KDDI Corporation and Tokyo FM Broadcasting Co., Ltd. have agreed to jointly develop and commercialize a new service integrating programming to be broadcast over digital terrestrial audio network and telecommunications on the KDDI wireless network. The service trials will be launched on October 10th. A prototype of the device being developed for that service will be presented during the CEATEC Japan 2003 event to be held from October 7 to 11th in Tokyo.
Sharp Corp has developed an LCD panel with a resolution so high that a cellular phone can display the same kinds of screens shown on a personal computer monitor. The new LCD panel has 300% higher resolution than today’s panels. The 2.6-inch version has 307,200 pixels, for a pixel density comparable to that of a PC display.
The world leader in bringing fuel-celltechnology to portable products, today announced a prototype of highly compact,direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) that opens the way to the use of DMFCas an alternative power source to recharge batteries for personal devicesas small as cell phones, digital still cameras, PDAs and mobile TVs. The new DMFC issmall enough to fit in a carry-on bag or even in a jeans pocket as aportable power source.
Today Enfour Group rolled out a new language reference service featuring Houghton Mifflin Company’s AmericanHeritage(r) dictionary titles on Japanese mobile phone networks. This new mobile service – Comprehensive English Dictionary – takes the American Heritage(r) dictionaries into themobile content arena for the first time and services both Japanese and English speakers via official carrier menus.
Mobile phone operator J-Phone Co., a unit of Britain’s Vodafone Group PLC, on Wednesday changed its corporate name to Vodafone K.K. At a press conference in Tokyo, Darryl Green, Vodafone’s representative executive officer, president and chief executive officer, said, “This will be a good opportunity for Vodafone and its partner companies to widen the market to a global scale for their services.”
Omron Corporation (TSE: 6645) has developed the world’s first* frontlight manufacturing technology capable of making brighter, clearer liquid display screens while reducing power consumption for wireless handheld’s, PDA’s and other mobile information terminals. The new technology will be on exhibit from October 7 – 11 at the CEATEC JAPAN 2003 show to be held at the Makuhari Messe near Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture.
Wireless Watch Japan was on hand for FOMA’s first international video call in Sept. at the WPC 2003 event. After the keynote introduction from Hutchison’s CEO Bob Fuller, and the World Call demo., we chatted with DoCoMo’s Mariko Hanaoka about their new service. We also took a ride on the upcoming telematics platform in a quick interview with Hidenori Obara of DoCoMo’s ITS Business Promotion Office, and heard that Seiko will add a color display, but not a camera function, to its next generation of the Wristomo PHS phone. Perhaps someday DoCoMo will bundle all three services together…!! In a seperate development we got a peek at Panasonic’s killer app. for camera phones everywhere. Full Program Run-time 16:22
By December HelloNet Co. Ltd. of Busan, Korea, will launch a Massive Multi-Player (interactive) BREW based game in Japan making use of KDDI’s CDMA 1X speed, Chief Executive Officer Lee Hwan Joon told WWJ at last week’s Tokyo Game Show. He also put us straight on a few pertinent questions floating around the event. Namely: Is BREW difficult to write? Will MMPGs be too expensive for users? There just won’t be a market for such apps, right? The answer we got from Lee was NO-NO and thrice NO. With a grin and a game that supports 8,000 players acting out on his phone, he was of the opinion that BREW’s a better way to go for the next generation of interactive, keitai-based games. Lee was the most upbeat developer we met at TGS, which itself was an upbeat show. With the mobile games industry set to explode, the evidence is that new JAVA games continue to rock and developers need to be brave if they are to take advantage of 3G’s potential. Oh, and by the way, in our upcoming video program you’ll be some of the first to see Final Fantasy played on a ‘coming soon’ FOMA handset.
J-PHONE Co., Ltd., to be renamed Vodafone K.K. tomorrow, announced today that on October 1 it will launch Vodafone Global Rental, a mobile handset rental service for visitors to Japan. With this offering, visitors who come to Japan either on business or pleasure can now enjoy the same communication services that they do at home. Vodafone Global Rental is not just a mobile handset rental service for visitors toJapan-customers of overseas mobile operators who have roaming agreements with J-PHONE(currently 110 operators in 79 countries and areas) can enjoy voice, SMS and packetroaming in Japan by simply inserting their GSM SIM card into a 3G rental handset, a firstin the Japanese market.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as MEI), best known for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronics and digital communication products, has announced today that it has developed the “Hypersurround Sound System” (HSS), a high-fidelity surround sound reproduction technology that will enable reproduction of three-dimensional sound fields on compact / mobile electronic equipment, and requiring only a small computational load and low power consumption.
