You’ll pay for this Mr Bond! – Step aside 007, a Contactless Challenge has been accepted

Last updated: 20 March 2014

Skyfall, the newest film starring the world’s most famous secret service agent, has its world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London this evening. James Bond’s twenty-third cinematic outing is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated film of the entire series and we can expect plenty of action-packed chase scenes, dramatic explosions, glamorous bond girls, fast cars and ingenious gadgets.

Critics agree the series has seen a major boost since Daniel Craig’s first outing as 007 in the 2006 film Casino Royale. The film featured a memorable opening chase scene that helped inspire our very own Parkour video showing off all the potential uses of NFC:

httpv://youtu.be/IRwl9nbqYrk

Bond was back in London this summer to help Her Majesty the Queen open the 2012 London Olympics in style; these were the Games where NFC was more readily available than ever before. Visa and Samsung in particular were keen to promote contactless payments in and around the Olympic Park, but how much did the Games do to boost the widespread adoption of NFC throughout the city?

This is something we felt needed investigating by two of the mobile industry’s most suave and intelligent commentators – the next James Bonds if you will. We decided to issue Mobile Industry Review’s Ewan MacLeod and technology expert Jon Choo with a Contactless Challenge.

Ewan and Jon will soon be set loose in London to compete in a series of challenges to see how easily contactless payments can be used in the post-Olympics city.

In what we expect to be a hard-fought battle, Jon and Ewan will be free to race Parkour-style across the city, should they wish to try, as they attempt to visit a range of tourist attractions, shopping destinations and transport hubs, using contactless payments to complete each challenge. Bond may have had an underwater car and wrist dart gun, but we’re providing Jon and Ewan with a Samsung Galaxy SIII each to help them complete their objectives.

Both will be blogging about their experiences on their blogs so keep checking in with Ewan at Mobile Industry Review and Jon at JonChoo.Blogspot to see how they get on each day. We’ll also be blogging and tweeting updates here on the Gemalto blog. If you think you’ve got a great idea for a challenge for Ewan or Jon, let us know on Twitter or via the comments section below.

Our agents are ready to go contactless, but is the sky the limit or will a lack of contactless infrastructure bring them falling right back down to earth?