Seems we were not on the VIP invitation list, at least NikkeiBP made it, to attend this recent Tokyo Fashion Show event featuring the latest styles targeted at Ginza shoppers here for fall 2006. However, the Sony Ericsson W43S was front and center with the all girl hip-hop group YA-KYIM on the catwalk singing their signature theme for the handsets new TV ad campaign.
NEC Electronics is looking for a sharp increase in profitability based on sales of platform ICs, particularly for mobile phones, according to CEO Toshio Nakajima. Last year, NEC Electronics had an 11 per cent market share in WCDMA baseband chips, behind Texas Instruments (TI) 42 per cent market share and Qualcomm’s 26 per cent, according to analyst iSuppli. Behind the plan is the development of platform ICs such as those envisaged by the recent Adcore-Tech consortium between NEC, NEC Electronics, Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile and TI.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined, led by Softbank Corp. after Credit Suisse Group cut its rating on the stock, citing a drop in the value of the company’s investments and its mobile phone business. Softbank shares slid 65 yen, or 2.8 percent, to 2,245. Hitoshi Hayakawa, a Tokyo-based analyst at Credit Suisse cut his rating to underperform from neutral. Softbank’s measures to improve the mobile business are not enough to justify a 1 trillion yen ($8.6 billion) premium, Hayakawa said.
NTT DoCoMo have posted a new corporate video, “The Keitai as Lifestyle Infrastructure.” Their PR email said the video introduces “… our plan to create new revenue sources.” As if they need any..! Access the programme here: http://www.nttdocomo.com/features/keitai.html.
HP Japan and BEA Japan have proposed a new architecture for building business RFID applications, dubbed RFID 2.0. According to their definition edge systems that locally and independently use RFID for data input/output at distribution centers, etc. are RFID 1.0 while systems that allow for a company to integrate the data with existing business applications (and share the data with other companies) should be considered as “RFID 2.0.”
MediaSeek has released a new mobile phone OCR-based application called “Camera Dictionary” (Kamera Jiten), which translates English words into Japanese characters by simply scanning the mobile phone’s camera over the word. The characters of a scanned word are then matched to a dictionary database in real-time ensuring that dictionary lookup is both fast and accurate. The application will be distributed via content provider Enfour Inc. on their EZweb menu site “General English Dictionary” (Sougoeigojiten). Also included is a client server facility where the user can access more detailed information such as explanations, examples, and even pronounciation sound files from the main online dictionary.
