It’s not just cool and colorful smartphones that sets the Japanese wireless industry aside from ours, but also their fondness of pushing the boundaries when it comes to smartphones and wireless tech. NTT DoCoMo has developed a portable SIM Card, which sits in the little white box you see above and then connects to your smartphone wirelessly. The idea behind such a thing? The ability to use multiple SIM Cards with one device, or one SIM Card with multiple devices. For instance a device with your business SIM and one for your personal SIM. The device is still in prototype, but it sounds like NTT DoCoMo have big ideas for their latest idea.
The Portable SIM uses NFC and then Bluetooth to pair to your devices and can allow you to pair one number with various different devices. The network is working around the idea that your phone number is one of the more important things to you in your life and that you’ll want to use this number with all of your devices. It’s not just your phone number and activation to the network that the Portable SIM will deal with though, as log-in information for the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter can be stored in the device using your SIM Card as a sort of authentication. DoCoMo is even talking about connecting the device to TVs, games consoles and more, which of course would be great to get even more data to target users for offers and advertising, but it could also make things a lot easier for the end user.
Right now, the prototype is pretty chunky, coming in at 8cm long, but the network is looking to hopefully turn the Portable SIM into some kind of wearable device. A bracelet or wristband of some sort with your SIM Card and all your passwords in it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, but of course when you lose that piece of clothing, you could be in big trouble. What do you think to the Portable SIM? Good idea, or a step too far? Let us know in the comments and over on Google+!