Oki Electric and NTT Communications announced that they have developed a new automated teller machine (ATM) that can exchange data with infrared port-equipped mobile devices including cellphones. The new ATM enables account holders to withdraw cash and check the balance using a mobile phone [.jpg image] just as if they do with a cash card.
KDDI has set a new usage fee of 95 yen per usage for EZNaviwalk, a GPS based location idenfication service for pedestrians. EZNaviwalk’s monthly service fees are 315 yen or less, and beginning the end of this April, the service will be available for one time users for 95 yen for a period of 24 hours. EZNaviwalk “navigates” users to destinations by showing on their handset screens their current location and their ultimate destinations which could be shops and restaurants.
Highly sophisticated cellular phones are also starting to care for their owners by warning them of their health problems or by keeping them safe in case of emergency. LG hooked up with Healthpia, the health-related venture start-up to churn out diabetes phones within a couple of months for the first time in the world. The new-concept phone is equipped with a microchip, which can measure the human body’s glucose, a sugar that comes from food, thus keeping the handset owners informed of their status.
“Always in motion, the future is,” says Master Yoda – and your faithful Jedi knights at WWJ just got a lesson on what’s coming out for mobile phones here this summer. Conventional H.264 video compression requires a large volume of arithmetic operations, and additional components such as H.264-dedicated LSI application processors (essentially a high-speed digital signal processing chip). However, when a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec meets a super algorithm that boosts on-chip processing, the result is super-clear video with less demand on battery power. “Algorithm Specialist” Techno Mathematical Co., Ltd., has just released its Digital Media New Algorithm (DMNA) and today’s program takes a look at the results. Full Program Run-time 13:10
A new video encoding method nicknamed the “mammoth Codec” is attracting the attention of engineers in a wide range of equipment development sectors. The primary reason is the high data compression ratio, significantly better than that offered by existing Phase 2 (MPEG-2) or MPEG-4 Visual schemes. Many authorities working on international standards for encoding technology feel that little further improvement can be expected in the compression ratio, making the new technique a trump card that closes out the current series of MPEG-based Codecs, which began with MPEG-1.
SystemK announced April 1 that a filed test of Shazam, a music recognition service developed by Shazam Entertainment of London, ended in great success. By simply pointing a cellphone toward any music for 30 seconds, the user can find out the name and the singer of the tune.
