Mobile phones, it turns out, are susceptible to attack, as clever hackers have shown in recent years. Not all mobile phones are built the same way, which makes them more resistant to widespread attack than PCs. But operators with a strong economic incentive to sell more than just voice services are pushing phone makers to add more processing capability. Often this is done by adding an applications processor, which creates an opening for would-be hackers.
Hitachi is to bring a WLAN-based positioning system to market in Japan next month. The rig uses Wi-Fi technology to triangulate the location of network clients to within one and three metres – accurate enough to detect whether a user is within the building the network serves.
Taito Corp, a Japanese game software developer, and Finland’s mobile communications company, Nokia Corp, announced on Aug 28 a plan for joint presentation of a karaoke application to be used on cell phones in Asia. Taito will offer an application using its karaoke data format, “Sequential Display Object Format” (SDOF) for Nokia’s GSM-compatible mobile phone “Nokia 3300.”
KDDI has announced a contract with Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia Ltd., a leading cellular phone carrier in Thailand, for the construction of a high-precision global positioning system (GPS). The contract is based on the gpsOne system which KDDI presently offers in Japan in cooperation with NEC as EZ NAVI, and is worth a total of approximately 1 billion yen. In constructing the new system, KDDI will cooperate with Snap Track, Inc., regarding the gpsOne system license and technological support.
As the march towards rich-media solutions for mobile continues, some partsof the evolution remain a challenge – such as common standards and digitalrights management. But the Java virtual machine offers several advantagesfor the carriers, device manufacturers, content developers and end users. This week’s program digs into the details with Tim Smith, managing director of Hello Network Asia. *Disclosure Note* HNA has been an active technology partner for WWJ since our inception. However we strongly feel that this support should not exempt the company from fair coverage of their recent successful mobile application deployments. Full Program Run-time 17:20
Applied Materials Inc. today announced its Black Diamond and BLOk low k dielectric films are being used by Toshiba Corporation for volume production of its advanced 90nm CMOS4 process in the Oita, Japan facility, further validating the manufacturability of Applied Materials’ low k films. Toshiba is using Black Diamond and BLOk to deliver higher performance and lower power consumption required for its TC300 family of ASICs, now being incorporated in the latest wireless devices, networking and server products.
