Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone (Important: you have to call their cell phone. Landlines do not work). Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. This saves someone from having to drive your keys to you (of course, somebody has to be home with the spares). Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other “remote” for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Someone who I trust in my office said he I tried this with both my Nextel and my Sprint phone, and it worked both times.
This is may or may NOT be the same rumor that ANY car equipped with a remote keyless entry system can be unlocked VIA cell phone which can be read about here. Apparently in that case keyless entry systems are not based on sound. They use RF. Something which is not effectively transmitted by phone.
Are you interested in a new and cool way to use your mobile phone? Citi is offering this opportunity to a very limited number of customers so read on.
Over the next few months Citi will be testing a convenient and secure way to use a mobile phone to buy things and get information. Do you want to be one of the few to test this new technology? And you will even receive a reward to participate in this beta test. All you need to do is click on the link below for more information.
Did Citibank know that one of the customers is a mobile blogger? No, this is not Citibank’s mobile banking application rumored to be in the works…(insiders have told me that they are working on a Quicken like application for the phone). And no it is not the first bank in the US to jump on the mobile banking idea. Chase has, at least in their commercials, been providing bank account SMS alerts for some time now.
So, like the Metrocard Speed Fab (mobile payment tags) Citibank has teamed up with Mastercard and Cingular to test mobile payments and more. Participants in the New York test will receive a special mobile phone that is not available anywhere else (the phone on the webpage is a Nokia), have the ability to pay for all sorts of purchases with just a tap of their phone and get access to special events and exclusive content from sponsors. Users will also be able to download entertainment content at smart posters displaying the trial symbol (shown above next to the Citi logo).
So the phones will probably have the same chip thats in the payment tags only being a phone instead of a stick at the end of your keychain this creates the opportunity for a lot more “interaction” to take place… whatever that means.
I will let you know what happens when I get it and swipe my phone to pay at the nearest PayPass cooperating venue.
Perhaps the Mobile Banking application will be on it as well.
Interesting article in Forbes on Six Innovations That Will Change Your Life. I wont rehash the article only to say that if you are interested in such subjects as m-commerce (maying by stiff with your phone), social networking and issues of presence, the mobile web, ubiquitous media, health tools for your mobile phone and or GPS then check it out.
Unlike radio-frequency identification (RFID) and other existing contactless payment systems, NFC chips allow two-way information exchange by rolling an RF transmitter and reader into one five-millimeter package. That means the chip can also take in data, such as a receipt zapped to it by a cash register or a bus schedule from a tag embedded in a bus-stop sign.
The technology is expected to start hitting stores next spring both embedded in cell phones as well as in miniSD-card-size adapters from SanDisk which will be able to add NFC to any smartphone with a Symbian operating system.
I have been using it to get on Subway and have been loving it I simply take out my key-chain, walk up to the participating turnstile, tap the… tapping thing you have to tap…. and walk on through.
There have stories for a while now that Mastercard and Motorola have teamed up on a field trial of mobile phones enabled with MasterCard® PayPass. But most of these stories go back to 2004 and there has not been much word yet. But just a couple weeks ago I met someone involved with this project who had an RFID PayPass tag installed on his phone.
I watched as shocked employees watched the charge clear as he swiped his phone across the PayPass machine at a local Duane Reade here in Manahatahn. Of course in Japan this is nothing new. But in America this is shockingly new and probably still years away. But its coming soon.
And soon, this unnamed worker told me, the chips will be two way so that one will be able to swipe my card over the tag to pay for something say, like a ringtone. Oh oh Cingular… watcha going to do then?
Everybody already knows that Google, Skype, Sequoia and Index Fund FON, but Oliver Starr and Mobile Crunch wonders why.
THE FUTURE
As mobile phones are able to take on more and more of the data needs we require from our PC’s, there is not a doubt in my mind that this technology is going to have a major impact on the mobile medium. Imagine a roll away screen built into a phone, or just a bunch of ways an extra screen can be applied to a mobile phone… like here [warning cool stuff in this link].
RFID
Now this is a technological use that has immense marketing value… but I am real glad to be seeing it used for art first.
I have a friend that did this. Only he can can get into his computer by waving his arm in front of it.
By inserting the chip, a radio frequency identification device, Mr. Donelson would literally have at his fingertips the same magic that makes security gates swing open with a swipe of a card, and bridge and tunnel traffic flow smoothly with an E-ZPass. With a wave of his hand he planned to log on to his computer, open doors and unlock his car.
Implanting the chip was a relatively simple procedure but highly symbolic to Mr. Donelson, a 21-year-old computer networking student so enthralled with the link between technology and the body that he has tattoos of data-input jacks running down his spine. They are an allusion to an imagined future when people might be plugged directly into computers. His new chip, complete with a miniature antenna and enclosed in a glass ampoule no bigger than a piece of long-grain rice, has a small memory where he has stored the words “Embrace Technology.”
“People are already using their cellphones as an extension of their communication ability,” Mr. Donelson said, indicating the wireless cellphone earpiece affixed to his ear. “It is pretty much a part of you anyway.”
The difference between a device resting in one’s ear and inside the body is “a pretty small step,” he said.
Mr. Donelson and three friends, who had driven 100 miles from their homes in Lockport, N.Y., to have the implants inserted by a piercer, Jesse Villemaire, whom they had persuaded to do the work, are part of a small group, about 30 people around the world, who have independently inserted radio frequency identification chips, known as RFID tags, into their bodies, according to Web-based forums devoted to what participants call getting tagged.
The tiny silicone chips, which for years have been safely implanted in pets and livestock to identify their owners, come with an encoded string of numbers. (Some chips have a small amount of memory that can be updated.) They are read by a scanner two to four inches away, much like a bar code except the chips don’t need to be visible to be read.
Digital visionaries have long foreseen a future when people and computers merge. In most cases the convergence is imagined as a nightmare, as in “Blade Runner” or the “Matrix” movies. But Mr. Donelson is part of a pro-convergence camp that points out the future is closer than many people imagine, and argues it is not nearly so threatening.
Digital products people use every day are becoming more integral to the human body, they note. Cameras, storage drives and MP3 players are designed with mirrored surfaces or crystals to make them more attractive to wear as necklaces and pendants. Bluetooth wireless technology enables jackets and sunglasses to double as electronic devices, and a new cellphone earpiece, the Motorola H5 Miniblue, sits inside the ear almost like a hearing aid.
People who feel naked without their cellphones, who carry around a set of keys with storage devices like flash drives that contain their digital
l life, who have their entire music collection on an iPod, have already created an information envelope around themselves, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif.
“They are living a life in which they have a symbiotic relationship with communication technologies that are as familiar a part of the body as braces or glasses,” Mr. Pang said. “For these people, the idea of putting an RFID tag in themselves is no stranger than putting in fillings.”
My friend also said that the day the government forces him to wear it he will carve it out with a rusted spoon.
I have a friend that did this. Only he can can get into his computer by waving his arm in front of it.
By inserting the chip, a radio frequency identification device, Mr. Donelson would literally have at his fingertips the same magic that makes security gates swing open with a swipe of a card, and bridge and tunnel traffic flow smoothly with an E-ZPass. With a wave of his hand he planned to log on to his computer, open doors and unlock his car.
Implanting the chip was a relatively simple procedure but highly symbolic to Mr. Donelson, a 21-year-old computer networking student so enthralled with the link between technology and the body that he has tattoos of data-input jacks running down his spine. They are an allusion to an imagined future when people might be plugged directly into computers. His new chip, complete with a miniature antenna and enclosed in a glass ampoule no bigger than a piece of long-grain rice, has a small memory where he has stored the words “Embrace Technology.”
“People are already using their cellphones as an extension of their communication ability,” Mr. Donelson said, indicating the wireless cellphone earpiece affixed to his ear. “It is pretty much a part of you anyway.”
The difference between a device resting in one’s ear and inside the body is “a pretty small step,” he said.
Mr. Donelson and three friends, who had driven 100 miles from their homes in Lockport, N.Y., to have the implants inserted by a piercer, Jesse Villemaire, whom they had persuaded to do the work, are part of a small group, about 30 people around the world, who have independently inserted radio frequency identification chips, known as RFID tags, into their bodies, according to Web-based forums devoted to what participants call getting tagged.
The tiny silicone chips, which for years have been safely implanted in pets and livestock to identify their owners, come with an encoded string of numbers. (Some chips have a small amount of memory that can be updated.) They are read by a scanner two to four inches away, much like a bar code except the chips don’t need to be visible to be read.
Digital visionaries have long foreseen a future when people and computers merge. In most cases the convergence is imagined as a nightmare, as in “Blade Runner” or the “Matrix” movies. But Mr. Donelson is part of a pro-convergence camp that points out the future is closer than many people imagine, and argues it is not nearly so threatening.
Digital products people use every day are becoming more integral to the human body, they note. Cameras, storage drives and MP3 players are designed with mirrored surfaces or crystals to make them more attractive to wear as necklaces and pendants. Bluetooth wireless technology enables jackets and sunglasses to double as electronic devices, and a new cellphone earpiece, the Motorola H5 Miniblue, sits inside the ear almost like a hearing aid.
People who feel naked without their cellphones, who carry around a set of keys with storage devices like flash drives that contain their digital
l life, who have their entire music collection on an iPod, have already created an information envelope around themselves, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif.
“They are living a life in which they have a symbiotic relationship with communication technologies that are as familiar a part of the body as braces or glasses,” Mr. Pang said. “For these people, the idea of putting an RFID tag in themselves is no stranger than putting in fillings.”
My friend also said that the day the government forces him to wear it he will carve it out with a rusted spoon.
I have a friend that did this. Only he can can get into his computer by waving his arm in front of it.
By inserting the chip, a radio frequency identification device, Mr. Donelson would literally have at his fingertips the same magic that makes security gates swing open with a swipe of a card, and bridge and tunnel traffic flow smoothly with an E-ZPass. With a wave of his hand he planned to log on to his computer, open doors and unlock his car.
Implanting the chip was a relatively simple procedure but highly symbolic to Mr. Donelson, a 21-year-old computer networking student so enthralled with the link between technology and the body that he has tattoos of data-input jacks running down his spine. They are an allusion to an imagined future when people might be plugged directly into computers. His new chip, complete with a miniature antenna and enclosed in a glass ampoule no bigger than a piece of long-grain rice, has a small memory where he has stored the words “Embrace Technology.”
“People are already using their cellphones as an extension of their communication ability,” Mr. Donelson said, indicating the wireless cellphone earpiece affixed to his ear. “It is pretty much a part of you anyway.”
The difference between a device resting in one’s ear and inside the body is “a pretty small step,” he said.
Mr. Donelson and three friends, who had driven 100 miles from their homes in Lockport, N.Y., to have the implants inserted by a piercer, Jesse Villemaire, whom they had persuaded to do the work, are part of a small group, about 30 people around the world, who have independently inserted radio frequency identification chips, known as RFID tags, into their bodies, according to Web-based forums devoted to what participants call getting tagged.
The tiny silicone chips, which for years have been safely implanted in pets and livestock to identify their owners, come with an encoded string of numbers. (Some chips have a small amount of memory that can be updated.) They are read by a scanner two to four inches away, much like a bar code except the chips don’t need to be visible to be read.
Digital visionaries have long foreseen a future when people and computers merge. In most cases the convergence is imagined as a nightmare, as in “Blade Runner” or the “Matrix” movies. But Mr. Donelson is part of a pro-convergence camp that points out the future is closer than many people imagine, and argues it is not nearly so threatening.
Digital products people use every day are becoming more integral to the human body, they note. Cameras, storage drives and MP3 players are designed with mirrored surfaces or crystals to make them more attractive to wear as necklaces and pendants. Bluetooth wireless technology enables jackets and sunglasses to double as electronic devices, and a new cellphone earpiece, the Motorola H5 Miniblue, sits inside the ear almost like a hearing aid.
People who feel naked without their cellphones, who carry around a set of keys with storage devices like flash drives that contain their digital
l life, who have their entire music collection on an iPod, have already created an information envelope around themselves, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif.
“They are living a life in which they have a symbiotic relationship with communication technologies that are as familiar a part of the body as braces or glasses,” Mr. Pang said. “For these people, the idea of putting an RFID tag in themselves is no stranger than putting in fillings.”
My friend also said that the day the government forces him to wear it he will carve it out with a rusted spoon.
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone (Important: you have to call their cell phone. Landlines do not work). Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. This saves someone from having to drive your keys to you (of course, somebody has to be home with the spares). Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other “remote” for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
I simply take out my key-chain, walk up to the participating turnstile, tap the… tapping thing you have to tap…. and walk on through.
