digital-tv
digital-tv

digital-tv

DoCoMo Announces Japan's First Digital Broadcast Cellphone

DoCoMo Announces Japan's First Digital Broadcast CellphoneDoCoMo has developed their first mobile handset to receive terrestrial digital broadcasting and analog TV in one 3G Foma package. The P901iTV handset, by Panasonic, targets the start of mobile digital broadcasting in April, 2006 and will make its public debut at the upcoming CEATEC Japan 2005 trade show October 4 to 8 at Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba. (WWJ will be on-hand to get photos and video!)

The twist-style handset comes with a 2.5-inch, wide-view main LCD screen plus a sub-display, antenna-embedded earphone for enhanced TV reception, and 2.2-megapixel camera. The handset can only handle around 2.5 hours of continuous digital TV viewing; 1.5 hours of analog — ruling out Lord of the Rings style 3-hour viewing marathons. DoCoMo’s Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet is part of the package as well, enabling the phone to be used as electronic money.

Vodafone and KDDI have had demonstration models of terrestrial digital TV receiver/handsets for some time. Last may their latest versions were up and running at the NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories open house. Vodafone displayed the 801SH Sharp CDMA Qualcomm handset with a hybrid split-screen displaying TV images on the upper half with the bottom reserved for scrolling data feeds. KDDI showed off a similar au prototype handset by Sanyo. Check-out our video report from that event here.

QUALCOMM and ACCESS Bring i-mode to MSM Chipsets

Collaboration Delivers Rapid Entry to Global i-mode Market for QUALCOMM’s OEM Partners. QUALCOMM Incorporated, pioneer and innovator of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and other cutting-edge wireless technologies and ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that ACCESS’ i-mode Global Profile, a profile in ACCESS’ NetFront™ Mobile Client Suite, will be supported on QUALCOMM’s Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) chipset solutions. The availability of ACCESS’ i-mode Global Profile solution on select MSM chipsets provides device manufacturers with accelerated entry into the global i-mode market and ensures a wide variety of next-generation devices for i-mode operators.

ACCESS and Infineon Collaborate to Develop Next Generation Mobile Handsets

ACCESS announced today that it has entered into collaboration with Infineon Technologies, the world’s fourth largest semiconductor company, to facilitate the development and deployment of next generation mobile handsets worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement ACCESS will work with Infineon to bring state-of-the art mobile browsing and mobile JavaTM functionality through its advanced NetFront Mobile Client Suite to Infineon’s APOXI® application framework and Multimedia Mobile Phone Platforms powered by the S-Gold™ base band processor family. The collaboration with ACCESS further reinforces Infineon’s ability to provide mobile handset manufacturers worldwide with comprehensive solutions that streamline the development and deployment of 2.5G and 3G mobile handsets.

ACCESS' NetFront Powers Full Internet Browsing on N901iS 3G Handset

ACCESS announced that its NetFront full Internet mobile browser has been selected by NTT DoCoMo for deployment in its 3G FOMA N901iS handset. The N901iS is part of DoCoMo’s 901iS Mobile Wallet series—the most advanced handset series ever developed by DoCoMo. In combination with ACCESS’ NetFront browser, the N901iS handset’s advanced functionality expands to deliver support for both i-mode as well as full Internet browsing. ACCESS’ NetFront browser provides N901iS end-users with a rich, full Internet mobile browsing experience that includes the ability to scale down standard Web pages to fit the width of the phone screen, thus eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling while significantly facilitating the mobile browsing experience.

ACCESS Announces NetFront v3.2 Browser for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition

ACCESS announced the availability of the English language version of NetFront® v3.2 for Pocket PC 2003/2003 Second Edition (SE) which supports Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 SE. NetFront v3.2 for Pocket PC 2003/2003 SE builds on the success of ACCESS’ award-winning NetFront v3.1 for Pocket PC browser by providing support for key new technologies and features including JV-Lite(tm) 2 CE edition, ACCESS’ Sun authorized Java virtual machine which supports the Connected Device Configuration (CDC) standard, and native support for Macromedia Flash(tm).

Index Tuning in for Mobile Digital TV Contracts

Index Tuning in for Mobile Digital TV ContractsIndex Corp., a Japanese company specializing in creating content for mobile phones, is rounding up TV contracts aimed at specialized interactive services linking mobile handsets and television programming. A story in the Nihon Keizai business daily reported the company was on the verge of issuing around 20 billion yen in shares to four other broadcasters including Nippon Television Network, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fuji Television Network and TV Tokyo. When asked by WWJ, Index would say only that parties concerned were in negotiations and nothing could be confirmed yet. The news, confirmed or not, drove Index shares up 9.5 percent on the JASDAQ on 25 May. Both TV Asahi and Fuji Television already own around 1-2 percent of shares in Index.

The company is currently in partnership with five broadcasters for a remote control application that displays TV listings for the whole country on mobile phones. Launched in March, TeMo Chan is free to download, works with all carriers and also provides access to official mobile sites of TV programmers. Partners are Tokyo Broadcasting, Fuji TV, TV Asahi, Nippon Broadcasting (NTV), TV Tokyo.

Digital TV Cell Phone Test Drive

Digital TV Cell Phone Test DriveDigital terrestrial broadcasting for mobile phones is scheduled to begin in Japan by spring 2006 and both Vodafone and KDDI had demonstration models up and running on the first day of the NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories open house yesterday. An annual event open to the public, this year’s show focused once again on digital TV broadcasting with three floors of cameras, servers, receivers and handheld devices. Mobile receivers drew packed crowds herded into Disneyland-style long lines waiting their turn to handle an 801SH Vodafone/Sharp CDMA Qualcomm handset. No bigger than a conventional cell phone, the 801SH has a hybrid split-screen displaying images on the upper half with the bottom reserved for scrolling data feeds and Web links to programming, etc. Exclusive from Wireless Watch Japan!

ACCESS and Abaxia Collaborate to Deliver New Data Capture Paradigm to Mobile

ACCESS announced that it has collaborated with Abaxia to integrate its MobileTag 2D barcode reader solution with ACCESS’ NetFront® Mobile Client Suite, the world’s most advanced, integrated browser-based software solution for advanced multimedia-enabled mobile phones. The joint solution enables a new data capture model between mobile devices and barcode-enabled applications like advertisements, brochures, posters, direct-mailers, or any object that can support a barcode.

France Telecom & ACCESS Develop Rich Media Solutions

ACCESS announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with France Telecom for the joint development of a complete wireless Internet solution based on ACCESS’ products and services. This R&D partnership will enable both companies to collaboratively design and deploy innovative, rich media mobile Internet technologies for France Telecom mobile customers. The R&D department of France Télécom and ACCESS are committed to leveraging resources and sharing expertise to develop products based on the NetFront browser framework. The technologies that will be supported within the browser framework include SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), streaming video, SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language), and other rich media and animation technologies.