The latest cell phones can show you the nearest bathrooms in San Francisco or which subway to take in London. They can also help with your diet by tracking calorie intake. Behind such programs and more is the very technology at the center of an intense battle between Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. over control of desktop computers.
Campaigns targeting MobileNet consumers must go beyond considerations of location and time focusing on broader user context in order to be effective, according to a study released today by researchers at the International University of Japan. Based on the results of 14,000 mobile user responses nationwide, the researchers have created an approach that includes user context for developing and deploying MobileNet solutions. Although physical location and time of day at which users access the MobileNet is important and correlated to some extent with user content choice, the results suggest that such factors provide no true foundation upon which to build effective marketing campaigns or profitable business models.
“Wireless fidelity” is allowing an ever-increasing number of laptops and personal digital assistants (PDA) to log on to the Internet with broadband speeds — cable-free — in airports, VIP lounges, planes and hotels worldwide. The momentum for Wi-Fi is beginning to reach a critical mass in the travel industry with corporate travelers leading the way.
Police are warning women against perverts using digital camera-enabled mobile phones to secretly film them in the streets. “Because women cannot easily detect men filming them, I’m afraid that the number of victims will skyrocket,” one detective said Saturday.
Nine teenagers have been arrested for luring timid men to secluded locations around Tokyo and robbing them, police said Thursday. The boys admitted to playing the badger game after reading a magazine article saying that such a trick was “lucrative” because few victims would report the affair to police when lured by women and forced to pay money.
The deputy Akita governor is in hot water for playing pachinko instead of returning to his office after a massive earthquake rocked northern Japan on Monday, it was learned Wednesday. Deputy Gov. Takashi Chiba was the highest-ranking man at the Akita Prefectural Government when the quake occurred at around 6:30 p.m. on Monday because Gov. Sukeshiro Terata was away on a trip to South Korea.
Sharp Corporation has signed an agreement with Datang Telecom Technology Co., Ltd., a major Chinese manufacturer of communications equipment, to supply camera-equipped GSM mobile phones to the Chinese market. Sharp has been manufacturing and selling audio-visual products, home appliances, office equipment and electronic components in China, but this is the company’s first entry into the Chinese mobile phone market.
A man posing as a deliveryman kidnapped the 12-year-old daughter of a company president but later released her, police said Monday. The man visited the home of the junior high school student in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday while her parents were out.
A Shinto priest at a historic Kobe shrine has been busted red-handed for taking a shot up a woman’s skirt at a pachinko parlor with a camera-equipped mobile phone, police said. When a female employee of the parlor came close to the seat he had taken up, the 42-year-old priest thrust his mobile phone under her skirt and took a photo.
Last year, NTT DoCoMo exported the successful i-mode concept overseas. A crucial part of that concept is the much talked-about mobile content and service provider “ecosystem” and – sure enough – Japan’s ecosystem players are following Big D’s path. Today we focus on three smaller players that have found honest-to-goodness cash revenue in Europe due at least in part to their Japan antecedents. Ironically, none are working with any of the baby i-modes over there, showing you don’t need DoCoMo to do what DoCoMo does – anywhere.
