New Tech & Services
New Tech & Services

New Tech & Services

In-flight Wireless Slowly Taking Off

Connexion made its debut in May on Lufthansa, which calls its service FlyNet, and is the first full-feature, in-flight internet service to reach travellers. The only routes served as of July were Munich-Los Angeles and Munich-Tokyo, but the company plans to equip all its long-range aircraft with the technology, and add New York routes by the end of the year. According to Connexion spokesman Terrance Scott, Japan Airlines will be the next to add the service, followed by Scandinavian Airlines and All Nippon Airways.

Single-Chip FM Tuner for Mobile Phones

Sanyo Electric recently announced a new tuner IC that integrates an FM radio receiver circuit into a single chip. It is forecast that a radio tuner will be built into 30 percent of cell phones on sale in the market in the near future, with shipments of 500 million units per year expected, said an official of Sanyo Electric.

GPS Golfer Location Service by NEC

NEC has announced the development of a GPS-based golfer information service, whereby the locations of players on a golf course and their scores are displayed on a large screen or a PC monitor in realtime. The service will be tested in August at the NEC Karuizawa 72 Golf Tournament, where NEC’s NESPIT III positioning terminal, NEC Software Chubu’s realtime GPS, Scala’s InfoChannel3 broadband display solution, and NEC’s UNIVERGE IP8800 multilayer switches and UNIVERGE WL wireless LAN systems will be used for the test.

Toshiba's New 60GB 1.8-inch HDD Offers World's Highest Capacity

Toshiba Corp. today confirmed its continued innovation and leadership in the fast growing market for 1.8-inch hard-disk drives with the announcement of two new drives. The 60GB “MK6006GAH” achieves the highest capacity yet achieved in this increasingly important HDD format, while the 30GB “MK3006GAL” slims down drive thickness to only 5mm.

Inetcam: Live Video Streaming to BREW Mobiles

Inetcam, Inc., a live video streaming software developer, today announced its latest mobile viewing application called iMViewer developed for QUALCOMM’s BREW solution. The iMViewer software enables users to monitor virtually any network connected camera or video source live from their wireless handset. Built for the BREW solution, the application provides mobile users with a high-quality secure connection to their business or home while they are away. Through the use of Inetcam’s patent-pending technology, iMViewer ensures faster response times to real time security-related events such as vandalism and theft.

Prototype Organic TFT Color LCD

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Hitachi have jointly developed an organic thin-film transistor (TFT) color LCD prototype which uses organic TFTs as a driving switch. The 1.4-inch prototype has a resolution of 80×80 pixels, each of which measures 318×106 microns. The TFT is 50 microns in width and 5 microns in length. AIST expects that the organic TFT technologies will pave the way for the development of next-generation displays at lower costs.