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KDDI Announces EZ-Felica Wallet Cell Phone Service

KDDI Announces EZ-Felica Wallet Cell Phone serviceFresh off the news wire [Jpn], KDDI just announced they are ready to roll out wallet-enabled handsets for their new “EZ-Felica” campaign scheduled to hit the Ginza sometime this September. According to the company, they are street-testing the new BREW-based application program which will offer digital cash together with a range of membership services including loyalty points for registered users. But wait.. that’s not all! KDDI also announced that from January 2006, the company will enable customers to use “Mobility Suica” in partnership with East Japan Railway Company (JR) as well. It seems like only yesterday (actually, December 2003) we reported “KDDI Joins FeliCa Bandwagon”.

Japan Ready to Launch Cellphone P2P Digital Cash

Japan Ready to Launch Cell Phone P2P Digital CashbitWallet Ltd., the company that manages digital cash service Edy (Euro-Dollar-Yen), just announced the company will launch a new service called “Edy to Edy” on 20 July. According to the company (rough translation), “[If] the Edy cash value can be sent not only by the Edy number, [but also by] the mail address or the telephone number, it is thought that payments for net auctions, personal gifts or adjustments and congratulations can be used more conveniently.” A minimum transfer fee of 50 yen will be charged for each transaction plus (Aha!) the standard 5% consumption tax; the maximum amount per transfer is limited to 50,000 yen (about US$500). P2P cash transactions between individual handsets has, until now, not been possible in Japan.

Japanese Carrier Plans WiMax Network

ARNnet; A new Japanese telecommunications carrier plans to launch a national wireless network by the end of 2006 that will offer voice and data services using the emerging WiMax network technology combined with city-based WLANs (wireless LANs), a company backing the carrier said on Wednesday. The WiMax network will consist of about 200,000 access points (Must be a typo! – Ed.) each with a range of up to 3 kilometers. They will offer connection speeds of around 75 Mbps (bits per second) and cover 80 percent of Japan’s population by the end of 2007, according to Kaori Ogawa, a spokeswoman for Heisei Denden, a Tokyo-based communications carrier.

New DoCoMo 3G Micro Fuel Cell

DoCoMo announced that the company together with Fujitsu Labs has developed a new and improved prototype methanol fuel cell for 3G FOMA handsets. The new prototype enables eight hours of continuous talk time, three times the capacity of the existing prototype, while weighing the same, 190g. The device is expected to greatly extend usage time once it goes into commercial production. Further work on the prototype is expected to be completed by the end of March 2006.

DoCoMo Expands 3G Global Roaming

DoCoMo announced today that they will expand FOMA 3G international roaming and videophone services in Europe and Asia. Starting from 12 July, WORLD WING and WORLD WALKER users in Seoul, Korea will be able to use the FOMA N900iG handset for voice communications and accessing i-mode. Germany will join the lineup of countries where DoCoMo users can enjoy videophone roaming services, followed by Italy on 26 July.

Vodafone K.K. Acquires New 3G Trial License for 1.7GHz Spectrum

Vodafone K.K. announced today that it has acquired a preliminary license from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which was applied for on 27 April 2005, to operate W-CDMA experimental radio stations on the 1.7GHz frequency band, marking the first time for an existing mobile operator in Japan to receive such a license. Vodafone K.K. currently offers 3G services on the 2GHz frequency band. However, due to an increasing number of 3G customer contracts and the proliferation of packet communication flat-rate services, a rapid increase in 3G traffic is expected, which would make current 2GHz frequency band capacity insufficient.

JavaOne Conference WebCast

While Sun has wrapped-up their annual gathering for Java junkies, held in San Francisco from 27-30 June, we thought you might enjoy watching some of the presentations from this year’s event. James Gosling’s “Java Technology Contributions for the Next Decade” is an interesting peek into the future of Java for mobile and more! Note: For ‘some reason’ the only option for viewing the available video streams is Real Player… 😎

DoCoMo Reports Customer Data Loss

According to this statement [in Japanese] NTT DoCoMo lost customer data records for 48,000 people in the Kanto region. The missing hard-disc, reported to police June 27, had client information such as “Contractor Name” and “Phone Number” however did not contain “Customers Address”, “Credit Card Number” or “Password Details” the company said.

TheFeature.com: Last Post

The end of an era! From the TheFeature’s final posting: When TheFeature.com was launched in the fall of 2000, it was a pretty revolutionary idea — a corporation like Nokia setting up an independent, non-branded site with the task of getting people thinking and talking about the future of mobile communications… With the dramatic changes in the Internet publishing landscape since then, and the rise of blogs in particular, TheFeature’s role as a leader in the community perhaps isn’t as necessary as it once was, with many quality sites discussing relevant topics and providing outlets for the vibrant community that’s sprouted up around the mobile industry.

NEC Announces First 3G Phone for i-mode Operator Outside Japan

NEC Announces First i-mode 3G Phone for i-mode Operator Outside JapanNEC Corporation today announced that it has developed its first i-mode 3G terminal “N600i” for an operator outside Japan and has commenced delivery of the terminal for COSMOTE, the largest mobile operator in Greece. COSMOTE, celebrating i-mode’s first year in the Greek market, is the first i-mode operator in the world, after NTT DoCoMo in Japan, to introduce the 3rd Generation i-mode, next generation innovative mobile Internet services. The new terminal is the first 3G (W-CDMA) and GSM/GPRS-capable i-mode terminal outside Japan.

With i-mode, COSMOTE made a significant breakthrough in the area of advanced data services. The company’s priorities for the coming years include the development and expansion of data services in Greece and the markets in which the company operates in South-Eastern Europe, the increase of their participation in the company’s total revenues, the reinforcement of its customers’ loyalty and the maintenance of its leading position in the market.