Year: <span>2004</span>
Year: 2004

Year: 2004

Cell Phone Users Want TV Function

Nepro Japan published results of a survey of mobile phone users about services and functions. According to the survey, the most wanted function is a TV, as about 40% of the respondents pointed to it. In response to a question regarding “functions desirable for future mobile phones” (multiple answers allowed), “TV” (43%), “dictionaries” (35%) and “keys” (29%) were the top three. Functions such as “electronic wallet” (25%) and “TV phone” (24%) did not attract many supporters.

Panasonic Ships CCD-Killing Tech for Mobiles

With what might turn out to be impeccable timing, Matsushita Electric Industrial is shipping what Panasonic is touting as a breakthrough technology called nuMAICOVICON to replace CCD and conventional CMOS for camera loaded mobile phones. Imagine a technology that’s as cheap and cheerful on power consumption as CMOS, but delivers CCD quality, add in a good chuck of production and the Panasonic people could have a product that will save quite a few purchasing managers’ careers. This isn’t a future technology story: Panasonic are deadly serious. They have already started banging out about 2.2 million of the 1.3 megapixel version now, are adding a 2 megapixel version next month and want to ramp to 8 million units a month by October! WOW!

Siemens, Huawei Sign 3G Joint Venture

Shenzhen Huawei Technology Co. Ltd., one of China’s leading telecom equipment manufacturers, and Siemens Mobile signed a contract Thursday to build a joint-venture to develop products based on the TD-SCDMA standard. Over 100 million US dollars will be injected into the project. Siemens will hold a 51 percent stake and Huawei 49 percent.

Mazda Adopts G-BOOK for Telematics

Mazda and Toyota today announced that they have reached a basic agreement on providing Mazda owners with G-BOOK, a Toyota-developed network information service. Mazda aims to introduce this service from 2005. Toyota began providing the G-BOOK service to Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. last August and has already announced similar agreements with Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation.

Panasonic Targets 40M Handsets by '06

According to Teruo Katsura, Managing Director and Member of the Board of Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd, (PMC), Panasonic is targeting a1 trillion yen, in sales and 40 million handset production schedule for 2006, and is aiming at an 8% global market share in terms of terminal shipments by 2006. Speaking at a strategic briefing today, Katsura said that PMC wants to boost its sales 250% of its 2003 levels and hit GSM hard in Asia in particular.

Panasonic to Launch GSM 3G Mobile Blitz

Today, Teruo Katsura and Panasonic Mobile Communications announced something we’ve been lusting for over two years: A Japanese maker with brilliant technology showing the true grit to attack the world market!

We were fiddling around with Panasonic’s new FOMA 900i-series phone (not at a store near you in Europe or the United States, unfortunately) and noticed the plastic battery cover kept on falling off. At that moment, Katsura-san, managing director and member of the board of Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. (PMC) – who we were rubbing shoulders with – turned around and said “Don’t Worry! These are only the test models!” We had a great chat with Katsura-san, who earlier today announced Panasonic’s aggressive move into GSM, Europe, Asia and the world; but that, the X700, the X60, and X66 are for later in this article. Having handled the P900i, we think it’s a cracker. It’s sleek and light and full of action, a folding design that’s beautiful in its simplicity and feather-light to touch (Oh! So far has FOMA come…!) but packing a full 3G punch – plus an SD card that plugs into a whole range of Matsushita/Panasonic equipment for what the marketing guys used to call a “richer multimedia environment.” Heavyweight congratulations to Panasonic for delivering a killer 3G phone!

The best news we have is that, aside from our love at first sight with Panasonic’s 900i, the model is alive and well and officially on sale mamonaku (soon). Of course, that could mean anytime from today, Feb. 10, to the next 10 days, although for probity’s sake, Totaro Uchiyama, manager of PMC’s Overseas Mobile Terminal Division, says the launch will be before the end of February.