Sign of the Times
Sign of the Times

Sign of the Times

DoCoMo Plans New Offices in APAC

NTT DoCoMo has announced the company will establish offices in Shanghai and Singapore in January 2005. The company said it aims to “enhance its information-gathering capabilities, as well as raise its profile and strengthen relationships with government officials and corporate managers, in these two important markets.” The carrier also stated that, “Yoshimune Ishii will head the Shanghai office and Haruki Yamashita will head the Singapore office, both of which will have about four employees.”

3G Competition Heating Up

Foreseeing that demand for 3G phones will get on track in Europe and North America this year, sparking competition with rivals in Japan, Samsung and LG are turning up the heat to market their new 3G models to customers in these regions. Mobile phone makers in Japan such as NEC, Panasonic, Sharp and Sanyo, which have concentrated on supplying W-CDMA phones to carriers in Japan, are also reportedly poised to focus more on global markets this year.

New Year Gadget Shopping: Cell Phones that Look Like iPods

One of the best things about having a few days off over the holiday season in Tokyo is having time to wander casually through Akihabara and check out the latest gadgets. 2005 is shaping up as a showdown year for music-enabled portable devices and I couldn’t help but notice how DoCoMo’s new 3G handset, the SH901ic by Sharp, really does seem to have at least a slight style similarity to the iPod. As the network speed increases — and with flat-rate packet costs and improved handset technology — critical mass adoption by mainstream users buying even more data seems to be at hand. As competition increases, how will carriers, handset makers and content providers adapt their offerings over the coming year?

While it remains to be seen exactly what kind of applications and services will hit the streets, it has become increasingly clear that a race is on. Having both KDDI and Vodafone launch fixed-line access to content for mobile devices in Q42004 shows, at least in the mid-term, they are ramping up the business model to deliver larger-size files to end users. A little crystal-ball gazing for the coming year — and some very cool Akiba gadget photos — after the jump.

Hitachi Beats Samsung at KDDI – Comments

In a report on Unstrung, Justin Springham comments on the significance of this week’s KDDI contract awards to Korean and Japanese vendors (noted by WWJ here). Yesterday, Hitachi seemed to beat Samsung’s day-earlier deal with KDDI Corp., revealing that it had also secured a CDMA 1XEV-DO Revision-A network upgrade deal with the carrier worth approximately 100 billion yen. Springham writes that: “Hitachi’s win eclipses the earlier $800 million deal with Samsung. Reports suggested Samsung claimed to be the sole supplier of Revision A kit to KDDI.”

Portable Cell Phone Booth

The Portable Cellular Phone Booth provides a visual image of social sacrifices and opportunities to interact with one another lost due to our own self-involvement. This ‘performance art’ retractable phone booth [ .jpg image ] is carried on your back and can slide up and over your head to completely isolate you from society; the action is fast and slick just like the flip action of a cell phone. Via: Gizmodo

Nokia Says Hello Kitty

After a quick check to make double sure this isn’t some twisted April Fool joke (guess not), it seems that the folks over at Sanrio have managed to license their famous Hello Kitty character to (gasp!) Nokia [.jpg image]. Apparently coming in mid-December for Cingular “Pay-as-you-Go” customers, this predictably pink handset touts exclusive games, wallpapers and ring-tones. We bet there will be a rush of Oba-san shoppers rushing around to get a hold of one here in Japan.

Sony's Newest Aibo Dances to a Wireless Beat

Sony's Newest Aibo Dances to a Wireless BeatSony’s new-wave handheld PSP game device breaks on Japanese shores 12 December, see the WWJ video here. Unfortunately, anyone beyond the Land of the Rising Sun will have to wait until March (maybe) to get their hands on one. Those with a wad of yen (dollars or Euros) to spend, though, can plunk it down right now on another Sony entertainment gizmo — one that sits on your lap instead of in your palm. Enhanced wireless connections have Sony’s newest version of their PC pooch Aibo sitting up and playing music, taking photos and dancing to a wireless beat.

Admittedly, ‘Robot as Pet’ is still a difficult concept to get around. Sure, some people prefer the touch of cold, hard metal on their skin rather than fluffy fur — but generally they don’t answer to the name ‘Pet Lover.’ (Though they may follow similar commands, “Sit! Beg!”) Even Sony seemed to realize their dog ‘bot needed more to justify its high price than just playing fetch and lurching slowly (very slowly) after its little plastic ball. The company has redesigned and repositioned the shiny ERS M2 version of Aibo as an enhanced audiovisual machine.

Japan's Phones Are Coolest

When NTT DoCoMo unveiled its latest third-generation mobile phones on Nov. 17, gadget lovers were not disappointed. The new handsets, manufactured by five leading Japanese electronics makers, can download videos, play games, pay for groceries at convenience stores, and work as remote controls for TVs and other devices. Oh — they also make and receive phone calls. “This is the epitome of a 3G phone,” says Takeshi Natsuno, DoCoMo’s managing director for multimedia services. Not to be upstaged, Japan’s other carriers are putting the finishing touches on their own new phones, featuring everything from music downloads to international video-calling on super-sharp color displays.

Nintendo DS Attracts Crowds

In the Tokyo district of Ikebukuro, about 100 people, including junior high school children and workers on their way to the office, lined up outside a store that opened its doors at 7 a.m. to snap up Nintendo’s new interactive “Nintendo DS” [.jpg image] game consoles. The dual-screen consoles come with a touch panel and built-in chat software, and can be connected to a wireless network to interact with other players. After purchasing the console, many of them immediately opened the box and started playing. Nintendo hopes to sell 5 million consoles worldwide by March 2005.

Record TV Shows Using i-mode

TV viewers have been using electronic program guides (EPG) and video recording on hard disk drives (HDDs) for viewing programs whenever desired. Now you can easily schedule television recordings without being in front of the TV or VCR, just by entering the necessary program information into your mobile while you are away from home — via i-mode, of course. WWJ reported on this system last year in our “CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of Wireless” video program, now it’s finally coming to Prime Time.