Year: <span>2005</span>
Year: 2005

Year: 2005

Feature Film Mobile Marketing

Mobile phone technology is at the cutting edge of studio advertising — though less in the U.S. than in certain foreign territories, where it is far more advanced than here. “What we did for (the June actioner) ‘Batman Begins’ was we developed our first fully dedicated WAP,” Warners international marketing president Sue Kroll says. “We did that in the U.K., France, Germany and Spain and basically promoted a short code that allowed people to access the site and had all kinds of video vignettes, interviews and information about the movie. We are working to do something in Japan that’s similar for (the recently released) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Devices Powered by ACCESS' NetFront Surpasses 200 mn

ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, announced that the number of devices equipped with its NetFront family of browsers has surpassed 200 million deployments worldwide. The achievement of this milestone firmly establishes NetFront as the leading browser for the mobile and beyond-PC markets. NetFront is widely recognized as one of the most advanced mobile browsers in the world, but NetFront is also widely popular as a browser solution for set-top boxes, game consoles, digital televisions, car navigation systems, and dedicated Internet terminals.

ACCESS, Accelerated Tech Collaborate on Mobile Client

ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies today announced that ACCESS have collaborated with Accelerated Technology, a Mentor Graphics Division to bring ACCESS’ NetFrontTM Mobile Client Suite solution to the Accelerated Technology Nucleus real-time operating system. The integration of NetFront Mobile Client Suite with the Nucleus RTOS provides mobile device manufacturers with access to an advanced and comprehensive software solution suite that supports a broad range of device types including multi-media capable 2.5G and 3G handsets.

Shaking Up Japanese Telecom

Sachio Semmoto likes nothing more than seizing an opportunity when he spots it. Six years ago, the former electrical engineer thought he could crack open Japan’s fossilized telecom sector by connecting businesses to unused lines owned by NTT. Now, Semmoto is smelling opportunity again. On November 10, Japan’s communications ministry granted eAccess one of three new cellular licenses, opening the market to the country’s first new entrants in a dozen years.

DoCoMo Credit-Card Site Soft Launch

DoCoMo credit cardOn 8 November, DoCoMo said they would start offering a new FeliCa-compatible credit card, called the ‘iD card‘ (that’s ‘i’ and in ‘i-mode’ and — we guess — ‘D’ as in ‘dominant market position’), on 1 December. The iD card will allow i-moders to make credit card payments with a FeliCa eWallet phone; Big D said the payment procedure will be “as simple as waving the phone in front of dedicated reader/writers at stores.” Now, it looks like their Flash-heavy, groovy, dedicated iD-card website is now open, trolling for prospective customers.

When you’re the dominant wireless carrier in the market, and you’ve invested billions in building a 3G network, but hoped-for packet revenues collapse when your No. 1 competitor beats you up with flat-rate pricing, launching your own credit-card brand is a sensible option. Welcome to the ultra-high-tech, but old-fashioned-business-model, future..

Nice to See WWJ Being Aped…

Your ever-vigilant editors noticed this weekend – see below – that Engadget is looking for a video producer. Now, why do all the other cool mobile media sites pick up $26 mn in funding from the AOLs of the world.. and then decide they should start producing online video? We’ve being doing it for years — without the deep pockets. To Engadget’s credit, they often pull the latest WWJ reports. End of rant; we now return to our regular, video-enhanced, programming… 😎