According to recent reports in the Japanese press, NEC Electronics Corp. has revealed it is discussing volume production of a Certified Wireless USB (WUSB) transmission module using ultra wideband technology based on WiMedia Alliance’s multiband OFDM specification as early as the end of June 2006. If all goes as planned, dongles and other WUSB compatible products are likely to show up on the local market by Fall of 2006.
Qualcomm has announced what is said to be the industry’s first single-chip CDMA2000 radio frequency CMOS transceiver with integrated receive diversity and simultaneous-GPS. The RTR6500 transceiver’s integration of receive diversity improves network capacity, and its integrated support for simultaneous-GPS provides a way to meet the demand for location services while enabling handsets to feature a slim form factor. The transceiver also features IntelliCeiver technology for dynamic power optimization.
According to the Nikkei, top mobile phone chip supplier Texas Instruments Inc., NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. are in talks over possible cooperation in cellphones, Matsushita and NEC said on Friday. NEC’s chip unit, NEC Electronics Corp., and the cellphone unit of Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., are involved in the talks, they said, adding that nothing concrete has been decided.
According to an article by Bloomberg, Google has successfully tested advertising on mobile phones in Japan, signaling a new revenue opportunity for the company. “Mobile internet usage is fairly high” in Japan, Deep Nishar, a Google product manager, said in an interview at the CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show in Las Vegas. “We’ve had a fairly successful trial of mobile text ads there.”
Update: See announcement posted at Google Press Center
NEC Corporation today announced that its High Speed Down link Packet Access (HSDPA) is to be deployed in the 3G network of 3 Hong Kong, a subsidiary of Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited. This contract has been awarded to NEC and its 3G partner Siemens following a successful field trial on 3 Hong Kong’s UMTS network. During the field trial, NEC’s HSDPA-based UTRAN achieved a high level of performance and functionality, including high-speed internet access, consecutive data transmission and handover in a HSDPA service environment, while allowing flexible and variable changes in transmission speed.
NEC LCD Technologies today announced that it will begin shipping samples of its new 3.5-inch (8.9-centimeters-diagonal) amorphous silicon thin-film-transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD), part number NL2432HC22-40A, in the beginning of June. The new LCD is extremely suitable for installation in various portable devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and portable GPS terminals as it can reproduce colors clearly and vividly even in indoor/outdoor environments with high ambient light.
The largest mobile operator in Russia, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), has signed an agreement to buy 40,000 mobile handsets from NEC Infocommunications, a subsidiary of Japan’s NEC. The handsets will be delivered by July, according to a press release by NEC Infocommunications, without disclosing the financial details of the deal. Prime-Tass reports that NEC will supply six models of handsets – N412i, N343i, N411i, which all support i-mode function, and e121, e1101 and e540.
EAccess Ltd. said on Wednesday its mobile unit will raise 42 billion yen ($359 million) from issuing new shares, while the unit has also secured a 220 billion yen credit line from banks. Under the agreement, the mobile unit, eMobile Ltd., will issue new shares totaling 28 billion yen on April 25. EAccess is one of three firms to be awarded mobile licences by the Japanese government last year. The deal is the largest nonrecourse project-finance loan in Japan for a company whose services have not begun yet, according to EAccess.
Kyocera Wireless and Boingo Wireless announced the demonstration of a prototype Kyocera BREW-based dual-mode Wi-Fi/CDMA handset with integrated Boingo public Wi-Fi roaming at the CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show in Las Vegas. In a real-world setting, network operators and MVNOs can optimize the dual-mode handset’s application suite to automatically choose the appropriate mode, based on environmental and performance preferences.
Good Design Award 50 Years is an exhibition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Japan’s foremost design awards, the Good Design Awards (also called the G-Mark system). Besides celebrating a half-century of Good Design Awards history, this exhibition at Triennale di Milano introduces the design efforts of twenty longtime participants, focusing on their award-winning products. Organized by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization (JIDPO), the event runs from April 5th – 10th.
