Terminal Technology
Terminal Technology

Terminal Technology

Re: DoCoMo and GSM Handsets

The recent article via the Yomiuri about DoCoMo’s roadmap for adding GSM functionality to their handset fleet is spreading across the web like wildfire. The point missed would be that ‘the news’ was actually announced back in February! “NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Renesas Technology Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Sharp Corporation today announced that they will jointly develop a comprehensive mobile phone platform combining a single-chip LSI for dual mode handsets supporting HSDPA /W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE, and core software such as operating systems.”

Advanced Cellphones Running out of Power

With an escalating array of features, including TV reception, supported by ever greater capacity of microchips, what’s to keep cellphones from adding functions with ever increasing complexity? Power. Even advanced lithium-ion batteries are being overwhelmed by the demands of new functions and an increase in flat-rate services for calls and data transmissions, which have lengthened the duration phones are used. Cellphone carriers are accelerating development of fuel cells to meet subscribers’ demand for longer operating times and upgraded functions.

SoftBank Talking Smartphone with HTC

High Tech Computer Corp, the world’s biggest maker of handsets operating on Microsoft Corp’s mobile operating system, is set to gain a stronger foothold in the Japanese smartphone market by winning orders from Japanese Internet conglomerate Softbank Corp, analysts said yesterday. “The visit of Softbank to High Tech Computer this week will benefit the latter as High Tech Computer has stepped up efforts in making inroads into the Japanese market this year,” Ann Liang, principal analyst at research firm Gartner Inc’s Taiwan branch, told the Taipei Times.

NEC's Super 3G Lab Down Under

The high-speed 3G mobile telephony networks of today will feel like the slowest of modems in a few years, thanks in part to the work of a Melbourne-based team of researchers at NEC Australia. The company’s mobile research and development division is charged with creating technologies that will shape the next generation of mobile networks two to five years from now, as networks move from today’s speeds of about 3.6Mbps to 14Mbps and beyond. The Melbourne team represents about one third of all of NEC’s research and development capability in its field.

Sharp Tops Japan Mobile

Sharp Corp. overtook NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. as Japan’s biggest mobile phone maker by shipments for the first time, MM Research Institute said in a report dated yesterday. Shipments by Sharp gained 20 percent to 7.6 million units in the year ended March 31, accounting for 16.3 percent of the total 46.3 million shipments, the researcher said.

Mobile Phone Gold Rush

Hundreds of IC chips hidden in a mobile phone contain a minuscule amount of gold in their plastic package, in the shape of internal bonding wires. This gold can be extracted quite easily (well, compared to the traditional gold mines where thousands of emanciated mine slaves toiled), and is much appreciated by the mobile shop folks as a windfall. The only problem is to collect enough discarded mobile phones.