Embedded contactless reader for PCs from Sony and HID

Sony announced a very good news today for the contactless world. Sony and HID Global forms an alliance to create an embedded contactless reader for PCs. Sony, being one of the pioneers in the contactless technology, will be incorporating with HID, which acquired Omnikey -one of the best PC connected reader manufacturers, for building an embedded contactless reader.

Sony is already an influencer of contactless technology; they own their own contactless chip -Felica- and they are playing a huge role on the NFC area. Needless to say, Sony has huge opportunities on their home entertainment products from Play Station 3 to wide screen TVs and Vaio laptop line up for integrating with NFC based chips.

On the other hand, HID has a wide range of products in identity and security markets. I personally admire the PC connected Omnikey readers a lot, very robust and has a great support in terms of drivers and software.

I believe a contactless reader may eventually become a standard peripheral device for PCs, if this attempt is successfully completed. I can imagine how wide range of applications can be developed once the computers have embedded contactless readers. People can top up or check their balances/transaction history of transportation cards at home, (which is already being done in far east right now) process credit card transactions for shopping online or buy airtime for their NFC handsets. I had personally seen an embedded Felica reader in action on a Sony guy I had a meeting with, so this is not a long run. It just needs the right actors to be involved in the picture.

All contactless readers support both ISO 1443 type A and B, so these readers will support all current contactless chips that are available like Mifare, Calypso, Legic, etc. Of course that will bring a lot of political discussion over software and ownership of the reader IC, but for now let’s cross fingers for Sony and HID!