DoCoMo's FOMA Ubiquitous Module

Japan's been going bananas for the word "ubiquitous" for the entirety of 2005, and it doesn't look like they'll let up for the new year. NTT DoCoMo announced the "FOMA Ubiquitous Module," a small cellular module designed to be put in pretty much any machine that could take advantage of a cellular connection. Of course the wild imaginations at DoCoMo take that to mean "basically anything that has electricity going through it," and they gave the examples of slapping it in vending machines, taxis, inventory control, and information terminals so they can connect to the internet. Just plug this module into any device that supports it, and it can be connected to the internet in a jiffy. DoCoMo will also be announcing some service plans specifically for the new module, such as "Ubiquitous Plan S" for 840 yen (~$7 USD) that furnishes about 800 packets per month. We know we'd pay $7 per month to connect our microwaves to the internet, wouldn't you?

[John Doe @ Dec 19th 2005 2:28AM]

"vending machines,"


which would be good. It would be nice to be able to pull out the checkcard and swipe instead of needing to carry around cash.

[Bas Kok @ Dec 19th 2005 2:28AM]

> "vending machines," which would be good.

Actually there already are a couple of mobile-phone wallet systems in use in japan. Some such as the 'Edy' system require a special chip inside the mobile phone. The nicest system I saw has a barcode scanner in front of the vending machine, which can scan some kind of barcode from the cell phone's screen.