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

Year: 2006

Willcom Announces New Zero3 Smartphone

Willcom has announced an updated model of their hyper-popular smartphone, the W-ZERO3 series by Sharp. The WS004SH will hit the streets here on June 22nd and will be running pretty much the same spec. as the original version, with a couple of small exceptions. They have doubled the onboard flash memory from 128mb and added a 300,000 item dictionary, including a Japanese-English “DicLand Ver1.1” suite. Otherwise, it’s the same Windows Mobile 5.0 OS on an Intel PXA270 416MHz CPU with no improvement on the 1.3 mega-pixel camera or battery pack which have be the only serious complaint issues from owners who were so eager to buy the debut model last year.

DoCoMo Announces BlackBerry for Japan

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) announced today that DoCoMo will start marketing RIM’s BlackBerry handheld devices to its corporate customers in autumn 2006. The BlackBerry handheld devices to be sold in Japan will operate on both W-CDMA (UMTS) and GSM/GPRS networks and will be useable around the world for voice and data communications. BlackBerry Enterprise Server software tightly integrates with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise, and enables secure, push-based wireless access to e-mail and other corporate data.

Dentsu, Mitsubishi Establish Anime JV

Dentsu Inc. and Mitsubishi Corporation announced today that they will form a business alliance encompassing the production, sale and rights management of Japanese animated works in Japan and globally. Dentsu brings to this partnership significant capabilities in content and creative production in Japan, while Mitsubishi Corporation has built a strong track record in the export of Japanese animated works, particularly focusing on children’s animation. The partners have agreed to actively cooperate in developing businesses that utilize such new media as the Internet and mobile devices.

Software Glitch Hits Sanyo Handsets

Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co. said Tuesday it will start repairing defective software in mobile phone handsets it now supplies for KDDI Corp.’s “au” phone service, resulting in an expense of Y1 billion this fiscal year. The Osaka-based electronics manufacturer said all 506,800 handsets of its “W32SA” model for the au service are subject to free repairs.

NEC Announces New LCD Module

NEC LCD Technologies, Ltd. today announced that at SID 2006 in San Francisco it will give a presentation and demonstrate a sample of its new 3.5-inch color quarter video graphics array amorphous-silicon TFT liquid crystal display module boasting a viewing angle and contrast ratio of the industry’s highest class for small liquid crystal display modules. This new LCD module was realized by a combination of super-reflective natural light technology, NEC’s proprietary transflective technology for adapting objects to outdoor light.

Advisory Panel Suggests NTT Break-up

An advisory group to Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka will recommend in a final report due out today that the holding company for the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp group should be dissolved around fiscal 2010 and the entire NTT group disbanded, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported without citing sources. According to the article it is far from clear whether the report will become official government policy.