Battery technology has improved significantly over the last 20 years or so. And this has enabled some wonderful gadgets and tools including mobile phones and PDAs to become practical and usable devices. Enter micro fuel cells. This technology, being developed by literally dozens of companies in the United States, Japan and Europe, promises to deliver a fivefold or more increase in power for small, portable devices.
In an effective snub to top handset maker Nokia, the Financial Times reported that Vodafone was negotiating exclusive deals with Japan’s Sanyo and Samsung of South Korea for its new range of upgraded Vodafone Live! multimedia phones. ‘Vodafone is trialling a number of handsets to support its 3G service, which will be available before March 2004,’ the group stated. ‘Vodafone cannot confirm at this stage which manufacturers will be exclusive providers for Vodafone’s 3G services.’
The current buzzword in personal electronics is Wi-Fi, but the full potential of the latest laptops, cell phones and PDAs is being held back by batteries that last just a few hours. Major consumer electronics firms like NEC, Toshiba and Motorola, along with a number of startups.. are working on micro fuel cells, which theoretically can generate power 10 times longer than conventional batteries.
iFone Ltd, the leading global wireless entertainment publisher, today announced the creation of content based on QUALCOMM’s Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) platform. The company plans to roll out an extensive catalog of BREW- based titles such as classic Atari favorites Centipede, Asteroids and Breakout. iFone is also creating BREW-based content that takes advantage of the company’s exclusive global wireless rights to Hasbro brands and is planning to offer BREW-based versions of family favorites, including Monopoly, Clue and Battleship.
Mobile gaming is seen by many as the next big thing, as phones become more powerful and come with colour screens. People are going to be spending millions of pounds to play games on their mobiles by next year, say experts. “This has been a very good year for mobile gaming,” said games consultant Robert Tercek.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Personal Digital Assistant and a decade of Enfour developing software for mobile platforms. That’s right, Enfour was the first company to develop commerical software for PDAs (back then the Newton) but now for all platforms. In fact, Enfour, Inc. was spun-off from Enfour Media Laboratory specifically to pursue development of software for handheld computers.
As the use of mobile cameras has spread west from Japan, it has been the dark side of photo-messaging that has grabbed headlines. A tsunami of moral panic has followed the adoption in Europe and the US of camera mobiles, focusing mostly on their lewd, pornographic potential or the simple invasion of privacy.
Sales of mobile phone handsets in Japan totaled 11.9 million units from January to March, up 33.7% from a year earlier for the second consecutive quarterly rise, Gartner Japan Ltd. said Wednesday. Handset sales rose due to a slight increase in new mobile phone subscriptions and brisk demand to replace existing handsets with high-end, camera-equipped models.
Wireless Watch Japan is back – with a new URL, a new Web site, new staff, anda new service model. We’re ready to go for a 2003 fast proving to be a breakout year for wireless in Japan. WWJ regulars will recall that our last email newsletter and video programwere posted around April 30. Since then, the site’s been in hibernation mode while we rebuilt the backend, upgraded servers, and thought long and hardabout how to place WWJ onto a sustainable, future-oriented footing. And Here We Are!
Samsung Electronics launched a wireless handheld device in South Korea Monday that combines a phone, a TV, a camera, and a camcorder in what is the beginning of a line of feature-packed gadgets that the company plans to roll out this year.
