Thrilled to join with nice folks at HP Bazaar to co-host a rocking good MoMo Tokyo debut event on 13 September and it seemed as though most of the unwired digerati within commuting distance of the Pink Cow, in ubertrendy Shibuya, were there. In today’s Portable Reportable, Chief Editor Daniel Scuka quizzes WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii on what he saw and heard at the Mobile Monday launch in Tokyo.
Sharp has developed a new, 2-megapixel CCD camera module featuring a 2X optical inner zoom lens. Intended for use in high-end cameraphones, the new LZ0P3738 [.jpg image] will be available in quantity beginning in October 2004. Sharp is already marketing the LZ0P3731 2-megapixel CCD Camera Module with auto-focus, but to provide even greater functionality, Sharp has successfully equipped this new module with an optical zoom lens that is switchable between normal and 2X zoom.
KTF Co., South Korea’s second-largest mobile phone operator, said Thursday its board decided to form a joint venture with Dentsu Inc., Japan’s biggest advertising company, to produce and sell advertisements on cell phones. KTF will invest 2.5 billion won (US$2.2 million) in the Seoul-based joint venture and hold a 51-percent stake, the venture will begin operations in November this year, KTF said.
Inmarsat is putting heavy emphasis on the Chinese market with its next-generation service, targeting both corporate users and rural communities not covered by cellular networks with data-capable communications. Three Inmarsat 4 satellites are scheduled to begin operation at the end of next year, at a cost of $1.5bn, offering 3G data rates at around $10 per megabyte through a $700, A4-size gateway box.
CEVA Inc., the leading licensor of Digital Signal Processor (DSP) cores and communications solutions to the semiconductor industry, today announced that Japan Radio Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of electronic professional communication equipment, has licensed the CEVA-Teak DSP core to power their baseband radio communication solutions. Japan Radio Co., Ltd. (JRC) is embedding CEVA-Teak DSP Core in a baseband chip for its communications equipment to deliver complete signal processing.
This may be the exception that proves the rule, but Sony shows that the PDA isn’t quite dead yet (at least not in Japan) with their latest, the multimedia PEG-VZ90. The biggest news is that it’s the first Palm with an OLED screen, but besides that it also plays back MPEG-4 video and both ATRAC3 and MP3 audio (hallelujah!), includes 802.11b wireless, and has a CF card slot that will take both communications and memory cards (plus the inevitable Memory Stick slot. According to Sony’s press release (in Japanese) this unit hits the street here at the end of September.
