New Tech & Services
New Tech & Services

New Tech & Services

BREW Runs Robot via Bluetooth

KDDI started New Year with a bang yesterday, with three seperate press releases; they announced over 1 million full-song downloads (already!) and something about OTA (over-the-air) updates which we can’t quite make out. However the one about their new BREW-based, Bluetooth-controlled robot [ .jpg ] looked pretty interesting. It seems that Robot Labs has a 29-cm tall, 2-legged beast that weighs in at about 950 grams. Available in early February for about 198,000 yen, it [ .pdf ] has servo motors and gyro sensors — so it’s got to be cool — and will respond to various movement commands (“kick,” “punch”) issued from the cell-phone appli via bluetooth.. Wow!

Korea Set to Launch Mobile Broadcast

South Korea is poised to nudge past Japan in commercializing satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), thanks in large part to its strength in the cell phone industry. TU Media, the affiliate of Korea’s No. 1 mobile carrier SK Telecom, plans to start the world’s first handset-based satellite DMB services next Monday. By contrast, Japan’s Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCo) has been suffering setbacks in drawing customers to its newly launched DMB services with non cell-phone terminals.

Chip Cuts Power Consumption 90%

Hitachi Ltd., a major electrical machinery manufacturer, and Renesas Technology Corp., a microcontroller producer equally owned by Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., have developed system-chip technology that can reduce the power consumption of cellular phones during standby time by 90%, the companies said Monday. The technology will enable mobile phone batteries to last 10 times longer with a single recharge, thereby extending their standby time to a maximum of about 30 days from the current two to three days, they said.

Business mopera Access Simple Launches in Japan

Today SEVEN announced it is powering NTT DoCoMo’s Business mopera Access Simple — a mobile groupware service that enables secure remote access to email, calendar, contacts, and documents via i-mode phones. Available today from NTT DoCoMo’s direct business sales force and NTT DoCoMo’s retail stores throughout Japan, Business mopera Access Simple is a tier-one i-mode service and is a core “i-mode for Business Solutions” offering. NEC and SEVEN partnered to develop Business mopera Access Simple; it is based on SEVEN’s “behind-the-firewall” Server Edition software.

JCB Mobile Infrared Credit Payment JCBeam Trial

JCB, a leading international payment brand, will start a three-month pilot project for its mobile infrared credit payment system on 29 November 2004 under the name “JCBeam Trial.” JCB is actively moving ahead with both contactless payment and infrared payment systems. JCB participated in KDDI’s Kei-Credit trial and in NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode FeliCa service preview, both in 2003, and is currently running a trial of the QUICPay contactless payment system using NTT DoCoMo’s mobile wallet service.