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CEATEC JAPAN 2004: Ushering in the Ubiquitous Society

CEATEC JAPAN 2004 was officially launched at a press conference held in Tokyo, attended by some 130 members of the press. Shigeru Ikeda, president of the Communications and Information network Association of Japan (CIAJ), opened the conference with a greeting on behalf of the three sponsoring organizations. Jiro Iriye, director of the CEATEC JAPAN Management Office, then provided an overview of this year’s exhibition, which is rapidly becoming a major international event. CEATEC JAPAN 2004 will be held in the 5-day period from October 5 to October 9. The theme of this year’s event is “Ubiquitous Society–Digitally Enriched, Accelerating to the Next Stage.”

Subways Disable Cell Phone Service

Japan’s suffering subway and train commuters may welcome this news although it might be a bit heart-stopping for communications (as opposed to people) carriers. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the transportation bureau of Nagoya city government has decided to relocate relay base stations that were installed near the ticket gates at the 72 below-ground stations in the 80-station system so that commuters cannot use their mobile phones on trains and in stations.

Fuel-Cell Mobile Phones for Digital TV

KDDI has teamed up with Japanese mobile-phone manufacturers to develop a fuel-cell-powered phone equipped with functions for receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. KDDI has signed joint development agreements with Toshiba and Hitachi. Although the two manufacturers will develop fuel-cell-equipped mobile phones separately on the basis of their own technology, they will use the same user interface that includes the fuel inlet.

Mobinet Index 2004

The latest Mobinet study from A.T. Kearney reports that 41 percent of the world’s wireless phone users expect to be regular or heavy users of data services by 2005. The Index looks at current and planned usage of wireless data services such as mobile email, games, music downloads, photo messaging, and news updates and the strong user demand represents a whopping 200-percent increase over the past year. Have mobile data services finally reached a tipping point?

Openwave to Support i-mode Phone

Openwave Systems Inc., the leading provider of open software products and services for the communications industry, today announced a collaborative agreement with SAGEM, a major international player in telecommunications manufacturing, to deliver the SG321i, one of the first i-mode-compliant phones to be produced by a European manufacturer, to Bouygues Telecom, a French mobile operator acknowledged for its policy of innovation. The phone will use the Openwave Mail Client for i-mode and Openwave Mobile Browser V.7 (V7 Browser), the flagship application from Openwave Phone Suite Version 7.

Samsung: World's First Amorphous Silicon 2.6-inch VGA LCD

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, the world’s largest provider of TFT-LCD display panels, today announced the world’s first a-Si (Amorphous Silicon) 2.6-inch TFT LCD with VGA image quality. Using a-Si technology, mobile phone displays are now capable of displaying the same VGA format found on notebook PCs and desktop monitors. With almost seven times the resolution of a 42-inch high-definition LCD TV at 300 pixels per inch (ppi), an a-Si enabled mobile phone can be used as a high quality mobile TV.