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

Toshiba Wins Hynix Suit

The Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Toshiba in the Japanese electronics maker’s patent infringement suit against the Japanese unit of South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor over its flash memory-related patents. The court ordered Hynix Semiconductor Japan to discontinue the sale of products in violation and pay 7.8 million yen ($67,000) in damages.

Omron Antenna Boosts RFID

Japan-based Omron Corp. has developed a electronic control antenna technology claimed to be the first embedded in an UHF-band RFID reader that can improve RFID tag reading performance. UHF RFID tags have been subject to multipath interference, an inherent problem of electromagnetic signals, which can make an RFID tag unreadable even if it is within the range of the reader.

Ministry to Adopt Ultra Wideband Wireless

The Japan communications ministry said Monday it will put into practical use this fall the ultra wideband wireless system that enables indoor data transmission at five times the speed of the fiber-optic communication system. With a transmission speed of up to 500 megabits per second, the system will allow the recording of more than two high-definition television programs at the same time, the ministry said.

Au Announces New Handset & Service

According to a press release from KDDI/au today, the company has just announced a new handset, the W43T [.jpg] from Toshiba. Also just announced: this Toshiba unit will incorporate the company’s new 3D Navi GPS service functions and that both will be introduced to the market starting in late April. This latest CDMA-1X unit also offers LISMO mobile music and touts a 3.2-megapixel camera, although it does not have a 4GB HDD, like the recent W41T, or the mobile commerce ‘FeliCa’ chip.

3D Moji Mail – Icing on the Cake

3D Moji Mail - Icing on the CakeHere’s a quick video clip we shot at the Vodafone press conference when they introduced the new V804SS handset by Samsung — the first Samsung handset in Japan — going on sale here finally today. It has a few up-close examples of the company’s new dynamic email application, “Deru Moji” 3D Pictogram Display with pop-up animations, that we thought were pretty interesting.

While the functionality is only interoperable between a few handsets so far, this is a mobile mail nation and ‘cool factor’ really does count. Look for more discussion online about this next-gen offering — centered on when will it hit EU and US markets. Remember you saw it here first on WWJ!

Usen Plans Free Mobile Video

Usen Corp. plans to begin a free video distribution service for cellular phones on March 27, with the goal of attracting 3 million registered users in the initial year. Videos, each lasting no more than five minutes or so, will be transmitted to users of 3G-handsets that support video and high-speed data communications functions once they register their personal information, including ZIP codes, sex and email addresses. No fees will be charged, but four short commercials will be inserted into each programme.