A little more on Felica technology. Even though Felica is not well known in the US, it is used for electronic payment by millions of people in Japan. Felica is a contactless IC card technology. A Felica card can be reused over and over to makes it extremely easy to pay for service and recharge such as passenger tickets of public transportation. The Felica technology is currently used in transit ticket, boarding pass, loyalty coupon, e-ticket, Internet Credit service etc today. Sony has also expanded the technology into a PC using a system called Felica Launcher that triggers the launch of websites or software just by scanning data stored on a Felica card. For example, Sony mentioned that by swiping a blood pressure cuff that has a built-in Felica chip is enough to make the PC load a special piece of software that could record health related information directly through the device.
Mophie, a iphone solution developer, will work with 2 Japanese firms, Flight System Consulting and Focal Point Computer, to develop a mobile payment solution for FeliCa technology. FeliCa is a contactless IC card technology developed by Sony that is used in approximately 100 million mobile phones and more than 120 million transportation and electronic money cards in Japan alone. The system is expected to be available in spring 2010 in Japan and allow users to instantly read and write electronic money card information using only the iPhone device and marketplace FeliCa applications.
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