Editor’s Note
Editor’s Note

DoCoMo Share Price at Record Low

According to this report via Bloomberg, DoCoMo aims to rely on dividend payments and strategic investments to raise its share price from record lows. “The dividend is our top policy choice, followed by investments in growth areas; buying back shares comes after that,” Tsubouchi said in an interview today. “The share price is just too low.” Chief Financial Officer Kazuto Tsubouchi said.

4G Chipset for Willcom XGP

Wavesat announced that its “Odyssey” chipset is the first, and currently the only, to be widely deployed in Willcom’s new “XGP” broadband wireless network, which entered commercial service this month in Japan. Willcom’s data-only XGP service, based on a 4G “OFDMA” standard, is available to the general public and enterprise users. The 4G multi-core architecture incorporates multiple ultra low power DSPs, offering flexibility, high performance and low power consumption. The SOC manufactured using advanced Embedded DRAM technology requires no external memory, thus saving customers power consumption for very small form-factor. The Odyssey chipset is featured in Willcom’s GX001N XGP PC Cards manufactured by NEC.

A Super Slick Mobile Ad Campaign

While blitzing through the typhoon from one meeting to another along the JR Yamanote lines yesterday afternoon we stumbled across this groovy installation by Mediacure on the platform. Promoting the latest hot drink sensation – CoCo Presso, basically Hot CoCo flavored espresso – which has also been running what would have to be a rather expensive TV ad campaign.

Mildly interested, and certainly in need of a hot shot of something, upon entering the booth it was clear they were using the FeliCa tap & go call-to-action, note reader embedded beside the LCD screen on the last photo. Sure enough it loaded a crisp Flash mobile website offering a coupon for a quick discount on the product via the co-located vending machine, which of course is also NFC-enabled. The entire sequence of snapping the pix below and grabbing a jolt of sweet caffeine took like 90-seconds before our next train came along. Thanks to the folks at Meiji – this surprise treat really made our day!

DoCoMo Unveils Touch Wood Handset

DoCoMo announced it has developed a mobile phone prototype made with the surplus wood of trees culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests. The mock-up was created in collaboration with Sharp, Olympus and th ‘More Trees’ reforestation project founded by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and others. This would represent a natural addition to previous corn based offerings – circa 2005 – via NEC and Fujitsu.