Mobile Users
Mobile Users

Japan Telecommunication Equipment Production and Trade Figures

Japan Telecommunication Equipment Production and Trade FiguresThe Communications and Information Network Association of Japan has just released a report detailing the overall value of domestic production for Q1-05. It quoted totals for the April–June quarter at 620.3 billion yen, a reduction of 2.4 percent over the same quarter last year. The total value of production excluding cellular phones was 222.4 billion yen, a growth of 2.5 percent year on year. While network equipment and parts, such as routers and hubs, recorded healthy figures due to the switch to IP and broadband networks, cellular phones, which make up two-thirds of the market, dragged the total figure down, resulting in a slight reduction overall.

The production figure for cellular phones decreased by 5.4 percent over the same quarter of the previous year to 392.5 billion yen, resulting from fewer new subscribers and a negative rebound from the growth spurt in the January–March 2005 quarter. The July–September quarter is expected to return to positive growth with growing demand for IP network equipment and upgrade sales in conjunction with the expansion of 3G cellular phone services.

Wearable Wireless: Dressed to Annoy

Excuse me, could you turn the volume on your jacket down please? Clothing manufacturer Goldwin has loaded flat-panel speakers right into their new line of snowboarding jackets. Grab some air — headphone free. Jack in directly to your MP3 player, choose your tunes and screen your mobile phone calls through the remote control unit that attaches to the sleeve. The Communication Concert jackets come in three styles. Costs start from 67,000 yen (approx. US$610).

Cellcom to Launch i-mode in Israel

DoCoMo has just announced that Cellcom Israel, Ltd. will start marketing DoCoMo’s i-mode service in the Israeli market as of today. The service, which will be offered over Cellcom’s GPRS network, is the eleventh market for i-mode, following Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Australia. DoCoMo sees great potential for i-mode growth in Israel, with its national population of approximately 7 million people.

Win-win in a downloading culture

The start of Apple Computer Inc.’s music-downloading service Aug. 4 heralds big changes in the landscape of Japan’s music business and culture. Music lovers can now choose their favorite songs from among 1 million songs offered by iTunes Music Store. With Apple’s entry into the Japanese market, an increasing number of people are expected to start downloading music from Internet sites, using their computers.

i-Mode Pac-Man Tournanment

Namco announced the world’s first international cross-network operator mobile games tournament. The tournament is open to every i-mode phone owner on all of the mobile networks in Europe where Namco offers its PAC-MANTMARCADE site. The tournament is based around Namco’s brand-new high-score version of PAC-MAN, which allows users to upload their highest scores from the mobile version of PAC-MAN to compare it with other users, locally and internationally.

Block Cell Phone Peepers with Darth Vader

Block Cellphone Peepers with Darth VaderEver had someone peek over your shoulder to see what’s on your cell-phone screen? Maybe you don’t want to share that latest hot stock tip or expose the lowest possible Tetris skill of all time. Then you’ve got to get a Magic Screen. When viewing the handset display directly, it’s clear and easy to read. However, when viewed at even a slight angle to either side — Abracadabra! — the Magic Screen’s holographic reflective technology blocks nosey parkers.

These simple LCD stickers have started to become pretty popular (think cell-phone straps 2.0) over the last six months or so here and all the usual suspects — from Disney to Kitty to Playboy — have licensed their famous brand characters. We noticed just yesterday that even Star Wars’ Darth Vader can be enlisted (for a paltry 900 yen) to protect all your sensitive info from those pesky subway peepers (the Yoda version — ‘Keep our data safe we must’ — was sold out). WWJ subscribers login for some full-resolution photos.