The new pay phone

ON YOUR way out the door each morning, you might grab your wallet, your keys and your mobile phone. But what if your mobile phone replaced the other two?

What if your phone served as a credit card, allowing you to buy bus tickets, lunch and more? And what if a mere swipe of your phone allowed you entry to your workplace and even your home?

It's hardly science fiction. Nokia's chief technology officer Dr Tero Ojanpera predicts this day will arrive soon. "If I think about mobile payments, I would say that we are three to four years away from the real mass market," Ojanpera says.

"And if I think about other capabilities like keys, etc, I would predict we are talking about a three-to-five-year timeline."

These predictions were just some of those aired in Singapore last week as part of the Nokia Connection 2007 conference and the following trade show, CommunicAsia, at which other mobile phone companies revealed new models.

Among the future visions for mobile phones are handsets that use GPS to locate your friends, phones that receive TV broadcasts, and even wearable mobile phones with screens embedded in spectacles and double-sided phone screens modelled on postcards.

In the more immediate future, consumers can expect phones with mirrored finishes and touchscreen displays, as well as handsets that classify songs by their mood, take high-resolution photographs and screen feature-length movies.

Nokia released three new mid-range handsets at the Singapore conference, with others on the way, including a lower-cost GPS phone.

But the company's executives were also keen to discuss the future of mobile phones. Ojanpera says a new technology called Near Field Communications (NFC) will play a big role in that future.

This technology, which will allow mobile phones to replace keys and credit cards, is a form of short-range communication. Phones equipped with NFC technology can download or exchange information with other NFC devices when they touch.

Ojanpera says this technology is intuitive to use, and could have many uses. "I believe that (for a mobile phone to replace) keys, for example, it's not that far-fetched," he says.
"If you think about it in today's work environment we all have access passes so why not integrate those access passes into a phone?

"To touch a device to an object is quite natural. We are used to touching things so, thinking about it, you might touch your device to someone else's device to swap pictures or synchronise some data. That kind of capability can introduce some new 'wow' experiences and ease of use."

One of those new experiences could be using your mobile phone as a credit card. Ojanpera says to pay for items, consumers could simply touch their mobile phone to a scanning device. They would then be asked to sign a receipt and enter a PIN code for extra security. "In this way the mobile phone credit card has higher security than a normal credit card," he says.

"Mobile payment, technically we have been able to do that for years but only now we are starting to see the banks and other companies are ready to move in that direction."

Nokia recently teamed with Visa, Mastercard and AT&T to trial mobile phone payments with 300 participants in New York City.

Nokia spokeswoman Tina Nieminen says NFC technology has also been tested in other countries including Finland, Germany, Singapore and Malaysia, and is currently available in parts of Europe, with similar technology being used to make credit card payments in Japan.

She says the technology can also be used to download information stored in NFC tags on items like posters, signs, medicines or food packaging, so consumers can read more about products or call companies.

As well as NFC technology, Ojanpera predicts the addition of internet connectivity and GPS navigation on mobile phones will be combined to create handy, new services. Nokia launched a phone with both of these features – the N95 – earlier this year.

"I think one of the bigger changes coming is linking the internet with mobility and maps," he says. "This could work with social networking tools – your people know where you are and you will be able to see where they are."

So instead of just seeing which of your MySpace friends are online, you could see how many are in your vicinity, for example.

Nokia South-East Asia Pacific customer and market operations vice president Mauro Montanaro predicts GPS navigation in phones will be popular this year, but that it will be used for more than just finding your way.

"What you will start to see is other services around the mapping," he says. "I expect big things from navigation but probably the navigation part is just a teaser. What's going to come with it is the interesting thing – searches, possibly advertising, possibly e-commerce, particularly in countries where navigation is very important, like in Australia and New Zealand."

Montanaro says these location-based services are likely to spring up within the next 12 months, and could see you able to pinpoint businesses and friends with your phone.

But while experts can identify these future trends, the ultimate shape of the mobile phone is still unknown.

Nokia human behavioural researcher Jan Chipchase is part of a team investigating cultural trends and human experiences with mobile phones, in an attempt to inspire designers to create handsets suited to users 15 years from now.

Chipchase says research has shown different cultures can use the same phone in different ways, though there are some commonalities – 60 per cent of men carry their phone in their front right pocket, and 61 per cent of woman carry their phone in their handbag (missing 20 per cent of phone calls as a result).

But he says the technology is changing so quickly, no definitive future phone design has emerged.

"Nobody knows what the future will look like," he says. "We've got a pretty good idea what humans will be like. Human behaviour changes pretty slowly – technology changes quickly."
For the immediate future, however, some definite design trends are emerging. Apple's forthcoming iPhone, with its US release on Friday, has sparked a move towards mobile phones with touchscreens.

Examples include LG's upcoming Prada phone and Sony Ericsson's new email-centric phone, the P1. Samsung has also introduced touch-sensitive menus to many of its new phones, including the slim U700 slide-up phone, and its Ultra Music and Ultra Video phones.

Mirrored finishes are also becoming popular, with LG releasing a candybar version of its reflective Shine phone, and Samsung's new U700 has the same finish.

Time will tell which current design wins out, but ultimately mobile phones could look very different.

Nokia innovation and insight senior designer manager Rhys Newman says the company is already investigating future designs that include dual-sided transparent displays, mobile phones with flexible screens, and phones that are curved to fit the shape of your hand.

Chipchase says the Nokia research team will keep investigating the subject until someone can finally answer the question: "If a phone could be any shape or size, what shape or size should it be?"