Year: <span>2009</span>

Japanese Kids Mobile Usage Survey

editors February 24, 2009 September 30, 2023

Japanese Kids Mobile Usage Survey The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology released the results of their “investigation about use of a child’s cellular phone” survey which was conducted late last year. With replies coming from a total of 10,448 people, ranging in age from elementary school through high school, it’s a wide ranging report with a significant amount of user data, all in Japanese. It’s a real eye-opener on mobile youth usage behavior so we cranked out a quick machine translation, to cover the key points, after the jump.

DoCoMo Gets Approval for India

editors February 23, 2009 September 30, 2023

According to Reuters, India has approved the offer made by DoCoMo in Novemeber 2008 to acquire a 27.3 percent stake in the country’s sixth-largest mobile operator Tata Teleservices on Monday. The deal will result in foreign direct investment of 129.24 billion rupees ($2.6 billion) and the decision also allowed DoCoMo to acquire up to 20.25 percent in Tata Tele’s listed unit Tata Teleservices.

NEC Announces Global Deal with IQ

editors February 19, 2009 September 30, 2023

NEC Corp. and Carrier IQ confirmed that they have formed a global partnership agreement. The companies have integrated Carrier IQ’s multi-vendor compatible Mobile Service Intelligence technology alongside NEC’s leading Device Management products for mobile OEMs and carriers, and will jointly promote the integrated products world-wide.

NEC to Display LiMo Handsets at MWC

editors February 12, 2009 September 30, 2023

According to this press release, NEC will be present at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. NEC is a major player in all areas of the event, with a high profile presence at the conference and on the exhibition floor. As the leading provider of mobile handsets to operators in Japan, NEC will showcase a variety of recent Japanese models that feature unique designs, architectures, touch screens, user interfaces and brand collaborations. NEC’s series of handsets are LiMo Foundation certified devices that capitalize on the LiMo Platform, the industry’s first collaboratively developed Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. Full details Here.

Toshiba Goes Stealth with SnapDragon

editors February 7, 2009 September 30, 2023

Toshiba Goes Stealth with SnapDragon It appears that Toshiba is playing a viral campaign game with their new TG01 device, which tons of blogs are talking about but not found on their official site.. yet. Apparently it is hoping to take Mobile World Congress by storm next week and judging by the initial specs. this looks like it could be a killer!

SlashGear has an early write-up on it Here, noting the typical smartphone suite. But the real exciting bits are inside via Qualcomms new Snapdragon chipset which enables 1GHz cpu speed and therefore real power to run demanding on-board apps such as full blown Flash for example.. wOOt! As the official details are obviously still fairly thin for the moment we’ll say this much: Looking Good Tosh. now, how about letting us take this baby for a little road-test.. 😎

SoftBank Mobile Q3 Profit Slips

editors February 5, 2009 September 30, 2023

According to this announcement, SoftBank Corp. booked a 37% decrease for YoY net profits in the third quarter to Dec. 31st 2008. Net sales in the mobile communications segment dipped 5.7% while operating income in that category was off by 8.8%. For their fiscal year ending March 31st, the company kept the profit forecast unchanged at 340 billion yen, or approx. $3.7Bn, which would reflect a nearly 5% gain on the previous year. More details after the jump..

UQ Communications Rolling 4G WiMax

editors February 3, 2009 September 30, 2023

The KDDI led consortia, UQ Communications, is geared up for commercial launch later this month in all 23 Tokyo wards, Yokohama and Kawasaki with Nagoya and Osaka coming online in June. The monthly flat-rate access fee is noted at 4,480jpy, or about $40, and will be available for free until June 30th. They also indicate that “UQ Wi-Fi” service will be made freely available on the Shinkansen for some commercial clients as of March and all customers as of September. The group, including Intel, JR East, Kyocera and several banks, formed in September 2007 and gained official approval from the ministry for the 2.5GHz spectrum a few months later.

Spring Comes Early at KDDI

editors January 30, 2009 September 30, 2023

KDDI has announced 10 new models for their Spring 2009 line-up. It’s a promising looking collection with a most notable model by Hitachi, the WOOO touting world firsts for the 3D viewing function, that looks very cool in person, and 3.3 inch VGA organic EL display. More details after the jump >>

Mobilkom Testing NFC Platform

editors January 27, 2009 September 30, 2023

Austrian-based Mobilkom announced they have developed a chip-based NFC system using the VDV-KA international standard for mobile ticketing in conjunction with the Austrian Federal Railways group OBB. In partnership with Nokia, the OBB has launched a pilot project involving 100 test customers and 100 ticket collectors on the test routes Vienna-Krems and Vienna-Gmund, using the NFC-capable 6212 classic handset for a three month trial period.

LG Telecom Rolls Hitachi Model

editors January 23, 2009 September 30, 2023

LG Telecom has announced the canu s1000 handset will go on sale in Korea for about 500,000 won. The unit is made by Hitachi and based on the W53H design, a dual-swing clamshell with QVGA organic EL display . It will run on the same EVDO rev. A network, synch with the operators OZ content portal and run DMB instead of 1Seg for digital TV. LGT reportedly had good results from their earlier experiment with the canU 801Ex handset which was provided by Casio based on the W53CA Exilim model that was released by AU in spring 2007.