DoCoMo announced today that a new 3G FOMA handset developed with award-winning designer Stefano Giovannoni will be globally premiered during Design Week from April 18 to 23 in Milan, Italy. Giovannoni, creator of highly acclaimed designs for world-famous companies such as Alessi, Fiat and Siemens, designed the new handset in collaboration with handset manufacturer NEC Corporation and DoCoMo.
Just in time for 3GSM, mobile auto-racing fanatics in Spain can snag a Mclaren Mercedes branded cell phone [.jpg image] from Vodafone. Apparently the collectors edition, for 69 Euro with a two year contract, will be made available to mark Alonso’s switch from Renault to Mclaren Mercedes in the upcoming 2007 Formula One season. The Sharp 770SH ML handset features a QVGA screen, 1.3MP camera, MP3 player, miniSD card slot and USB.
Bouygues Telecom is testing a travel card integrated into a mobile phone in a trial covering the entire Paris mass transit authority (RATP) and Transilien SNCF suburban transit network in the Paris region. The experiment is the fruit of a cooperative venture with Gemalto for the SIM cards, NEC for the mobile handsets and Inside Contactless for the NFC contactless components. Tests carried out by Bouygues Telecom and the RATP between July and October have already validated many technical aspects. Transilien SNCF has decided to join in the next phase of the trial, which will involve some 100 test customers over a three-month period.
CASIO Europe and Sierra Wireless have announced a marketing agreement that brings 3G wireless connectivity to CASIO mobile data collecting terminals in Europe. Under the terms of the agreement, the IT-3000, DT-X10, and new DT-X11 mobile data collecting terminals will support Sierra Wireless’s AirCard 850 wireless wide area network (WWAN) card for HSDPA UMTS networks. With the AirCard 850 card, CASIO’s mobile data collecting terminals can transfer data via UMTS, HSDPA, EDGE, GSM, and GPRS networks worldwide.
The LG L343i with i-mode on-board appears to be coming soon to O2 in the UK and in some other markets as well. It’s a low-budget GSM / GPRS unit and the handset spec. is very basic with a 128×160 pixel 262K colour TFT display, VGA resolution (0.3 megapixel digital camera) plus Bluetooth but no data card. Reminds us of the early i-mode days (circa 2001) here in Japan.
IRISH phone users are paying the highest bills in Europe, it was revealed last night. Both mobile and fixed-line rental charges are almost twice the EU average, according to new figures. Vodafone, with profits last year of more than E45billion, claims that its Irish revenues are the highest anywhere in the world, except Japan.
(Sort of makes you wonder why they sold out to Son… — Ed.)
