Contact or contactless?

Which is it when it uses your body to transmit the data? We will have to see as NTT show off a new device that transforms the human body into a “personal area network (PAN)” that enables users to communicate with devices just by touching them.

The new product, called Firmo, consists of a card-sized transmitter carried in the user’s pocket. The card converts stored data into a weak AC electric field that extends across the body, and when the user touches a device or object embedded with a compatible receiver, the electric field is converted back into a data signal that can be read by the device.

Firmo is not actually based on PAN, but based on NTT’s RedTacton human area network technology, which is designed to enable convenient human-machine data exchange through natural physical contact — even through clothing, gloves and shoes, according to NTT.

But this new touching technology is not cheap. A set of five transmitters and one receiver will set one back more than $7m500, but NTT expects the price to come down with mass production.