Terminal Technology
Terminal Technology

Terminal Technology

Sony Ericsson: Sublime Japan Handset Design

Sony Ericsson: Sublime Japan Handset DesignThis week, WWJ sits down with Sony Ericsson to look into the design process that animates Japan’s ubercool handset industry. We ask about product planning, design peculiarities of the Japanese market, development for overseas, and about new technologies – like removable memory and swivel cameras. Sony Ericsson is one of Japan’s top handset factories and their new-last-week 505i handset for DoCoMo is the only one with a 1.3-megapixel camera. If there’s something these folks don’t know about creating handsets, it’s not worth knowing. Full Program Run-Time 22:13

505i Launch Event: DoCoMo Finger Scanner Boo-Boo with Fujitsu Celly

During the 505i launch event on Tuesday, Takeshi Natsuno was on stage to demonstrate the F505i’s capabilities – including the fingerprintreader used to authenticate access to the phone’s address book, mail, picture store, and scheduler. When Natsuno applied his finger onto the reader platen glass (located at the bottom of the phone), **nothing happened!** “OK – we’ll try that later,” he added somewhat sheepishly, after waiting for some 30 seconds…

NTT DoCoMo Unveils 505i Series i-mode Mobile Phones

NTT DoCoMo today unveiled specifications of its new 505i mobile phones, a series of six enhanced PDC (2G)-compatible models equipped for advanced i-appli applications based on Macromedia Flash and Java technology. Each 505i model also comes with a camera, infrared port, and external memory slot. DoCoMo expects to introduce the models one by one beginning in mid-May.

Will Japan BREW Jolt Java?

Will Japan BREW Jolt Java?After a two-year business strategy planning pause, BREW finally launched in Japan last month. From the consumer point of view, BREW and Java work more or less the same: you navigate a menu, select an application, download it, then run it. There’s little to chose on a technology basis. But BREW – like 3G – may be able to gain a leg up on Java (DoCoMo’s favored choice) if KDDI can continue to roll out cool, fun, cheap, feature-laden (and BREW-enabled) handsets – much as the carrier has done with 3G. Now that KDDI has finally rolled out BREW, we wonder how competition with Java will unfold in 2003? Ironically, BREW’s future may be intimately tied up with that of 3G.

Analysis: Japan's Megapixel Phones Eye Digital Cameras' Turf

Japan’s cell phone makers, pioneers of the camera-equipped handset, look set to intrude into digital camera makers’ turf as a fierce battle for market share draws them toward photo-phones with million-pixel resolution. No one is yet consigning digital cameras to the high-tech scrap heap, but some of the dozen or so handset makers that crowd the Japanese market are preparing to launch “megapixel” photo phones this year with picture quality good enough to make prints.

Smartphones Stir Up Japan's Mobile Market

Smartphones Stir Up Japan's Mobile MarketIn Japan, phones and PDAs are viewed within the industry as separate vertical markets. DoCoMo and other carriers – who control the development and sale of cellular devices – have not seen fit to create a hybrid phone/PDA. Is it fear of loss of control over the subscriber billing relationship? Fear of allowing foreign makers – like Nokia – into the market? Is it the lack of Japanese third-party developers who have worked with overseas platforms (like Symbian)? Today’s program looks at a company helping to stir up a market that needs some stirring.