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DoCoMo Ready to Roll HTC Smartphone

DoCoMo Ready to Roll HTC SmartphoneNTT DoCoMo and High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) recently announced that they will start sales in late July of their new “hTc Z” smartphone, equipped with the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Japanese-edition operating system. The hTc Z will enable a variety of useful mobile business solutions using Windows Server and Exchange Server, in addition to 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and many add-in applications. DoCoMo plans to sell the handsets to corporate customers as part of its “comprehensive business solutions” effort.

We have a quick hands-on demo video for you on this one shot at DoCoMo’s booth during last weeks Wireless Japan event out at Tokyo BigSite. The full specs [.pdf] are available Here.

Sprint Introduces the Sanyo Katana

The legendary Katana, best known as a precision instrument sword used by the Samurai, has a new identity, that of a cutting-edge wireless phone by Sprint and SANYO. This ultra-thin handset features Bluetooth and a built-in VGA camera. Making its debut throughout the month of July in four bold colors, including Mystic Black, Blue Sapphire, Cherry Blossom Pink, and Polar White, which is a color that will be sold exclusively at RadioShack, the Katana will be available at Sprint Stores, online and at select third-party retailers for $279.99 or $79.99 after rebates with a two-year subscriber agreement.

Motorola and RIM Rolling in – SoftBank a No-Show?

Last week saw an interesting double play for mobile devices in Japan as both NTT DoCoMo and Willcom announced new phones — DoCoMo’s 7-Series — or new PDAs — Sharp’s oddly named W-Zero3[es]. These, combined with the continuing speculation on the this fall’s entry of RIM’s Blackberry email device (will it have Japanese text input capability?), made it a busy week for wireless watchers.

On Tuesday, WWJ was first on the Web with a full report and images of DoCoMo’s new 7-Series, a mix of models from Sharp, Panasonic, NEC and Mitsubishi, as well as from US maker Motorola…

Another Smartphone Soon Via Willcom

Willcom, Microsoft and Sharp have introduced their next generation smartphone. The Zero3 [es] is powered by Intel’s PXA270 CPU at 416MHz, with 128MB of flash memory and 64MB of SDRAM. In addition to the Windows Mobile 5.0 (Japanese) operating system, the phone also comes with the Opera mobile browser and Flash pre-installed. It has a 1.3-megapixel camera, miniSD removable memory, a USB 2.0 port and QR code reader. According to the press release, they are working on seperate W-Fi, Bluetooth and 1Seg TV tuner cards to be released at a later date.

Vodafone K.K. Announces Reco Mail Service

Vodafone K.K. just announced the roll-out, available from today, of a new service called ‘RECO MAIL’ which enables customers to send their favorite mobile content such as music, video and games via MMS and other methods to friends and acquaintances as recommendations. At the time of launch, 17 content sites with an estimated 33,780 files, on Vodafone live! support this new so-called “Super Distribution” copyright protection method communication service.

Disney Branded Mobile Comics and Games

A pair of press releases just came through from Vodafone K.K. with news that WDIG will be rolling out comics and games on Vodafone live! starting June 1, 2006. Disney Mobile Comics will be Disney’s first-ever digital comic content for mobile phones, and will consist of three types of mobile comics for customers to enjoy. Also announced, Disney’s first Bluetooth multiplayer 3D racing game. The Cars 3D V-appli will feature characters from Disney/Pixar’s latest movie Cars, which is scheduled for release in Japan on July 1. Cars 3D is said to be the first game based on a Disney/Pixar movie to appear ahead of film release.

Au Blitz Unveils Seven New Handsets

KDDI has just held a press conference in the New Otani hotel to introduce another seven new handset models for the summer season just as the most recent batch announced earlier this year are now hitting the streets here in Japan. The new hardware on tap includes a Walkman branded model from Sony Ericsson and Casio’s follow-up to last years popular G’zOne water-proof ‘tough phone’ offering. They have also announced another Hitachi handset with the felica mobile wallet chip, a super-slim Kyocera coming in at 18mm thick with a 2.4inch ASV liquid crystal screen (and analog tv tuner), a new Toshiba ‘mass music’ model with bluetooth and 1GB memory on-board plus an additional digital TV tuner enabled unit (with PC site viewer) coming from Sanyo.

World First Mass-producible Polymeric UWB Antenna

Omron announced that it will introduce a new SMD Polymeric Antenna for short-range, wireless Ultra-Wideband (UWB) applications. Product launch is scheduled for June 1, 2006. UWB is a recently commercialized short-range wireless technology, expected to be widely adopted in consumer goods. Applied in dongles, personal computers, printers, mobile telephones, digital televisions and DVD players, UWB functions as a low-power-consuming wireless USB (universal serial bus), allowing users to transfer large amounts of data rapidly between various devices in close range.

Vodafone Launching Sharp 904

Vodafone K.K. has announced that it will commence nationwide sales this weekend of the Vodafone 904SH. This 3G handset by Sharp features the industry’s first VGA liquid crystal display, four times the resolution of current QVGA, making it possible to reproduce visuals and render small characters with more vividness and clarity than before. The model will also support new services and features, such as Face Recognition for enhanced privacy protection, Bluetooth and their Motion Control Sensor capable of measuring handset posture in all directions in 3D a popular function for mobile gaming.

Our 5th Birthday!

Our 5th Birthday!This week marked a major milestone for WWJ! In one form or another, I’ve been writing this email newsletter for five years — and what a five year term it’s been!

I spent a couple hours last night looking over past WWJ newsletters, and was struck by how much Japan’s mobile scene has changed. In 2001, when I started writing a weekly mobile-focused newsletter for J@pan Inc, i-mode had just celebrated its second birthday, KDDI had yet to roll out CDMA 1X services and the No. 3 competitor in the market was known as “J-Phone.”

Today, DoCoMo is far in the lead with their 3G FOMA service and music and TV are the new hot trends; i-mode itself has become almost dasai (uncool). KDDI have created one of the mightiest and most unified mobile platforms on Earth, with GPS-based blogging, shopping and PC Internet integration drawing huge usage. The company formerly known as J-Phone is about to become the company formerly known as Vodafone as Masayoshi Son attacks 3G mobile with the same successful discount focus with which he attacked NTT and home broadband.

Bonus ‘those were the days’ tidbits via the WWJ Newsletter after the jump!