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editors

Second Life Japan Mobile in Beta

Second Life Japan’s mobile application is slated for public launch here on December 15th and the company is going into recruiting mode for 100 beta users to take the new service for a test-drive. The mobile version will offer both limited free and full paid monthly subscription accounts, 315jpy per month including 300 Linden dollars, and appears to be initially targeted at DoCoMo handsets from the 3G FOMA 700 and 900 series. Clients are strongly urged to make sure they have a flat-rate data plan!

DoCoMo Eyes Mobile Commerce in China

NTT DoCoMo and UFIDA Software Co., Ltd., a leading provider of management software solutions and services in Asia, are waiting for the final approval from Chinese authorities to establish a mobile ecommerce joint venture between the companies. UFIDA Mobile has announced its development strategy for m-commerce in China and plans to deploy their first full-scale mobile commerce platform in the eastern region.

IPMobile Makes 11th Hour Move

IPMobile announced last week that it has reached an agreement with Hong Kong based Distacom Group. The company is planning to lodge a request with Ministry, ahead of the required November 9 service launch date, to switch from it’s approved TD-CDMA format to the TD-SCDMA system citing improved procurement costs for the latter Chinese standard.

Opera's Widgets Become KDDI's Gadgets

We missed the this one somehow last week, KDDI has announced Opera Widgets will be available in December on three of their latest handsets; Toshiba W56T, Sony Ericsson W54S and Sanyo W54SA. Branded as “au one Gadget” by KDDI, the widgets provide instant access to services such as RSS feeds, game results, weather, traffic information, stocks, news, and social networking services. This is the first time Opera Widgets have shipped on mobile phones.

Sharp Develops Super-Thin LCD

Sharp has successfully developed a 2.2-inch super-thin LCD for mobile devices with a thickness of only 0.68 mm, the industry’s thinnest, based on proprietary fabrication techniques for thin LCDs, in particular, glass substrate and backlight technologies. This display will be exhibited at FPD International 2007 to be held at Pacifico Yokohama on October 24 to 26.

SoftBank Mobile Unveils New Models

As predicted, SoftBank Mobile announced their latest handset line-up for the upcoming “sales battle” of the winter 2007 season. The company has new 10 models on offer – 7 coming from Sharp alone – which will begin rolling out by the middle of November through the end of December. They have a dedicated Flash site Here and we’ve posted a few details with images after the jump.