Sprint Introduces Espresso Mobile Phone
Consumers now have more choice in color mobile phones, as Sprint and Sanyo just announced the introduction of the SCP-3100 series. Available in four trendy colors, Pure Silver, Blue Energy, Always Pink, and the “hottest color to go mobile,” Espresso! According to Danny Bowman, vice president of product marketing for Sprint “Each family member can own the phone in a different color, making it easy to tell a child’s phone from a parent’s as you’re rushing out the door in the morning. Sanyo is the first in the U.S. to introduce the color Espresso in a handset.” [Funny, it looks sorta brown to us — Eds]
DCMX: Is it a phone that can buy stuff or a credit card that can make calls? NTT DoCoMo is hoping that millions of spend-free consumers won’t know or care about the distinction and will simply use the new ‘DCMX’ credit-card phone for, well, pretty much everything. For small, daily purchases — like a six-pack and a take-out bento lunch — use the phone’s e-money FeliCa chip with no authentication required; for larger buys (a cool Louis Vuitton bag from the Omotesando boutique), use the DCMX credit-card function with a swipe and a PIN code; later, the phone will eyeball you for biometric authorization. “We wish to combine telecoms with financial services,” says DoCoMo’s Mr i-mode, Takeshi Natsuno, in today’s video program — and if there’s a cellco anywhere in the world that can afford the value-chain coordination costs to deploy a workable phone/credit card combo, it has to be NTT DoCoMo.DCMX is a logical progression from the carrier’s popular ‘o-saifu keitai’ IC-chip handsets that can store value onboard for small, daily purchases, and the launch announcement confirms DoCoMo’s strategic course aiming squarely at making the network-connected phone the payment method of choice for millions of Japanese. Maybe one day something this useful will be offered by carriers elsewhere?