<span class="vcard">editors</span>
editors

CocoTan – iPhone 3G Location App

NTT Com held a press conference to announce their new free push-type service that feeds information about nearby places of interest to iPhone and iTouch owners who also subscribe to the companies HOTSPOT WLAN flat-rate data package offering. The new service, named Cocotan! taken from Japanese koko “here” and tan “search”, automatically provides a list of recommendations based on the clients access point matched to a database of consumer-generated content, including blogs and Web reviews, for restaurants etc. located near-by.

Mobile World Congress 2009 – Video Reports

Mobile World Congress 2009 - Video ReportsHola – we are finally back in the groove here from our MWC adventure last month. The congress was chaos as usual this year with the predictable rush of news, presentations and evening event hopping. While attendence YoY was down, almost 50,000 players managed the annual trek and, like many, we made some fantastic connections. Yoroshiku!

Even though the main stage keynotes were, to be polite, ‘not valuable’ we were inspired by the opening address from Anssi Vonjoki at the Mobile Peer Awards. Indeed, these are the times when winners are built. Also of note, the Father of imode, and now professor at Keio University, Takeshi Natsuno gave a well-documented video presentation titled Toward Global Evolution of the Mobile Industry. The opening remarks suggested that his comments might seem controversial and that since leaving DoCoMo last spring; “I am enjoying a happy life.. just because now I can say whatever I believe”. That 20-mins was far more insightful, especially considering the caliber of delegates attending, than all of the other CEO dog & pony shows we saw – combined. While on the topic of Japanese innovation, we bumped into Masahiro Ito from YAPPA, our interview with him last spring is Here, and got a quick on-cam. demo of some of their latest UI offerings. The company apparently has major news coming later this month at the Game Developers Conference and were in Barcelona to promote the launch of their Spin UI Developers Network portal.

In summary we saw glimmers of hope, from the largest and smallest of companies, caught-up with existing clients while meeting some new prospects, had a blast at several of the mixer events and will never forget living like the locals for a week 😎

Sony Bravia TV Adds Felica NFC Function

In another step forward for machine to machine connectivity, and fixed-mobile convergence, the folks at Sony held a press conference in Tokyo this week to parade their upcoming big-screen television offerings. The announced KDL-series full HD LCD models on show, ranging from 32″ to 52″ and approx. $1,500 to $4,500 respectively, will be shipping this April with the Felica RFID reader/writer embedded in the remote control. Soon we will see Japanese handsets enabling transactions through the TV!

DoCoMo Reduces Interconnection Fees

DoCoMo announced that it has notified the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications that the fees it charges other operators to interconnect with its network have been reduced by more than 10 percent, effective immediately and applied retroactively to all interconnections since April 1, 2008. Perhaps related to this news from September last year, that the company had been over charging for international roaming, the full details of their updated billing structure is explained within several .pdfs which accompany the press release.

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..