Paying for your shopping by mobile phone: A reality in 2008?

M-commerce, the ability to purchase your rail ticket, groceries and newspapers by a nonchalant flip of your mobile phone, is soon to become a reality. No cash or credit card needed, just a contactless scan of your mobile phone to effect payment. If it doesn't quite promise effortless shopping, it certainly implies reduced hassle.

There's just one thing. This scenario sounds as compelling today as it did in 2000 and every year since. The fact is that most of us carry mobile phones most of the time and would have delighted in such a convenience years ago. So what's different about 2008?

Basically, the technology required to make it happen is prevalent in a multitude of everyday electronic devices, causing the development of consumer-oriented applications to accelerate. And there are some massively successful examples of m-commerce in some parts of the world.

The basic technology is an RFID tag which comprises a memory, processor and antenna. When the tag is scanned by an RFID reader, the reader's (radio) energy is converted into electricity which powers the tag. The tag receives information, updates its memory and sends back required information to the reader.

According to AIM Global (the worldwide industry trade association on automatic identification and mobility solutions) 2008 is the year when we will see the convergence of RFID with other wireless technologies which will lead to the integration of RFID into mobile devices and consumer electronics.

All passenger gates throughout London Underground have had Oyster Card (RFID) readers since 2003. But the real commercial leap forward came when an agreement between Transport for London and Barclays Bank catapulted the Oyster Card from a relatively dull but convenient method of paying for bus and rail tickets, into the forefront of e-commerce. It can now be acquired as a (contactless) credit card available for the purchase of rail journeys, coffees, snacks and other low cost consumables.

But to see the future in the West we need to look East and at (an RFID) technology called FeliCa developed by Sony and Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo.

DoCoMo uses the FeliCa chip in ...