Sign of the Times
Sign of the Times

Sign of the Times

5G Mobile Phones Coming Soon

An Info-Tech survey released to selected CEOs this week shows that wireless customers want free calls, free phones, the ability to switch between carriers for free, with international roaming and handsets that don’t need recharging every day. Carriers expressed shock and awe at the results and promised to sell off their swank marble skyscrapers, many situated in the heart of Tokyo’s financial district, to facilitate the move. “We are asking shareholders to help us deal with these issues,” said an obviously unsettled CEO at a hastily convened press conference. “While we have managed to get 5G deployment ready for the end of this year, that doesn’t seem to be what our customers really want,” the flustered president told WWJ in an exclusive interview today.

A Linux ''Ecosystem'' for Cell Phones?

Rather than be held prisoner to any company’s proprietary software, cellular service providers (which distribute most phones) are beginning to ask specifically for Linux-based handsets, says Michael Sudol, general manager of the group at Motorola PCS that’s focused on Linux. So in January, Motorola released its second Linux-based phone for Asia.

Mobile Phone Shipments Drop 22%

Hate to say we told you so – but we did – in the ‘Japan Wireless 2004 Preview’ WWJ video interview with IDC’s Mitch Kimura. Shipments by Japanese mobile phone makers in January dropped 22.3% from a year earlier to 2.98 million phones and were also well down on December’s 4.71 million units, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said in a monthly report yesterday.

3G Phone Becomes Guard Dragon Robot

3G Phone Becomes Guard Dragon RobotIt’s a terrifyingly simple idea. “We thought, what if you could stick legs on a keitai?” says TMSUK’s Tokyo Research Center Director Shin Furukawa. They did, and the result ain’t a cutesy Aibo or a nearly singing and faintly swinging Sony entertainment ‘bot, but boy is it practical. Here appears to be the world’s first fully functional, walking, talking home security robot Banryu or “Guard Dragon,” using a DoCoMo FOMA for its eyes and ears.It’s on sale now in Japan for JPY 1.98 million, or about $18,000. We think you’ll agree, this story really does have legs! Full Program Run-time 10:52

DoCoMo Develops Speech Recognition

NTT DoCoMo Inc. demonstrated a couple of the technologies the operator is working on, including a speech recognition system that doesn’t require speech. The system, which is still a prototype, works by measuring the electrical activity in muscles that are used when a person speaks using a system called electromyography (EMG). This means the user still has to mouth the words as if they are being spoken but audible speech itself isn’t necessary.