Image: Keitai Watch

RFID Bookmarking in Harajuku (see also NTTDoCoMo Page)

A system called "Town Pocket" will be deployed at 153 shops including 109 apparel stores, 14 cafes and restaurants, 10 hair salons, 13 accessory shops, and 7 shoes/sports shops. All these shops will install an RFID reader device (photo) to which customers show their wallet phones in order to "bookmark" stores. People who don't have wallet phones can also use QR codes (for camera phone users) or a special email address (if you send an empty email message to this address, you can bookmark the store).

Customers can easily access information about the bookmarked stores, including descriptions, phone numbers, hours, etc. The number of participating stores in the are is expected to increase to about 300 by September.

In November, stores will be able to distribute SMS newsletters and digital discount coupons to the customers who bookmarked them. The system may be eventually integrated with digital shopping services.

As one can see, RFID, QR Code and SMS play well together in Japan. Kaywa can't offer RFID yet, but can offer the other two.

My speech at MEX, The SW Transformer A Vision for a mobile OS

One way to think of this is to think of RSS in terms of comand. Each command or feature in the user experience is wrapped into a meta language of context. This language of context will drive the use cases and the rendering. We do not only separate funtion and presentation we make function and context interdependant.

With such an operating system we would tear down classic application boundaries: like calling, camera, idle, and calendar into a fluid dynamic environment. For example if the user is on a call and the lens cap is opened, one could immediately create an video link between the user and the remote party and enable the important ”see what I see” use case. The user experience needs to encourage the switching of modes in conversations. The devices need to support: See, Look, here, where, and touch types of tasks, typical in any real life conversation. It would become vitality rich.

I think this kind of device and system could be a massive hit in emerging markets where they choose a mobile before they buy a computer.