The latest cell phones can show you the nearest bathrooms in San Francisco or which subway to take in London. They can also help with your diet by tracking calorie intake. Behind such programs and more is the very technology at the center of an intense battle between Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. over control of desktop computers.
Campaigns targeting MobileNet consumers must go beyond considerations of location and time focusing on broader user context in order to be effective, according to a study released today by researchers at the International University of Japan. Based on the results of 14,000 mobile user responses nationwide, the researchers have created an approach that includes user context for developing and deploying MobileNet solutions. Although physical location and time of day at which users access the MobileNet is important and correlated to some extent with user content choice, the results suggest that such factors provide no true foundation upon which to build effective marketing campaigns or profitable business models.
NEC Corp. has demonstrated a third-generation cell phone that it claims is the first to incorporate a digital-TV tuner. NEC plans to demonstrate the TV cell phone at Telecom World 2003, the International Telecommunication Union event to be held Oct. 12-18 in Geneva, Switzerland.
NTT DoCoMo and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today new measures to counter the growing number of spam mail being sent via the network. The initiatives, in which offenders will either have their DoCoMo services temporarily suspended or completely rescinded, are part of the company’s continuous efforts in the fight against spam. In the past, spam mail was mainly sent to i-mode handsets from personal computers via the internet. To prevent this, DoCoMo implemented various measures, asking users to restrict incoming e-mail by blocking or accepting mail only from designated sources (domains or e-mail addresses).
“Wireless fidelity” is allowing an ever-increasing number of laptops and personal digital assistants (PDA) to log on to the Internet with broadband speeds — cable-free — in airports, VIP lounges, planes and hotels worldwide. The momentum for Wi-Fi is beginning to reach a critical mass in the travel industry with corporate travelers leading the way.
KDDI Corporation and Okinawa Cellular Telephone are pleased to announce the release of the A1304T (manufactured by Toshiba Corporation) and the A1401K (manufactured by Kyocera Corporation) as part of a new 3G (CDMA2000 1x) lineup, enabling data transmission of up to 144kbps. Both support MovieMail, enabling users to capture and send seamless movies. The two new handsets are scheduled for sale from the beginning of August.
Sharp Corporation and Texas Instruments Inc. announced today they will combine their respective strengths to provide a reference design for GSM/GPRS camera phones, significantly cutting the necessary design time and resources required by manufacturers to introduce new camera handsets into market. This reference design will combine Sharp’s 1 Mega Pixel CCD camera module, flash memory and liquid crystal module (LCD), together with TI’s TCS2100 chipset for GSM/GPRS cell phones and TI’s OMAP-DM270 multimedia processor. The reference design also supports high level video including Nancy Technology from Office NOA and MPEG-4 standards. In addition, TI and Sharp will work together on the development of related software and technical support.
The 1imc is the first-ever gathering of everyone interested in moblogging, whether that interest is primarily in developing tools, platforms and standards to enable the practice, marketing products and services to support it, or in actually going out and doing it! This event is dedicated to the theory and experience of mobile Web publishing, with sessions focused on both technical and social aspects of this exploding practice. This Conference was explicitly chartered to introduce those developing the tools to those using them, and vice versa, so that interfaces and feature sets can be better tuned to the needs and desires of the emerging user base. Full Program Run-time 19:49
NEC Electronics Corporation today announced that it has developed a new signal processing device (uPD77534) and an RF/IF down converter IC (uPB1009) to enhance Global Positioning System (GPS) functions for cellular phones and other mobile applications. The uPD77534 is an ARM7 TDMI-based System LSI for signal processing, fabricated on 0.15-micron process. As a chipset solution with uPD77534, NEC Electronics has also developed a new RF/IF down converter chip which is connected to the signal processor device and converts the high frequency GPS satellite signal to a low frequency signal used to establish location.
SAP AG and Sharp Corporation announced an agreement to partner in technology development and marketing for mobile solutions for corporate users. In recent years, demand has been increasing for business applications that can be used not only on wirebound office systems, but also in the wireless mobile environment. This is particularly true for CRM systems intended for mobile workers, such as sales personnel and service technicians who work outside of the office. In the past, laptop computers have been used to handle such advanced services, but calls are growing louder for the ability to use compact, lightweight and nimble mobile terminal devices for this purpose.
