Well, SIM cards of course have never disappeared from phones, but does anybody remember times when we were waiting for bigger SIM cards that could store something like 10 SMS messages and 50 contacts? Then terminal become the data repository and SIM card was only the token that opened the network subscription for you and nobody seemed to care about the cards anymore.
Years rolled by and SIM card really wasn't something that could excite people.
Last week I had an interesting discussion with a colleague who has been following the SIM-card developments closely and I learned that new SIM cards that implement Java Card 3 specification can do very interesting things, like create a local HTTP-server - running inside your SIM-card! I still haven't quite figured out what kind of support (if any) that needs from the host terminal, but just imagine what kind of innovation possibilities that would offer for low end terminals in developing countries. SIM card is also a very safe place to save small amounts of data. More information available for example from Gemalto's site.
As if this wasn't enough, I yesterday became aware of a solution that turns your SIM card to a A-GPS receiver - and yes, information is not published 1st of April. BlueSky Positioning has put the necessary software into the SIM card and created a proprietary antenna solution that allows the signal to be available for a card hiding under the battery. This innovation can turn also older terminals into a nice platform for location based solutions and thus enable LBS-services to be delivered to such user groups that can't now even imagine about buying a latest smartphone with GPS-support. If this really works as promised, this kind of an innovation can enable unprecedented solutions in the future.
Must follow SIM-card platform innovations more closely in the future!
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