Panasonic has announced a plan to take up where Connexion by Boeing left off. Panasonic has set about securing agreements covering a minimum of 500 aircraft in the next 60 days. That schedule is being driven by the need to be ready to serve ex-Connexion airlines within a tolerable time after the discontinuation of that service by the end of the year.
KDDI have announced the introduction of their new Business Messenger service, which will enable users to send and receive voice calls, text, and still pictures to a group of up to 20 people at a time. Targeting the corporate/consumer market, the offering can initially only be used with Casio’s E03CA [ .jpg ] handset scheduled for release in December this year.
Japanese multiple system operator (MSO) Jupiter Telecommunications (J-COM) says it will launch a trial of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services next month, offering customers a single number for their landline and mobile phone. The service allows a mobile phone with Wi-Fi support to transmit a landline telephone signal as an extension of the traditional home phone. J-COM’s four- to six-week FMC trial, the first of its kind in Japan, will test technological and operational aspects of the service ahead of a planned commercial launch, in the near future.
This tid-bit has been around for awhile now, but in case you missed it: “In their ever continuing effort to re-educate the world about the wholesome nutritional value of their produce, McDonald’s have taken a step forward in Japan and applied a clever bit of technology to bring the nutritional label into the 21st century. Each burger now comes equipped with its own QR code printed on the wrapper which navigates you to an online site where you can see the amount of calories and fat you are consuming.” Information is available both for individual items and full-meal deals.
WWJ has spotted the first presence of NTT DoCoMo’s ‘DCMX’ mobile credit (card) service on the streets of Tokyo and, once again, the future has arrived. Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, WWJ’s director of digital media, en route to a central Tokyo video shoot a few days ago, spied the first street-level advert for retail goods payable via DCMX (image at right).
Predictably, the pitch came from Girl’s Walker, Xavel’s icon of community-centric, user-recommended mobile shopping, which earned the company Pharaonic riches long before dusty old ‘blogs’ were ever invented. Girl’s Walker is touting a special fall line of fashionable goods that can be paid for via “DoCoMo credit,” which takes the form of a real credit payment for adults, or the purchase cost is added to the monthly phone bill, for cash-flush, under-age teens. Note no reference to any sort of ‘card’ – the service is the phone, and credit ‘cards’ are oh-so-1970s.
DCMX is shaping up to be the main pillar in DoCoMo’s consumer financial services strategy that will lock in mobilers and secure massive revenues long after 3G – and the mere delivery of mobile digital content – has become a low-margin sideline that markets elsewhere still can’t comprehend. DCMX isn’t merely the the ‘Next Big Thing’ – it’s everything; and it’s going to make 3G itself redundant (WWJ subscribers log in for full viewpoint and details on the DCMX mobile credit service).
JR has announced they will drop the previous requirement to have the company’s “View” credit card in order to take advantage of their Mobile Suica service as of 21 October. They have also indicated that by sometime in December this year, SoftBank Mobile customers with FeliCa-enabled handsets (no model types announced) will also finally be able to use JR’s m-commerce system.
