SK Telecom shoves Android onto a SIM, we check it out
By Sean Cooper 
posted February 18th 2010 4:36PM
posted February 18th 2010 4:36PM
SK Telecom was showing off some interesting ideas about where it'd like to see SIM cards go in the future here at MWC this week, including a couple particularly juicy ones called Android SIM and the SIM Theme Package. Android SIM shoehorns a CPU, the Android OS, applications, user data, and 1GB of storage into the card pictured above. SK Telecom envisions it being used in dumbphones -- as the CPU is onboard, there wouldn't be a need for the device to have one -- letting consumers move between sets or perhaps to a tablet with even more ease than they already can. SKT's Theme SIMs use a similar smart card to take advantage of the storage space for theme elements, music, pictures, and any variety of apps that vendors or operators care to put in them. Follow on for a quick demo (and some minor failure -- typical demo time Murphy's Law) of moving the themed chips between two handsets.
Is that blood? Looks like Android put up one hell of a fight xD.
nvm my childishness. This has great potential, and would be a superb idea for phones with dual-SIM (Imagine Android 2.1 and WinPho7S BOTH in your phone). Now that's pretty cool.
@N900 I was thinking the same thing! Kinda creepy.
I can see some potential here though. Interesting.
@N900
LOL was thinking the same about the blood. I mean no self-respecting OS likes to be crammed into a *gasp* SIM card! 'droid had to fight.
@N900
Oh, boy! SNSD YoonA's in the center of the wallpaper. I want her.
@N900 it will be nice to be able to also use the processor on the device when the sim os will find one thats compatible and better or to run them both like dual processors computers(not dual cores), to allow open gl games to work smooth. imagine this on the iphone 3gs unlocked: dual boot android/ iphone os....
@N900 Took the words right out of my mouth!
Looks promising it will be rad to see what companies could do with this technology
@angermeans
"it will be rad"
Are you a time traveler? So, what do you think of the future?
@paul34 Who says he's from the past? rad is coming back big time in 2034! Totally!
@d0mth0ma5 yeah I am a time traveler I should take back your name Paul dont be a moron
MEH! This is 2000 and late. In 1998 this technology could a been Great ;^p…
@Frankenstein Black Good thing you ;^p-ed.
The issue is heat - that will make this fail in its current form.
@naashak Who says? Honestly I think they would have been smart enough to work around that.
@ndrwme
There's a cpu inside there and its right next to the battery. No way to get anything decently fast without a fan.
@Intel Yeah, because all the Android phones out there have fans. Oh wait, you're Intel.
@ndrwme
Because I work on mobile CPUs for a living - just becoz they are smart doesn't mean the heat just vanishes. If you are really interested take any of the mature phones and look carefully as to where the processor and the battery etc. are sited and try to figure out why.
There is a good way to do this concept which is use the Sim as a storage with a VM image storing your state, apps, music etc. and have the app processor on the phone side with a VM which just loads and runs the VM image in the sim.
btw am i the only one who just loves seans voice?
@haskili Yeah, like a Kiefer Sutherland drone (they do exist!) in his final stages of training. You can make it, Sean!
I may be alone in this, but while I think this is kinda cool, I don't really want this. At least right now, if I want to get rid of all carrier branding, I can toss another ROM onto my phone (XDA has me spoiled ^_^). With this, I can't exactly flash a new ROM.
I just see it as a way of carriers peddling their bloatware and leaving me without a way to get rid of it.
I've read about this smart SIM card that can turn any full touch regular phone into an Android phone if the smart SIM card is preloaded with the Android OS. Very interesting.
Holy shit they fit a CPU, Android and 1GB storage onto a SIM card?!
Gee whizz. Colour me impressed!
@Jack Bauer Call me when they can play crysis with a simcard..
I'm just kidding! Yes this is very impressive, my dad didn't believe they could fit 1gb of storage on an SD card back in the early 2000's, he's gonna flip at this! (If he can even comprehend it)
@Jack Bauer Looks like we'll have to wait a bit before that card can be cut down into a micro SIM.
1GHz+ or GTFO
So which is cooler? Wifi sim or Android sim?
o they can fit 1 gb on an sim card but they can't get it to fit in any of the android phones; ok I see how it is.
@Link2877
We love you for that, we really do.
Those 8gb Samsung Galaxy will like to disagree.
Well, if the cell phone manufacturers wanted to do this, OS outside the hardware, they could have already done that with micro SD card. what I mean to say is, there is no USP..
@avis USP: Ultra Small Phone? (Joke.) (Cool, each word is 5 letters.)