Sony and NXP Jump on the Virtual Wallet Bandwagon
Well, Sony (one of the partners behind Sony Ericsson) and NXP haven't exactly been inactive in the virtual wallet industry, but with all the news on mobile payment schemes going around it's no surprise that they've hardly made an impression on the general public.
In any case, the two companies (NXP was a former semiconductor subsidiary of Philips) have created Moversa, a joint venture that will come up with a chip that integrates Sony's and NXP's virtual wallet technologies. The primary goal of Moversa will be to develop and promote mobile payment schemes based on smartphones and PDAs, something that's quite ubiquitous in Japan. Moversa will be based in Vienna, Austria, which implies a focus on European markets.