At the BREW 2004 Developer Conference in San Diego, awards to honor stand-out BREW products and services were announced in six categories. EZFM and EZ Naviwalk won 1st prize in the Best Entertainment and Best Location-Based categories, respectively. Other Japanese entries from Edia Co., MediaSeek Inc., and Namco were selected as finalists in the information, entertainment and productivity categories.
NTT DoCoMo and Telstra Corp. Australia, today announced they have formed an exclusive strategic partnership under which Telstra will launch i-mode® in Australia. Signed today, the agreement licenses Telstra to offer the i-mode service with DoCoMo providing its brand, technology and patents.
Barefoot Software Asia Limited (BSAL) is pleased to announce the launch Australian Swimsuit Edition-Free (ASE), via the Barefoot Software website for download. ASE is a Cardmate application which is being launched for Free as a promotional application to end users who have a Symbian 60 supported device.
ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that its NetFront v3.0 microbrowser is now available for QUALCOMM’s BREW(R) solution. With NetFront for BREW, mobile operators and handset manufacturers will have access to the some of the most advanced mobile browsing technology in the world. The company announced the product at the BREW 2004 Developers Conference being held June 7-9 in San Diego, California.
Yet another important pre-launch milestone for FeliCa, the break-through IC chip technology we feel is going to turn Japan’s mobile phones into e-wallets from next year, has been announced by Fujitsu: The company will incorporate the hardware it its next-generation F900iC handsets a scant 8 weeks from now. These new handsets, as we have argued in a series of articles over the last six months, have a very good chance of sparking a revolution in the way keitai are used in Japan.
KDDI R&D Laboratories have jointly developed a mobile-phone terminal that receives digital terrestrial TV broadcasts with interactive services in conjunction with NHK Science and Technical Research Labs. The two companies are the first in Japan to develop such a product in advance of digital TV broadcasting aimed at mobile terminals, which is due to commence in fiscal 2005. We visited NHK’s open house for a peek at the prototype, a modified Hitachi W11H 3G handset. The demonstration allowed users to watch a newscast and scroll through a menu of relevant links to view different segments, like weather forecasts or sports highlights. Full Program Run-time 4:26, also available in Real Player and QT formats.
NEC Corporation and NEC Electronics Corporation today announced that they have succeeded in increasing efficiency of the development of software that operates complicated system LSI used in digital appliances and mobile phones through the development of a software verification system that substantially reduces development cost and time of system LSI.
LG Electronics announced its vision of “Global Top 3 by 2006,” a vision to rank among the top three handset makers in the world, on June 4 in the presence of 2006 employees. LG plans to run global R&D centers in China, Europe, then in North America, Asia/Central Asia and Latin America. The company integrated GSM and CDMA handset units into one business group as of June 1st, and is gearing up for the launch of their one-chip, dual-mode “world phone” integrating CDMA and GSM.
If you’ve been watching Japan technology news lately — or better yet, logging onto WirelessWatch.jp — you’ll have noticed an increasing amount of coverage devoted to the new multimedia cell phones. These are basically cell phones that have been adapted to include analog TV and FM radio broadcast receiver chips. The idea is to integrate the TV or radio receiver chip into the phone to enable mobile users to watch regular terrestrial TV broadcasts or listen to FM radio. Full program run-time: 4:52
Portable Reportable audio updates are short, 3- to 5-minute news items in MP3 format. You can listen via PC or download and copy to your portable player for tomorrow morning’s commute. — Eds.
I received a query from a long-time, astute, tech industry watcher last week after sending out the WWJ newsletter. I say “astute” not only because he’s a long-time WWJ fan, but also because he works as a high-level consultant in several fields, including auto electronics, software development, and marketing. His query focused on my comments that Vodafone’s 3G subscriber base was still tiny — with 151,400 compared to 3.58 mn and 13.99 mn at DoCoMo and KDDI, respectively, as of April 30. My numbers came direct from the Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) website, and he asked, somewhat skeptically, if these numbers were correct. I replied that they were and said that…
