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Casio to Buy LCDs from Taiwan

Casio Computer Co. Ltd. has indicated it would buy liquid crystal displays from Taiwan’s HannStar Display Corp., aiming to boost its presence in the cell-phone-use panel market without investing in its own production facilities. Casio has agreed to extend to HannStar its technologies to make high-resolution panels. Casio is the world’s largest maker of LCD panels used in digital cameras with a 40 percent market share while HannStar is Taiwan’s fifth-largest LCD maker.

IrSimple, a High-Speed Infrared Communications Protocol Adopted as a Global Stan

ITX E-Globaledge Corporation, NTT DoCoMo, Sharp Corporation and Waseda University have jointly developed IrSimple*1, a high-speed wireless communications protocol using infrared. IrDA*2 (Infrared Data Association), an industry organization that develops and standardizes specifications for infrared communications, has decided to formally adopt the protocol as its standard. IrSimple achieves faster data transmission speeds (at least 4 to 10 times faster than at present) by improving the efficiency of the current infrared IrDA protocol embedded in many mobile devices such as mobile phones. In addition, the IrSimple protocol also maintains backward compatibility with the existing IrDA protocols.

ACG Gets Kyocera KX5 Slider

The Associated Carrier Group (ACG) and Kyocera Wireless announced the debut of the Kyocera Slider Remix KX5 wireless phone. The feature-rich, music-enabled handset is exclusively offered for a limited time by the recently united ACG, and is also the first phone offered by the alliance. “By forming the ACG alliance, our members collaborate with manufacturers – like Kyocera – to provide cutting-edge products, quicken market entry and to leverage costs,” said Greg Latour, president of ACG. “It’s proving to be a smart and successful alliance for our member companies, which ultimately benefits our customers. We are pleased to be the first in the U.S. to offer the Slider Remix.”

Disney Branded Cell Phone: A Sign of the Times

Disney Branded Cell Phone: A Sign of the TimesIt’s not the first time that we’ve seen a major brand license a well-known icon to create a designer cell phone. Recently, Ferrari joined the bandwagon with a custom-tailored device by Sharp for Vodafone, available now in Europe and Japan. WWJ thinks many of the usual suspects (cars, sports, fashion, music) are likely to follow suit into the 2005 year-end gift-giving season as well. With music-enabled phones achieving white-hot popularity, perhaps we’ll see boutique handsets dedicated to ABBA, the Beach Boys or even Courtney Love (maybe not since Hilary Duff beat her to it), preloaded with all their ‘greatest hits’ and available just in time for Christmas.

But why stop there? Other global brands (even obscure ones) must be thinking ‘me too’ about now as well; Gucci and Playboy come to mind along with every major league sports team — and don’t forget block-buster movies (a real ‘Bat Phone’ would be very cool). So, what does any of this have to do with Japan you might ask? Plenty.

Maxis, Sony Ericsson and RIM announce BlackBerry Connect for P910i

BlackBerry Connect from Research In Motion enables BlackBerry wireless email services to be used on the P910i, while maintaining the existing P910i experience and functionality. The P910i is a high-quality communications tool for voice calls, text and picture messaging and email, as well as providing full PDA/organizer functions. In addition, it is a camera-phone capable of recording video and still images and also provides a good gaming experience on the 262K color touch-screen. The wide range of applications available for download enables the P910i to do much more than make voice calls, thereby increasing its value for both consumers and operators. The P910i is based on the open Symbian OS v7.0 and the established UIQ user interface.

Mobile Phone Designed for Seniors

DoCoMo will release a new mobile handset able to slow down speakers’ voice speed later this month. The key targeted users are the elderly. The speed converter technology used in the handset slows down speakers’ voice speed up to 0.7x, so the listener can feel like that the speakers’ dialogue goes slowly. By reducing the number of menu items as well as using relatively large icons, screen operation became easier than before. The unit also features an emergency 80 dB alarm system and a built-in pedometer.