On 29 May, BusinessWeek ran an article, "Japan: Cheap Cell Phones at What Price" aiming to demystify Japan’s complex carrier subsidy situation. The writer, Kenji Hall, is an astute observer of this country’s mobile scene, but he missed the mark on several key points and it’s worth reviewing these in detail…
KDDI announced yesterday that they are working with rival operator NTT DoCoMo and the Meteorological Agency to develop a platform which will deliver urgent earthquake “news flash” information to cell phones. According to the limited details made available it seems like they are planning to target users only in the immediate area where an earthquake is expected to hit.
Gemini Mobile has raised an additional financing round of $5 million from Japan’s ACCESS, Aplix Corp. and Nomura Securities. Previous investor, Mitsubishi-UFJ Capital, also invested in this latest round. The new funding follows the recent $20 million round from Goldman Sachs announced in March. The new financing will be used for general business purposes including continued momentum of Gemini’s international expansion efforts.
DoCoMo has just announced that they will form a strategic alliance, through a capital tie-up, with the FamilyMart convenience retail chain. DoCoMo will acquire 2,930,500 common shares owned by FamilyMart — approx. 3% of total issued shares — for about 9 billion yen (usd $74 Million) on June 13, 2007. From July 10, FamilyMart stores will begin accepting m-commerce payments via the DoCoMo iD platform which is currently accepted in only about 140 of nearly 7,000 locations nationwide.
Oki Electric has succeeded in developing the world’s first ultra small DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) wireless module for embedding in mobile phones to be used for inter-vehicle communication systems. Using this module the company succeeded in trial production of the world’s first mobile phone, “Safety Mobile Phone” specifically designed to improve pedestrian safety. The Safety Mobile Phone notifies vehicles in the surrounding area of its location and retrieves the location information of vehicles in the surrounding area that are equipped with the DSRC system.
This article via IHT, related to using the cameraphone as a diet device, is getting some major attention around the web this week. The product and service offering described there sounds very much like LifeWatcher from Mobile Healthcare Inc. which we first covered here on WWJ back in Aug. of 2003 including a video interview with the company CEO James Nakagawa.
