services using RFID-chipped phones. They may explore combining wallet phones and the Toruka service (if you remember, it's a service that allows peer-to-peer exchange of information between consumers' wallet phones and in-store RFID readers) or FamiPort, a multimedia kiosk terminal that are already installed at many FamilyMart stores. We may here more from these two companies in the near future.

[FamiPort multimedia kiosk]

via CNET Japan, February 28, 2006

Posted by konomi at March 2, 2006 12:36 AM | TrackBack