Kyocera has unveiled the AH-K3001V handset [image] for the Japanese market. It’s the first handset available in Japan that uses the Opera browser to access the Internet. The phone is fully Opera-branded, including an Opera-branded softkey that brings users online for Web surfing. The AH-K3001V will be available to DDI Pocket AirH” subscribers by mid-May.
Oki Electric and NTT Communications announced that they have developed a new automated teller machine (ATM) that can exchange data with infrared port-equipped mobile devices including cellphones. The new ATM enables account holders to withdraw cash and check the balance using a mobile phone [.jpg image] just as if they do with a cash card.
Vodafone K.K. announced today that after late May it will offer the new KOTO -V303T- model by Toshiba with a look that fuses elements of traditional Japanese and modern designs. The KOTO is a design model that combines traditional Japanese and modern elements based on the concept of universal beauty in the present. In addition to incorporating elements of the koto form, the dial keys have been delicately constructed like koto strings.
Wireless Watchers will have noted that it’s changing-of-the-guard season in Japan, with NTT DoCoMo’s Keiji Tachikawa about to move on just as the company enters a self-described “paradigm shift.” We believe we know what his successor, Executive Vice President Shiro Tsuda, will be up to — mainly because DoCoMo strives at every opportunity these days to tell one and allit’s not a carrier any more, but rather a budding e-commerce service platform provider. More intriguing, however, are the senior staff developments at Vodafone’s struggling Japan opco, Vodafone KK (struggling, that is, through a device dry spell that won’t see any significant new 3G models out until the fall). Big V has just shipped over a new COO, David Jones, who has arrived, we guess, with a briefcase full of spring-cleaning items. Certainly the appointment of a new chief operating officer hints at a change of gear for the company. Is this a push to boost the lagging 3G provider from neutral to at least first gear?
KDDI has set a new usage fee of 95 yen per usage for EZNaviwalk, a GPS based location idenfication service for pedestrians. EZNaviwalk’s monthly service fees are 315 yen or less, and beginning the end of this April, the service will be available for one time users for 95 yen for a period of 24 hours. EZNaviwalk “navigates” users to destinations by showing on their handset screens their current location and their ultimate destinations which could be shops and restaurants.
On April 1, Vodafone Japan opened its 5-floor, 890-square-meter flagship megastore in Shibuya and we were there to cover the event and take a peak at some of the goodies on hand. Japan Wireless Watchers will know that Shibuya makes or breaks fashions for Japan’s youth market, and i-mode is commonly said to have been popularized in Shibuya. For Vodafone, the new store is part of a public relations blitz to complete the rebranding of J-Phone amongst Japan’s vital teens and tweens market ahead of a big 3G terminal push later in the year. We were a bit disappointed that Vodafone didn’t have anything really new on offer in terms of new services or handsets to coincide with the big opening, but as a rebranding tool the store — located centrally on one of Shibuya’s main drags — is probably worth a thousand billboards. Full Program Run-time 6:04
