In the future, mobile will be the driving force in technological developments. The trend is for more and more online interactions to be shifted to mobile platforms. But in order to tap the full potential, it is necessary to make mobile communication safe. Especially for cloud computing, m-commerce and mobile payments that require secure connections.

And so the biggest challenge confronting the industry is to combine usability, aesthetics and security. Early versions of secure mobile phones, e.g. used by politicians, were bound to a certain, not necessarily appealing hardware. T-Labs have now developed a solution which meets those criteria and supports different hardware systems: Simko 3.

At NEXT Berlin 2012 Heinrich Arnold presented the technology. It allows users to switch between a private and a public mode via one quick swipe motion. At the moment, Simko 3 is only available on Samsung smartphones. A release for devices of other manufacturers is announced.

Heinrich Arnold is Senior Vice President Innovation & Laboratories at T-Labs, a department of Deutsche Telekom AG focussing on research and development.