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Japan's largest newspaper Web sites get hundreds of millions of page views per month. But many new media pioneers are still unsure where news sites fit into the media mix in Japan -- and whether they'll ever make a profit. A man walks by a bank in Osaka just as it erupts into flames. He pulls out a camera-equipped cell phone -- one of 10 million in use in Japan -- and snaps a photo.

J-Phone said that on March 3 it will launch "Loco Guide," a new service that utilizes the J-Sky mobile Internet to bring a broad range of local information to customers based on their current location. Loco Guide searches for location-specific contents so users can quickly obtain information on transportation, restaurants, leisure spots, banks, hospitals, and other services. Previously users had to search different J-Sky content services to obtain location-specific information. However, with Logo Guide, users can now access the contents of multiple sites simultaneously, thereby eliminating the inconvenience of searching different sites to find relevant information.

2002 saw 48.8 percent of the nation's households sporting Internet-capable electronics equipment, according to the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry. According to the statement including such devices as computers and mobile phones topped 50 percent in the Kanto and Kinki regions.

But trouble is looming for the battery world. While lithium-ion batteries represent today's cutting edge, the gadgetry that depends on them is advancing more quickly than the power technology. As mobile devices take on richer features, battery life has become a key issue for gadget developers, and now manufacturers need to go one better than lithium-ion, in both size and energy output.

WWJ sr. contributing editor Michael Thuresson, recently returned to Los Angeles to join the LA Business Journal editorial staff, sent in a user-level review of his new Sanyo handset that he uses on the Sprint network: The faceplate looks almost exactly like my old i-appli Panasonic DoCoMo model, but the thing is three times as thick and it is much heavier. This makes it hard to tuck the phone in my front shirt pocket - the left side of my shirt is tugged down by the weight. Based on my experience of trying to download ring tones, I have to say Sprint's user interface is disappointing.

Tens of billions of dollars are riding on the future of fast, mobile Internet services, but industry leaders leaving the world's top wireless trade show still struggle to justify the investment. At the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, the 28,000 visitors as usual overloaded the local mobile phone network, underlining that the industry still faces basic problems as it seeks to rekindle sales with advanced data services.

Access D2 Communication's 2003 Picture and Text ad rates guide (in Japanese only). D2C is a JV between - You guessed it! - DoCoMo and Dentsu.

DoCoMo's N504iS can serve as a remote controller for your TV via the handset's IR port; it can also be used to scan and then access a printed URL. Access URLs below for pics.

http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/11750.html
http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/static/image/2002/11/20/n504is012s.jpg
http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/parts/image_for_link/37053-11750-6-2.html

A man has been arrested after he used tear gas in a futile attempt to escape from a Tokyo video store where he had been caught filming up a woman's skirt, police said Saturday. Police said that the man used his camera-equipped mobile phone to film up the skirt of a 20-year-old woman who was browsing through videos and CDs in the shop.

A local assemblyman from Tottori Prefecture was busted Thursday for purchasing narcotics, police said. The arrest of Susumu Ota, member of the Kurayoshi Municipal Assembly, was followed up by raids on six locations. Ota denies the allegation.