Following this press release on March 15, which indicated that DoCoMo would introduce a new 3G handset developed with award-winning designer Stefano Giovannoni, the company has announced the N904i, produced by NEC, will make its world debut during Milan’s celebrated Design Week. The exhibition will take place at Superstudio Più in Zona Tortona, a popular area of the city.
Sharp announced they have developed a new LCD, based on ASV (Advanced Super View) technology found in the companies AQUOS line of TVs, for mobile handsets which features the industry’s highest (as of April 17) contrast ratio of 2,000:1 with a wide viewing angle of 176 degrees and a high-speed response time of 8 ms. According to the statement, by September 2007 the company will start shipping samples of this new 2.2-inch at 240 x 320 (QVGA) screen, targeted for 1Seg digital-tv enabled cell phones in Japan. Sharp started this trend with their 902SH model for Vodafone Japan in 2004 and their popular 905SH cycloid style design launched here in June last year, just in time for the World Cup. They have since followed-up with the so-called “2nd model” 911SH.
Dentsu, CA Mobile and Cyber Communications announced [.pdf] that the Chinese government has approved their application to begin business operations at the new joint venture they have established to specialize in mobile advertising in China. An announcement ceremony was scheduled to be held in Beijing, on April 17, to mark the launch of Beijing Dianyi Advertising Co., Ltd. The shareholder ratio indicates CA Mobile will retain 66.6% with Dentsu and Cyber Comm. each taking 16.7% of the ¥100 million start-up capital.
With the flurry of activity around here lately we are somewhat behind on rolling out this quick video clip shot at SoftBank Mobile’s new Flagship store in Harajuku. Wisely located in Tokyo’s mobile youth grand central, and mere blocks away from KDDI’s Designing Studio, the company was handing out chocolates (a nice touch for Valentines day) and even had a few SoftBank Hawks baseball team personalities in the house to help celebrate their New Open launch event.
While Kitty-chan was apparently not available to promote her newly announced Swarovski Crystal handsets there was a good selection of the latest super sparkle designs, under glass, front and center. Of course the colorful 812SH Pantone series by Sharp were also easy to spot, however, for the most part there was not much in the way of selection for live working models on offer. That being said it’s certainly better than this Virtual Life SoftBank Mobile shop and hopefully the company will get more test-drive units on display in the future. As for our first impressions; it’s a definite improvement, in both size and location, when compared to the Vodafone’s earlier Megastore attempt in Shibuya several years ago.
Toyota announced that it will begin rolling out its new G-BOOK mX telematics service and a G-Book mX-compatible HDD navigation system with the launch of new vehicles in Japan starting in May. The new G-BOOK includes features such as Probe Communication Traffic Information, which uses data from other vehicles equipped with G-BOOK mX to provide drivers with highly precise information on traffic congestion. G-BOOK mX builds on the proven reliability and security of G-BOOK with the addition of Map-on-Demand – the world’s first technology for automatically delivering differential map data to car navigation systems – to create a more user-friendly and comprehensive telematics service.
MaxLinear has announced sampling availability of their new MxL7001 IC for mobile TV at 1/10th the packaged area of their MxL5000-family which set the previous record for size. The tuner supports both ISDB-T 1-segment and 3-segment applications and will be available in production quantities early summer 2007. According to the press release, several OEMs are in the latter stages of developing MxL7001 based products to be launched this summer.
IPMobile announced that its major shareholder, Multimedia Research Institute Corp., has reached an agreement with Mori Trust Co., Ltd. to transfer its stocks, therefore Mori Trust will become IPMobile’s major shareholder. According to the statement, IPMobile will review its capital structure and continue to raise investments required to launch commercial services. IPMobile is currently in talks with Mori Trust Co., Ltd. and will make an announcement about the timing of the launch and the details of its service once an agreement is reached.
QUALCOMM just announced a number of milestones underscoring how KDDI’s wireless data service, powered by BREW, continues to spur the demand for mobile applications in the Japanese market. In January 2007, KDDI subscribers downloaded more than seven million BREW applications to their mobile phones. The cumulative number of BREW application downloads is now more than 160 million since KDDI first launched BREW in February 2003. Gaming has proven to be one of the most active areas of mobile downloads. According to KDDI, its catalog of high-quality mobile games has grown from 2,000 applications in January 2006 to more than 3,000 gaming applications in January 2007.
RADVISION has announced that its ProLab 3G-324M Test Solution was purchased by NTT DoCoMo. ProLab 3G-324M supports connectivity verification and analysis for 3G handset video applications. The feature set includes a simulation of 3G-324M signaling and media, the monitoring of H.223, H.245 and media. In addition, the ProLab 3G-324M Test Solution supports IMTC and GCF test case scenarios.
BusinessWeek posted a good op-ed, by Kenji Hall, about the Manga for Mobile market niche in Japan. WWJ has been covering this evolution ever since Mobidec back in 2004 [video here] and it’s nice to see the concept is finally starting to get some air-time overseas. Manga is a natural content to port for wireless devices here and obviously this simple concept to render text and images, for whatever print media is popular in any given region, makes sense. Note; we also had a fantastic presentation from Digital Garage at Mobile Monday Tokyo in Feb. 2006.
