Year: <span>2009</span>
Year: 2009

Year: 2009

Japanese Kids Mobile Usage Survey

Japanese Kids Mobile Usage SurveyThe Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology released the results of their “investigation about use of a child’s cellular phone” survey which was conducted late last year. With replies coming from a total of 10,448 people, ranging in age from elementary school through high school, it’s a wide ranging report with a significant amount of user data, all in Japanese. It’s a real eye-opener on mobile youth usage behavior so we cranked out a quick machine translation, to cover the key points, after the jump.

DoCoMo Gets Approval for India

According to Reuters, India has approved the offer made by DoCoMo in Novemeber 2008 to acquire a 27.3 percent stake in the country’s sixth-largest mobile operator Tata Teleservices on Monday. The deal will result in foreign direct investment of 129.24 billion rupees ($2.6 billion) and the decision also allowed DoCoMo to acquire up to 20.25 percent in Tata Tele’s listed unit Tata Teleservices.

NEC Announces Global Deal with IQ

NEC Corp. and Carrier IQ confirmed that they have formed a global partnership agreement. The companies have integrated Carrier IQ’s multi-vendor compatible Mobile Service Intelligence technology alongside NEC’s leading Device Management products for mobile OEMs and carriers, and will jointly promote the integrated products world-wide.

NEC to Display LiMo Handsets at MWC

According to this press release, NEC will be present at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. NEC is a major player in all areas of the event, with a high profile presence at the conference and on the exhibition floor. As the leading provider of mobile handsets to operators in Japan, NEC will showcase a variety of recent Japanese models that feature unique designs, architectures, touch screens, user interfaces and brand collaborations. NEC’s series of handsets are LiMo Foundation certified devices that capitalize on the LiMo Platform, the industry’s first collaboratively developed Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. Full details Here.

Toshiba Goes Stealth with SnapDragon

Toshiba Goes Stealth with SnapDragonIt appears that Toshiba is playing a viral campaign game with their new TG01 device, which tons of blogs are talking about but not found on their official site.. yet. Apparently it is hoping to take Mobile World Congress by storm next week and judging by the initial specs. this looks like it could be a killer!

SlashGear has an early write-up on it Here, noting the typical smartphone suite. But the real exciting bits are inside via Qualcomms new Snapdragon chipset which enables 1GHz cpu speed and therefore real power to run demanding on-board apps such as full blown Flash for example.. wOOt! As the official details are obviously still fairly thin for the moment we’ll say this much: Looking Good Tosh. now, how about letting us take this baby for a little road-test.. 😎

SoftBank Mobile Q3 Profit Slips

According to this announcement, SoftBank Corp. booked a 37% decrease for YoY net profits in the third quarter to Dec. 31st 2008. Net sales in the mobile communications segment dipped 5.7% while operating income in that category was off by 8.8%. For their fiscal year ending March 31st, the company kept the profit forecast unchanged at 340 billion yen, or approx. $3.7Bn, which would reflect a nearly 5% gain on the previous year. More details after the jump..