Year: <span>2008</span>
Year: 2008

SoftBank Mobile White Plan Exceeds 11M

SoftBank Mobile announced that the number of applications for thier popular White Plan has exceeded 11 million on February 8, 2008. The achievement comes approximately a month and a half after surpassing the 10 million mark on December 22, 2007. As a discount service for White Plan customers, SBM introduced Double White and White Plan Family Discount 24 which have also been well received by customers.

NEC Exhibits Worlds First LiMo Handsets

NEC announced that it will exhibit the first LiMo-compliant mobile handsets in NEC’s Booth during the Mobile World Congress February 11-14 in Barcelona. The commercial LiMo handsets which will be introduced at MWC in Barcelona are the FOMA N905i, N905imu, N705i, N705imu from NTT DoCoMo. The key software modules for mobile phones contributed to the LiMo Foundation, are included in these four handsets.

Fujitsu Intros World's Smallest WiMAX Module

Fujitsu announced the launch of the world’s smallest radio frequency module for mobile devices, which supports all of the RF circuitry necessary for Mobile WiMAX, the highly anticipated next-generation broadband wireless technology. The new RF module, MB86K71, co-developed with Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, was designed using 90-nanometer CMOS process technology. Sample shipment is scheduled to start at the end of February 2008.

KDDI Launches New Models for Spring 2008

In a one-two punch for Japan mobile tech watchers on Monday KDDI announced 10 new models for the companies spring 2008 sales campaign. The line-up includes models from; Toshiba, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Panasonic PanTech&Curitel, Casio, Hitachi, and Sanyo. For those lucky enough to be in Tokyo the ultra-trendy Designing Studio in Harajuku will have the whole fleet on display for touch & try. Flash Gallery Here and more details after the hop.

SoftBank Mobile Unveils Spring Handsets

SoftBank Mobile introduced their latest handset line-up for Spring 2008 at a press conference here in Tokyo on Monday afternoon – video in English – with 15 new models announced. With something for everyone on offer they have followed in DoCoMo’s lead of adopting a wide range of GSM roaming enabled units, 7 in all, along with new designs targeted at everyone from children to seniors including all the standard bells and whistles. Several items worth noting include the – better late than never – introduction of Nokia’s N95 into the Japan market and a collaboration with Tiffany for an exclusive designers model. More details after the jump.

DoCoMo and Google Announce Partnership

DoCoMo and Google jointly announced they have formed a partnership that will include providing search services, search-related advertisement and potential applications to i-mode users. The two companies will also collaborate to enhance the user-friendliness of i-mode services, by making various Google services easier to access through i-mode handsets. The pre-loading of Google Maps application into upcoming DoCoMo i-mode handsets is one of the initial initiatives being discussed.

Disney Japan Prepares for Launch

Walt Disney Japan held a press conference in Tokyo to introduce their new “Disney Mobile” service which is slated for public launch on March 1st. Although the company will run the business as an MVNO, it emphasized that the service will be distributed in collaboration with SoftBank Mobile with the same “White Plan” price package offerings. There’s a nice Flash video on the home page Here.