Three Japanese consumer electronics giants have created a new technology to transport Internet and media signals around the home via the electricity network, Panasonic said on Thursday. Sony, Mitsubishi and Matsushita-owned Panasonic have set up the SECA powerline alliance. They have developed a system to transfer 170 Megabits per second of data through the power lines of a home, Panasonic researcher Ingo Chmielewski told journalists at the electronics trade fair CeBIT.
Adobe Systems Incorporated and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. today announced an agreement for DoCoMo to adopt Adobe Reader LE software for its 3G FOMA handsets, providing customers of the popular i-mode™ service with access to high-impact, reliable content delivered in the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Utilizing Adobe Reader LE technology, i-mode customers will be able to view and interact with a wide range of new business and entertainment content, making their mobile Internet experience easier, more productive and more secure.
Japan’s KDDI/au introduced two different prototype smart-tag mobile phones to the media. One handset is equipped for close-up scanning from just a few centimeters and another reads data as far away as 10 meters. Combined with GPS global positioning networks these handsets could download coupons and ads from nearby stores, receive and store data for distribution companies or scan merchandise right over the phone to link up with detailed shopping info on the Internet. Of course QR codes are already doing some of these things but smart tags bypass a lot of intermediate steps to cut to the encrypted chase.
OMRON Corporation, a global leader in automation, sensing and control technology, has announced “OKAO Vision Face Recognition Sensor”, a world first* in face recognition technology which can be implemented in PDAs, mobile phones or other mobile devices with a camera function. The ability to recognize and verify the authenticity of the user through face recognition is meant to contribute to greater security and safety for mobile devices, and the information they contain, in the future. The technology will be on show at the “Security Show Japan 2005”, which will be held at the Tokyo Big Site from March 2nd to March 4th, 2005.
Sony Ericsson today kick-started its entry into the mobile music market with the announcement of the W800 [ .jpg image ], the first Walkman-branded mobile phone. It will now be possible to listen to music, handle phone calls and take pictures and video — all with one device and with, according to company claims, no compromise in quality. The Sony Ericsson W800 is the first device that combines a mobile phone, a high-quality digital music player (with up to 30 hours’ battery life), and a 2-megapixel camera.
It may look as though WWJ has been devoting too much editorial space to FeliCa coverage lately, but the fact is: FeliCa continues to be hot news. On Thursday last week, No. 3 carrier Vodafone announced they, too, had signed up to deploy Sony’s contactless payment technology on Big Red cellys, likely by fall this year. But I wonder if all Japanese consumers will be equally happy to store their hard-earned cash on a losable, spamable, stealable cell phone?
