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When I visited NTT last October for a private demo of its new cellphone RFID loyalty-card system, it was still in its early stages of development, so there wasn’t a great deal to write home about at the time.

Next-generation smart tags could be produced using memory that is made not from silicon, but instead is squirted out of an inkjet printer.

Kids carrying an RFID contactless transit smartcard can also use it to automatically notify parents of their whereabouts.

We recently lifted the lid on just how useful – not to mention pervasive – RFID technology is in Japan, so it’s with a glad heart that we bring you news of a move that’s sure to help it spread more quickly in the West.

Over the last few years, residents of busy metropolises like London and Hong Kong have grown used to the convenience – not to mention lower prices in London’s case – of transport networks that accept electronic payments. Handy pieces of plastic, like the Oyster Card, with chips onboard are clearly a part of life for many people, but the same RFID technology has a far greater reach in Japan, where it has taken the next step and migrated to mobile phones as well.

RFID and holograms are two of our favorite technologies, so it’s a joy to see them form a double act and get together in one pretty little security device. The result is the world’s first hologram-toting IC tag, which arrives in Japan next month courtesy of Hitachi and the printing experts at Toppan.

After years of waiting, DoCoMo has finally made good on its promise to deliver an office security system based on the RFID chips in its cellphones.

Those funky little RFID chips embedded in almost all new Japanese phones just learned another trick to add to a growing repertoire that already includes e-cash, train and bus tickets and e-credit cards, with the introduction of a handy new technology from Mitsubishi.

Anyone with ¥150,000 to invest in a scheme that could open doors in more ways than one might want to consider Brother Japan’s latest specialist printer – a palm-sized machine that can print passive RFID tags.

One of the most useful future technologies I’ve messed with recently is Fujitsu’s oddly named UBWALL (pronounced ‘U-B-Wall’), a giant plasma display panel loaded with RFID and Wi-Fi and intended for pushing information to all and sundry. Although it has been around for at least two years, the UBWALL has now found its first home outside the Fujitsu R&D labs.