Year: <span>2006</span>
Year: 2006

Year: 2006

3G FOMA Subscribers Top 30 Million

NTT DoCoMo has just announced that the number of subscribers to their 3G FOMA service surpassed the 30 million mark on November 4, 2006. According to the statement, DoCoMo plans to increase the number of FOMA base stations by 1.5 times year on year by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2007 and aims to expand the coverage area for HSDPA 3.5G, which provides significantly faster speed than the current W-CDMA based data transmission, while developing more new compatible handset models.

KDDI Unveils New Concept Models

The KDDI Designing Studio in Harajuku has 4 new concept handsets, including the next version of their popular InfoBar series, on display in their main-floor exhibit space. The so-called InfoBar 2 – although it’s the third version we’ve seen? – comes in 5 colors and has a cool speaker system built into the re-charger cradle. The companies AU Design Project continues to set the pace for future model development, if you’re in Tokyo the exhibition runs through 16 November.

The Middle Man in Wireless Content

Derek Kurton, formally in charge of strategizing and building Disney’s wireless efforts, has posted an interesting article about the way carriers deal with mobile content in the US: It’s too bad the US hasn’t seen the adoption of the democratic Asian model, where carriers put up just about all content available, and let the customers decide which is bad, which is good, and which belongs at the top of the decks. This model has worked wonders in Japan and Korea, and would work even better when joined by new emerging solutions in custom UIs, search, segmentation and discovery.

Excite Japan Signs Mobile Content Deal

Excite Japan has signed a deal with Media Lead to distribute mobile content throughout the Asia Pacific region, “The initial plan is for Media Lead to supply mobile games and content for distribution by Excite Japan throughout Asia, and for Excite Japan to supply Japanese originated content to Media Lead distribution to the North and South American, and European markets”. In North America the content will be distributed by LA-based Smart SMS corporation.

Shift Announces Mobile Designers Contest

SHIFT holds several competitions aiming to discover fresh creators and support their activities, such as “SHIFT CALENDAR COMPETITION” and “DOTMOV”. This time, in collaboration with Crypton Future Media, they are requesting submissions for a mobile phone as “MOBILE ART COMPETITION”. The works will be functioned as a mobile phone clock, and the submissions are available in 2 forms; analog and digital. The selected works will be broadly distributed within Japan, in a mobile content managed by Crypton Future Media, which can be accessed from an official site of AU and SoftBank.

Brad Pitt Selling for SoftBank

Building on SoftBank’s TV commercial branding campaign – the company retained Cameron Diaz for a series of spots to coincide with the official patchover from Vodafone in early October – we notice that Brad Pitt has signed-on for round two. Mr. Pitt does not have any lines, the 15sec. TVCM simply blasts ‘Walk This Way’ by Aerosmith as he is seen wandering through what appears to be a crowded street market in Mumbai.