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Natsuno and Ai Kato Launch 505i; and WWJ – Facing a Transition

Herewith, I’d like to query you, the loyal and keen WWJ readers (some 30% of whom are in Europe, according to last fall’s subscriber survey), on what an outsider needs to know about Europe’s mobile Internet. What are the companies, technologies, business models, and content services serving to boost the future? What – and who – matters most? Which will triumph: i-mode or Vodafone Live? Can Japanese terminal makers kick their way into the market? And will the Open Mobile Alliance boost Europe’s wireless industry far ahead of Japan’s – given sufficient buy-in from content providers and software creators?

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.

Focusing on Camera-Phone Apps & Let's Put a Celly in Every Back Pocket

Look how traditional chemical photo service providers have realigned themselves to handle digi prints; this is a new and growing line of business. With DoCoMo’s 505-series i-modes phones (due to hit the market early summer), handsets will have very high-quality, mega-pixel-class cameras, so cam-phone users will want to buy more of the services that digi-cam users have already been buying – like kiosk printing. And to those who would cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war I reply: cry freedom – and put a keitai in every back pocket.

Too Much IT May End Your Love Affair

When Rei Nagashima, a 20-year-old university student, first saw the new-fangled mobile phone, she thought it was pretty cool, not to mention harmless. Equipped with a tiny camera, the sleek device could take and send not only photos, but video clips as well. It was given to Nagashima (not her real name) by her wealthy boyfriend after she taunted him, half jokingly, to buy her a new mobile phone.

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.