JUNKO KIMURA/GETTY IMAGES (2)
`
`www.spectrum.ieee.org
`
`NEWS
`
`12 IEEE Spectrum | November 2005 | NA
`
`WIRELESS SHOPPING: Using
`DoCoMo’s wallet phone, customers
`can ring up purchases with a wave of
`the hand at specially equipped
`kiosks. The wireless wallet depends
`on a chip supplied by Sony Corp.
`
`Here Comes
`The Wallet Phone
`
`Japan’s DoCoMo gets ready to put your
`money where your mouth is
`reach of its e-wallet service. Meanwhile,
`NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest cellphone
`its two main Japanese rivals, KDDI Corp.
`system operator, best known worldwide
`and Vodafone K.K., are introducing com-
`for pioneering the wireless Internet in
`peting products. (All three companies are
`1999 with its hugely successful i-mode
`based in Tokyo.)
`system, looks to have another big winner
`The critical element in DoCoMo’s
`on its hands. Having recast the cellular
`Osaifu-Keitai, or mobile wallet, is a wire-
`handset as an electronic wallet—in
`less smart card chip, FeliCa (from the
`effect a prepaid wireless cash card—
`English word “felicity”), which was de-
`it’s getting ready to make it a full-fledged
`veloped by Sony Corp. and Royal Philips
`wireless credit card.
`Electronics for close proximity, low-
`DoCoMo is working with major travel
`data-rate transactions. The wallet phones
`and banking organizations to extend the
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`By March, DoCoMo expects to ship around 10 MILLION wallet phones.
`And by the end of 2006, it projects a figure of 15 million
`
`radiating from read/write devices it
`communicates with, so a battery is not
`required. The chip, based on radio-
`frequency identification (RFID)
`technology, operates at 13.56 megahertz
`over a distance of 10 centimeters, com-
`municating at 212 kilobits per second.
`The communications protocol, called
`Near Field Communication, was devel-
`
`and a reader/writer is based on a key en-
`cryption system made up of randomly gen-
`erated numbers. Information such as trans-
`action histories and account balances can
`be presented on the phone’s display. And
`should the phone be lost or stolen, a sub-
`scriber can block transactions by calling
`the handset with a preregistered number or
`calling customer support to have the phone
`
`can be used to make electronic purchases
`at stores or vending machines equipped
`with FeliCa readers; can act as boarding
`passes on certain domestic air flights; and
`can authorize entry through corporate
`security doors—all with a wave of the
`handset [see photo, “Wireless Shopping”].
`Already, a year after DoCoMo intro-
`duced its first e-wallet, the company has
`shipped some 6 million of the
`handsets. “By the end of March
`2006 we forecast DoCoMo will
`have shipped around 10 million
`mobile wallets,” says Shohei
`Sakaguchi, executive director of
`DoCoMo’s multimedia service
`department. “And by the end of
`2006 we believe the figure will
`reach 15 million.” In addition,
`he says, competing carriers
`could ship 5 million more
`handsets, for a total of some
`20 million mobile wallets by
`the end of next year.
`
`SONY’S FELICA CHIP originated as
`the active element in its con-
`tactless smart cards, intro-
`duced in 1995. They dominate
`the market for such devices in
`Japan and are widely used in
`Asia as commuter passes and
`for making e-purchases. As
`of June, Sony had distributed
`82 million such chips, includ-
`ing 53 million in Japan, 16 million in
`Hong Kong, 10 million in Singapore,
`and 1.5 million in China.
`In January 2004, Sony and DoCoMo
`formed a joint venture to adapt the chip
`for mobile phones. Besides supplying
`DoCoMo with the chip, the venture is
`also shipping mobile FeliCa integrated
`circuits to KDDI and Vodafone, which
`launched their own wallet phones in
`September and October, respectively.
`Users with FeliCa phones who have
`registered for the e-wallet service can load
`money onto the phone’s chip in two ways.
`They can feed cash directly into special
`machines found in convenience stores and
`other locations, or they can do it by
`phone, keying in a personal identification
`number and transferring cash from a
`credit-card account.
`From a technical point of view, the
`FeliCa chip is part of a transponder sys-
`tem: it receives its power from the waves
`
`
`
`www.spectrum.ieee.orgwww.spectrum.ieee.org
`
`SHOWING OFF: DoCoMo’s “mobile wallet” is used as
`a fare card at East Japan Railway’s gates. In effect,
`the wallet phone functions as a wireless cash card.
`
`oped by Sony and Philips and has been
`standardized under ISO/IEC procedures.
`A pioneering user of FeliCa technology
`is East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), the
`country’s largest rail company. Its Suica
`smart card is used both for e-purchases
`and as a commuter pass. Users simply
`flash the card as they go through turnstiles,
`and instantly the reader displays the cost
`of the journey and the amount of e-cash
`remaining on the card. JR East plans to
`extend the commuter service in January to
`wallet phones from DoCoMo and KDDI,
`and it is in discussions with Vodafone
`[see photo, “Showing Off”].
`Mobile FeliCa application files and
`their data are managed separately in the
`wallet phone, and they each take up
`from 0.5 to 1 kilobyte. The number of
`applications is limited only by the amount
`of memory on the chip, which is currently
`5 KB in DoCoMo’s phones.
`Mutual authentication between the chip
`
`locked. The user can opt for a personal
`identification number to be entered before
`transactions are made, an important fea-
`ture given that up to 50 000 yen (US $450)
`in e-cash can be stored.
`Despite DoCoMo’s impressive shipment
`figures, the actual number of people using
`the wallet part of the phone might not be
`so high. Some reports estimate that the
`number is as low as 550 000; DoCoMo’s
`own figures are more optimistic.
`“Some 20 to 30 percent of [the] total
`[number of owners] are registered to use
`their phones as wallets,” says Sakaguchi,
`whose boss, Takeshi Natsuno, managing
`director of DoCoMo’s multimedia services,
`played a major role in creating both i-mode
`and the i-mode FeliCa service.
`To give subscribers more reasons to
`use their wallet phones, DoCoMo has
`asked a Sumitomo Mitsui banking group
`to help it develop its own credit-payment
`services. By the spring, DoCoMo plans to
`
`
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`November 2005 | IEEE Spectrum | NA 13November 2005 | IEEE Spectrum | NA 13
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`“But with our service, users will be able
`to make purchases as small as 100 yen.”
`In July, DoCoMo teamed up with NTT
`Data and the rail company JR East to set up
`a joint venture aimed at covering the cost
`of installing equipment for companies and
`stores wanting to implement the Suica
`e-cash service. They expect their invest-
`ment costs to be recouped by charging a
`commission on transactions.
`As for introducing the technology over-
`
`seas, DoCoMo is keeping silent on the
`subject. Since 2002, however, it has been
`working with a dozen mobile operators in
`Europe, Taiwan, and Israel to create local
`versions of i-mode. Vodafone, though it
`refrains from commenting on plans for its
`wallet-phone business, has subsidiaries
`and alliances in 28 countries across five
`continents, giving it ample opportunity to
`introduce an e-wallet service when the
`time is right.
`—JOHN BOYD
`
`launch a plastic card in partnership
`with an international credit card
`company, and then in the first half
`of fiscal 2006 it anticipates includ-
`ing the service in its wallet phones.
`DoCoMo hopes to help popular-
`ize the use of credit cards in a country
`that still relies mostly on hard cash for
`conducting everyday business. “Credit
`cards are usually used [in Japan] only to
`make large purchases,” Sakaguchi says.
`
`NEWS
`
`alternating images for the right
`and left eye, while barely per-
`ceptible, reduces the overall
`clarity of the movie; speeding
`up the frame rate eliminates
`that problem. November’s
`release of Chicken Little will
`exploit this capability: theater-
`goers wearing 3-D glasses will
`see the sky falling in 3-D at
`144 frames per second.
`Of course, distributing films
`digitally reduces costs enor-
`mously. Instead of multiple
`reels of film being produced and
`shipped, distributors send the
`movie to the theater as a digital
`file on a hard drive. The digital
`data are then copied into
`a server, which feeds a digital
`projector and sound system.
`The projector fills the screen
`with a series of red, green, and
`blue rectangular pixels, in the
`same way computers and digital
`televisions display images.
`Given the anticipated sav-
`ings, expecting movie studios to
`foot at least part of the bill for
`the transition seems reasonable.
`A film print of a movie costs
`about $1000 to produce, and if a
`movie is an unexpected hit, it
`may take days to increase the
`number of prints in circulation.
`Digital copies can be added to
`new screens within a multiplex
`within an hour, on the other
`hand, and in the future, satellite
`transmission systems will make
`such distribution nearly instan-
`taneous. Digital copies of a
`movie do not need to be re-
`placed, unlike film, which wears
`out after multiple showings.
`Once the world’s movie
`theaters go digital, movie
`studios expect to save about
`a billion dollars a year.
`—TEKLA S. PERRY
`
`www.spectrum.ieee.org
`
`WALT DISNEY PICTURES
`
`for anything more than test sys-
`tems in theaters, and it could be
`a sign of how the changeover
`may be supported.
`The intrinsic desirability of
`using digital technology in 3-D
`projection gave Disney and
`Dolby a powerful motive to ad-
`vance the technology. Digital
`projection makes 3-D movies
`cheaper, because instead of two
`film projectors, just one is re-
`quired. A processor card inter-
`leaves two image files for 3-D
`viewing or simply drops one for
`2-D viewing. Three-dimensional
`films done digitally also have
`the benefit of not being limited
`to 24 frames per second.
`At 24 frames per second,
`
`The Sky Is Falling
`
`Chicken Little release heralds the end of movies on film
`
`else was stepping forward.
`This year things changed. A
`group of seven movie studios,
`incorporated as Digital Cinema
`Initiatives LLC, finalized a stan-
`dard on 27 July, with lots of in-
`put from the equipment makers
`and theater owners. And Disney
`and Dolby decided to pay the
`bill for complete digital cinema
`systems at 100 U.S. theaters, in-
`creasing by nearly 50 percent
`the number of digital screens
`worldwide. This is the first time
`a movie studio has paid the bill
`
`DIGITAL CONQUEST:
`A three-dimensional version
`of the classic fable about
`a little chicken who thinks
`the sky is falling could
`make digital film projec-
`tion routine.
`
`The decision by Walt Disney
`Co. and Dolby Laboratories Inc.
`to equip 100 U.S. movie theaters
`with digital projection systems
`for the 4 November premier of
`the three-dimensional film
`Chicken Little marks a turning
`point for digital cinema, a
`technology poised to completely
`change the way theaters show
`movies [see picture, “Digital
`Conquest”]. It may also turn
`3-D movie projection from a
`seldom-used gimmick into
`the commonplace.
`The technology for digital
`cinema—encoding and decod-
`ing software, file servers, and
`special projectors—has been
`available for years. But until
`now, only some 250 screens
`worldwide have used it. Two big
`hurdles have prevented wide-
`spread adoption. First was the
`lack of a standard—theater
`owners making the investment
`in a digital cinema system, at a
`cost of about US $100 000 per
`screen, had no guarantee that
`the product they purchased
`would be compatible with the
`next theatrical release.
`“I don’t think we would be
`able to successfully migrate to
`digital cinema without a stan-
`dard,” says Steve Jacobs, vice
`president of engineering for
`Dolby in San Francisco. “You
`would wind up with too many
`competing formats.”
`Second was the problem of
`who pays that $100 000 to con-
`vert each screen. Not too many
`theater owners were willing to
`open their wallets, and no one
`
`14 IEEE Spectrum | November 2005 | NA
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`Samsung Ex. 1023, Page 3 of 3
`Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. RFCyber Corp.
`IPR2021-00981
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