SK Telecom shoves Android onto a SIM, we check it out

SK Telecom was showing off some interesting ideas about where it’d like to see SIM cards go in the future here at MWC this week, including a couple particularly juicy ones called Android SIM and the SIM Theme Package. Android SIM shoehorns a CPU, the Android OS, applications, user data, and 1GB of storage into the card pictured above. SK Telecom envisions it being used in dumbphones — as the CPU is onboard, there wouldn’t be a need for the device to have one — letting consumers move between sets or perhaps to a tablet with even more ease than they already can. SKT’s Theme SIMs use a similar smart card to take advantage of the storage space for theme elements, music, pictures, and any variety of apps that vendors or operators care to put in them. Follow on for a quick demo (and some minor failure — typical demo time Murphy’s Law) of moving the themed chips between two handsets.