Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

Index Tuning in for Mobile Digital TV Contracts

Index Tuning in for Mobile Digital TV ContractsIndex Corp., a Japanese company specializing in creating content for mobile phones, is rounding up TV contracts aimed at specialized interactive services linking mobile handsets and television programming. A story in the Nihon Keizai business daily reported the company was on the verge of issuing around 20 billion yen in shares to four other broadcasters including Nippon Television Network, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fuji Television Network and TV Tokyo. When asked by WWJ, Index would say only that parties concerned were in negotiations and nothing could be confirmed yet. The news, confirmed or not, drove Index shares up 9.5 percent on the JASDAQ on 25 May. Both TV Asahi and Fuji Television already own around 1-2 percent of shares in Index.

The company is currently in partnership with five broadcasters for a remote control application that displays TV listings for the whole country on mobile phones. Launched in March, TeMo Chan is free to download, works with all carriers and also provides access to official mobile sites of TV programmers. Partners are Tokyo Broadcasting, Fuji TV, TV Asahi, Nippon Broadcasting (NTV), TV Tokyo.

Getting Touchy Feely with Textured Cell Phone Covers

Getting Touchy Feely with Textured Cell Phone Covers

Vodafone Japan has two new handsets ready to roll this July perfect for fashionistas and metrosexual males with finicky phone fetishes. Tightly fitting silicon costume covers, ala Trinity, have been designed to slip onto the sleek clamshell bodies of the V501T from Toshiba and Sharp’s V501SH handset for a very different sort of custom look. The V501T has twelve wild interchangeable cover designs. These are not just reflective overlays but full-on, 3-D cushy covers changing the look and feel of the phone to, well, something else.

Vodafone: New Costume Covers for Cell Phones

Vodafone KK announces today that in early July 2005 it plans to offer two new 2G (PDC) handsets, the V501T by Toshiba and V501SH by Sharp, so customers can easily coordinate handsets with their mood, fashion or lifestyle. With the V501T, customers can change a handset’s appearance with interchangeable covers, and the V501SH comes with panels that alter its tactile feel.

Japan Cell Phone Sales Drop

Domestic shipments of cellular and automobile phones in Japan totaled 44.77 million units in fiscal 2004 that ended March 31, down 12.2 percent from the previous year for the first decrease in three years, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association reported Tuesday.

DoCoMo Announces Five New 3G Wallet Phones

DoCoMo Announces Five New 3G Wallet Phones

With little fanfare and no press conference, NTT DoCoMo has released five new 3G FOMA 901iS FeliCa-enabled handsets into the digital world: D901iS (Mitsubishi), F901iS (Fujitsu), P901iS (Panasonic), N901iS (NEC) and SH901iS (Sharp). All have certain features in common with other 901i models, including music players, “3D Sound,” Deco-Mail to decorate email, G-GUIDE interactive TV guide and recording programmer (see the .pdf for full specs). New features include a 4-megapixel recorded resolution camera for the D901iS and a full Web browser on the N901iS. The company says that the 901iS-series is DoCoMo’s first in which all models are equipped for mobile-wallet functions, but the five handsets actually do a lot more than drain virtual bank accounts. The pre-installed Adobe Reader LE, for example, enables 901iS phones to view PDF files downloaded from i-mode sites. The application includes access to all basic PDF functions including scrolling, paging, text searches, bookmarks and page rotation and users can easily email files, dial a number or navigate to a Web link in the file. But wait, there’s more…

Japanese Use Cell Phone QR Bar Code Readers to Check Food Safety

Japanese Use Cell Phone QR Bar Code Readers to Check Food Safety

Belly up to the Bar Code: QR codes are reducing the fear factor for foodstuffs in Japan as agricultural associations embrace the new wireless technology tagging fresh produce for quick access to mobile information Web sites. A new English-language report [.PDF] released this month by NTT DoCoMo on QR code use in agriculture reveals the growing popularity of this medium.

Forget any assumptions about Hicksville. Japanese farmers have little fear of technology. Rural Ibaraki Prefecture has turbo charged their QR coding for agricultural products tagging a wide variety of vegetables grown in that prefecture. Ibaraki Prefectural authorities and the JA Ibaraki Prefecture Central Union of Agricultural Cooperative cooperating with other farming and agricultural associations are adding QR code labels right at the point of origin. In the supermarket, consumers use camera equipped cell phones to scan the QR code on the label. The code links to a mobile website detailing origin, soil composition, organic fertilizer content percentage (as opposed to chemical), use of pesticides and herbicides and even the name of the farm it was grown on. Consumers can also access the same information over the Ibaraki Agricultural Produce Net website by inputting a numbered code on each label.