New Tech & Services
New Tech & Services

New Tech & Services

NEC Announces Mobile Music for Telstra

NEC has announced the release of “music-on-the-move”, an innovative new mobile content service for Telstra i-mode users. To bring the site to life, licensing agreements have been secured with major record labels, EMI and Warner, as well as local Australian independent labels, Shock Records and Vicious, providing consumers with a diverse array of mobile content. Music of all genres from past and present is available for purchase and download in through the “music on the move” i-mode site, giving Australian mobile phone users instant access to their favourite tracks.

Use QR Code to Call a Taxi

K-cab is a SMS-based service for calling taxicabs, which is available in Iwate prefecture. The service can also be used with QR codes that encode location information. Vending machines that bear such location-encoded QR codes are being installed in varous places in the prefecture so that people can easily call a cab just by taking a picture of a QR code with their camera phones and connecting to the K-cabs’ taxicab dispatch website.

JR's Cell Phone Payment Plan: Slow Start

East Japan Railway Co.’s new service that allows passengers to pay train fares with their cellphones has got off to a slow start. The number of compatible handsets is limited by JR East’s strict standards on scanning accuracy, designed to prevent accidents during rush hours. Cellphone carriers also blame limited geographical coverage and a JR East requirement for passengers to own the company’s View Card credit card. (Hmmmm… the credit card requirement could be a show-stopper. Give it 90 days… — Eds.)

EZ FeliCa Announces New Campaign

KDDI have just announced [in Japanese] a new service that combines their Osaifu Keitai (wallet phone) service with the popular EZ-Navi GPS function. Users will be able to browse their mobile phone for locations that accept EZ FeliCa transactions and then request map directions to guide them there. The Ready Go! campaign will promote use of this system between March 1st and April 30th, with prizes including “Beauty” trips to Korea, onsen (spa) vacations and Edy e-cash certificates. The company offers five fully enabled handset models and this announcement reinforces our main points in this recent article about KDDI/au’s competitive edge in Japan.

Index Trials Cameraphone Recognition

Index Solutions announced a joint venture today with Tokyo based Kuremen Technologies to trial an image recognition program using photos taken by the camera of mobile phones. The new service, called PicLin, will enable the company to provide users with additional information according to the picture sent via e-mail using image recognition technology powered by Kureman.

Real Networks & DoCoMo Sign MOU

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and RealNetworks, announced today that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on February 15 as a first step to jointly deploying RealNetworks’ Mobile Streaming Server software to facilitate new video streaming capabilities that DoCoMo will add to its existing V-Live service(tm). The enhanced V-Live service would create an open environment to enable content providers (CPs) to use their own multi-format, cross-platform Helix Mobile servers, to stream video content over the Internet to FOMA handsets.