The deputy Akita governor is in hot water for playing pachinko instead of returning to his office after a massive earthquake rocked northern Japan on Monday, it was learned Wednesday. Deputy Gov. Takashi Chiba was the highest-ranking man at the Akita Prefectural Government when the quake occurred at around 6:30 p.m. on Monday because Gov. Sukeshiro Terata was away on a trip to South Korea.
Japan’s cell phone giant NTT DoCoMo said Wednesday it will conduct a field experimentof a fourth-generation wireless communications system that can relay…
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that the companies will launch an on-line payments service, named “DoCommerce,” at 9:00 a.m. on May 26, 2003, enabling both 2G and 3G SSL-compatible i-mode handset users to enjoy mobile shopping and pay online with their VISA, or JCB credit cards.
KDDI has been actively developing technologies and services that fuse communications and broadcasting. As a part of these activities, the KDDI subsidiary KDDI R&D Laboratories, in conjunction with NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories has developed a prototype mobile terminal that supports linked communications and broadcasting services in an environment similar to actual usage conditions. The services combine mobile phone services and data broadcasting for mobile terminals that support digital terrestrial broadcasting.
In the US, data speeds rock: “With my Sprint PCS service I’ve had long downloads with speeds of 59 to 84.4 kbps. In a video test I had a burst of up to 104 kbps.” But is culture significant? “People in the United States have less trouble talking to each other than do people in Japan – many teenagers here actually prefer sending mail to talking, not only because it’s cheaper, but because it’s easier for them to say what they want to say.”
KDDI Corp. and Okinawa Cellular recently announced plans to launch five new handsets from the end of May increasing their new lineup of 3G mobile phones (CDMA 2000 1x), a format that enables high-speed data transmission of up to 144 kbps. All the new phones are Movie Mail-compatible, a function that allows users to shoot and send seamless movies. The new handsets scheduled for launch are the A5401CA manufactured by Casio, the A5402S produced by Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, the A5306ST and A1303SA both made by Sanyo, and the A5303H II manufactured by Hitachi.
