Fujitsu announced on June 28 that it has added an RFID tag chip with 256B of FRAM (ferroelectric random access memory) to its FerVID family of RFID tag chips. Designed using a 0.35-micron process, the MB89R119 runs at a clock speed of 13.56MHz and supports a wireless communications range of 70cm and a data speed of 26.48Kbps. The chip is sample-priced at 50 yen (46 cents). Fujitsu will launch sales on August 1, aiming to sell 5 million units per month.
Mobile commerce over cell phones jumped 25 percent last fiscal year to around 971 billion yen ($8.8 billion) according to a survey on e-business just released by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry [.pdf in Japanese]. Covering all of fiscal 2004 (which in Japan ended March ’05), the survey showed wireless purchases of books and music had grown by 85 percent from virtually nothing the previous year to 330 million yen ($3 million). Shopping for clothing and accessories over the smallest screen accelerated 79 percent, taking in 150 hundred million yen ($1.3 million).
Researchers for the report noted that consumers are comfortable with shopping on the Web, grouping it with other mainstream retail experiences. Individual online (Internet) purchases rose nearly 29 percent to 5.64 trillion yen in fiscal ’04. This confidence has users embracing the anytime, anywhere convenience of the mobile Web in addition to — and even sometimes preferably to – the PC experience.
Credit Saison Co., Japan’s second- largest publicly traded credit card operator, said it will expand ties with regional banks to outgrow bigger rivals Nippon Shinpan Co. and JCB Co. and win 30 percent of the domestic market by 2010. [..] Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., Japan’s No. lender, has allied with NTT DoCoMo Inc. to offer credit services for mobile phone subscribers. It had about 12.8 million cardholders as of March 31 2004.
Now that TV viewing has jumped off the couch and onto the streets over wireless handsets, Japanese TV broadcasters are scrambling to adapt content and programming to mobile viewing. Colorzip Japan is introducing a Technicolor technology that could bring TV mobile marketing into focus for broadcasters.
Colorzip Japan recently announced it is working with strategic partners Fuji Television Network, and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) on a late-summer launch of TV applications for its two-dimensional server based code recognition system, ColorCode, linking TV broadcasts to related digital content for sponsored websites, music samples, contests and prize drawings.
The technology could eventually provide easy access to TV programming in progress or rebroadcasts via subscriptions. For now though, the developers are looking at links to mobile program websites as well as contests and promotions. Colorzip Japan CEO Christopher Craney told WWJ, “TV companies are working on this initially as a way to promote their programming.” (Evan Owens, Director and CTO, made a presentation about this technology at Mobile Monday Tokyo’s April Event — Ed.).
Digital Fountains DF Raptor technology has been standardized by 3GPP, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, as a mandatory component of the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) for 3G cellular networks. Commented Frederic Gabin, 3G Standards Project Leader at NEC, “Digital Fountain’s FEC provides the best of all worlds: low bandwidth overhead, low processing requirements for client devices, and effective protection of MBMS file transfer and streaming services from packet loss over 3G wireless channels.”
Japanese IC cards have pop posters grooving to a techno beat this summer. Fans of hunky J-Pop star Shogo Hamada just flash their Suica rechargeable RFID train commuter card at specially designed high-tech poster displays around town to reserve a copy of his newest album, My First Love. Japanese are calling this new interactive ad medium, “Denki Posta” (electronic posters). Popping up in all sorts of variations, most have plasma-display panels and flat-panel speakers.
Suica’s IC card technology has been a runaway hit in Japan. More than ten million are in circulation around the country and the service has brought in numerous retail partners for cashless payments at shops and restaurants within the stations. It was developed by Sony together with Japan Railways East Corporation and will soon migrate from hands to handsets. In January 2006, DoCoMo plans to combine their Felica smart card e-money platform with the Suica commuter card into a series of mobile handsets.
