A very few fans at Philips Arena will, over the next few months, get a chance to test what's called the future of purchasing.

In order to do this you need the following:

1. A ticket to a Hawks or Thrashers game. The circus doesn't count.
2. A Cingular cellular account. They're handling the back end and you can't reach that back-end without them.
3. A Nokia 3220 mobile phone. It's the only one with the right chips and software.
4. A Chase Manhattan Bank VISA account. No Chase Master Card, no Wachovia VISA. Chase VISA or nothing.

All these companies -- Cingular, Nokia, Chase -- along with Philips (it's their chips in the phone, their name on the arena) and Vivotech (whom I'm sure you never heard of) are testing something called Near Field Communications.  It's a secure networking technology that works over very short distances, hence the name.

In five years, according to the industry, half the phones out there will have Near Field chips in them, and so will all sorts of merchants -- gas stations, fast food joints, etc. etc. But for now, it's just this phone, this network, this bank, this chip, this software, this arena, these teams, and (maybe) you.

Now go out there and buy an overpriced beer for the Gipper.