Anyone know what FeliCa reader is all about?

[dimensiondvdrob]

And will it be available on the US models? I saw it here:

http://www.sony.jp/CLIE/index_pc.html

and click on the NZ90 demo and go to Quality.

thanks in advance.

[ArK]

no. we don't use the contactless form of credit cards form sony. If you look at any of the pictures of us verisons they don't have them. It would be nice to have but it would make no sense since we have nothing to use them with.

[ArK]

here is a giant pick of the us version illustrating my point.

http://news.sel.sony.com/digitalimages/base-photo?photo_id=138455

If you want to know mroe aobut what the felica reader does check some of the other threads

[dimensiondvdrob]

I guess in the Japanese version you would put the card up to the black area below the keyboard and it would read the card.

What are those cards for in Japan?

[ClieMarty]

guess (from the japanese demo) it's some sort of "electronic wallet" where the reader allows you just to see how much money you still have on the card. we do have similar electronic wallets on most bank cards in europe but those do not work without "direct contact". you probably still need to "refill" the japanese ones on ATMs though.

[ArK]

they are used as credit cards and as metro cards. Its just a peer to peer contactless transfer of information. The same as swiping cards here although better because there is not a magnetic strip that can be damaged.

[dimensiondvdrob]

ok, so what advantage do CLIE users have in Japan if the NZ can read these cards? Does it just read the card and tell the user how much money is left on the card, etc?

Thanks for the info Ark.

[ArK]

No Problem. The cards used byt eh reader can read the info off of the card like how much money they have in their account and then use the wirless lan to add money. In terms of a credit card they can use it to instantly buy things online through the clie. Its a really cool system that i wish we were employing Maybe in a few yrs.

[dimensiondvdrob]

Yeah, that would be a cool system. I know in places like Norway and Finland (where Nokia is based) they can use their cell phones to buy pizzas and buy stuff from vending machines just by dialing a number and it all gets billed to their cell phone bill. Why we can't employ systems like that here is beyond me. It would make life so much easier if we could just use the CLIE to do stuff for us while we're on the go.

[PhilB]

That would be a cool setup here. Instead of using debit cards which must be swiped and inevitably run into bad readers/loose their data. A question for those who know: do the Japanese NZ's keep a record of the transactions w/the cards?