NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today they will start selling the “SH901iC” 3G FOMA handset, unveiled on November 17, through DoCoMo sales channels nationwide on December 1, 2004. This news follows on their announcement earlier this week that launch had been postponed as the handsets needed to be “fixed.”
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that Family Discount plan members will be able to share the unused portions of their monthly data and voice allowances for up to two months beginning on February 1, 2005. The Family Discount plan offers discounts on communication between registered family members.
As if Japanese phones weren’t mobese enough, KDDI is first out of the gate with music distribution for cell phones — allowing multi-slackers to download artists’ songs in their entirety right to the handset. Launching this month, users of EZ Chaku Uta Full (Chaku – download, uta – song, full – in its entirety, get it?) will have access to 10,000 songs from six web sites covering everything from pop princess Hilary Duff to indie artists. Playlist and music sites are set to expand over the coming year. The company also plans to enable downloads through their ‘NOW On Air’ FM radio subscription service, though a start date has not yet been set. Content fee per song should average around 315 yen and transmission speed will hit a maximum of 2.4 Mbps under KDDI’s ‘Double Flat’ fixed packet charge service.
I4U carried a reference to a Nikkei report that Secom and bag maker Kyowa Corp. would release a line of backpacks for students that feature built-in terminals compatible with Secom’s locational information service, Koko Secom. In Koko Secom, GPS (Global Positioning System) technology is used to track the location of special terminals. (WWJ has prices for the backpacks and service.)
NEC has announced that it will start marketing their live-broadcast system using DoCoMo’s 3G FOMA network. The “MobileStream” brand name is designed for PC card-type FOMA terminals; live video images can be transmitted at the speed of 200 kbs. The system uses the H.264 codec and is priced from 7.3 mn yen; sales of 500 systems, to TV stations and local governments for disaster prevention, are expected over the next three years.
NEC Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in the development of a Web page analysis engine that realizes ease of viewing of Web pages on a variety of terminals, such as televisions, PDAs, and mobile phones, despite differences in display resolution and screen size.
