This technology will use a tracking signal between the handset and an electronic card.

Oct 13, 2006 08:04 GMT  ·  By

NTT DoCoMo, the leading Japanese mobile phone carrier, has announced the launch of a new phone, named P903i, that will self-lock when it will sense an increase in distance to its owner. This new technology works with the help of a signal loop transmitted between the mobile phone and an electronic card that the owner carries with him. When the signal will not reach back to the phone because the card exceeds the predefined distance, the mobile device will automatically lock, thus being totally unusable by the person that tried to stole it.

A Panasonic representative, the company that will manufacture the device, has said that "once the signal between the two objects stops transmitting, because they are too far apart, the telephone blocks itself".

There are some questions that need to be answered by the NTT DoCoMo company. What if the buyer of the phone will forget to bring with him the wallet where it keeps the electronic card? I suppose that after leaving the house he will find out he doesn't have a mobile phone with him, but a simple brick with some buttons and blank display. What is he to do in this case? Use a pin code of some sort to unblock the phone, restart the phone and then watch the phone blocking itself again because he doesn't get a reply from the card? :) Or, what if, in a worse scenario, he loses its electronic card? He will, again, have a brick for a mobile handset. What should he do next?

There are lots of possible scenarios that go against this new mobile phone security solution invented by NTT DoCoMo, but in any of them, at least you still have your phone. And I suppose they know better what they have to do so they won't be forced to take in thousands of "brick phones" from the customers that lost the wonder cards.