Texas Instruments expects solid growth in Japan, where the U.S. computer chip maker can count on surging demand for super-fast cell phones and digital TVs, the company’s Japan unit president said Friday. Texas Instruments Inc.’s strength in Japan comes from its partnership with the nation’s major electronics makers and working together on developing products, said Toshiyuki Yamasaki, appointed president earlier this month.
ACCESS announced that its NetFront(r) i-mode(tm) Global Profile integrated software solution was selected by Mitsubishi Electric for deployment in its M430i i-mode handset. The M430i is currently offered by leading i-mode operators such as Bouygues Telecom, COSMOTE, E-Plus, Far EastTone, KPN Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, BASE, Telestra, and WIND, with additional i-mode operators to follow. NetFront i-mode Global Profile is a comprehensive, integrated solution specifically optimized for the i-mode Global service. It offers operators and their handset partners seamless i-mode Global deployments while reducing overall cost and time-to-market.
ACCESS and Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co., Ltd. (Datang Mobile) announced a licensing agreement to bring ACCESS’ data application suite to Datang Mobile’s client end TD-SCDMA offerings. Datang Mobile is one of the major mobile communication technology, equipment and service providers in China, and is recognized as the creator and leader of TD-SCDMA, China’s homegrown 3G standard. ACCESS’ data application suite is a comprehensive solution for 3G that includes NF browser, a full- featured mobile browser, a Java Virtual Machine as well as multimedia mail clients.
In his 14 September WWJ Viewpoint, Philip Sugai raised some valid criticisms of the new TV cell phones and points to both technological and end-user behavior limitations that he believes doom TV phones to “DOA” status. Of these, the behavioral problems appear to be the most difficult to overcome. These criticisms, however, seriously underestimate both the technological developments that the devices will undergo in the next 18-24 months as well as the imagination and creativity that Japan’s end-users and broadcasters will apply to receiving and delivering, respectively, useful content via mobile TV (and FM radio).
Part 2 of a two-part series. Previously: MobileTV: Hype or Reality?, by Professor Philip Sugai.)
With KDDI’s May 2004 announcement that they had developed handsets with embedded digital TV tuners and ample battery life, and with NHK, Mobile Broadcasting Corp., and others promising direct-to-mobile broadcasts, TV is again being widely touted as the “next big thing” for the mobile platform — and not just in Japan. But before we truly see an era of television-keitai convergence, several critical issues must be understood and addressed. Many of these are fundamental flaws in the concept of mobile phone-TV convergence, and suggest that we are simply witnessing the introduction of the “next big hype” for the mobile platform.
(Part 1 of a two-part series. Next week: Mobile TV Rocks!, by WWJ chief editor Daniel Scuka.)
CYBIRD announced that it will demonstrate its interactive communication technology that allows users to receive detailed information on digital TV programs and commercials on their mobile phones via infrared connection, at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) 2004 to be held in Amsterdam beginning September 10. Jointly developed by CYBIRD, IMAGICA, and IMAGICA DC21, the OnePush technology enables people to use a mobile phone to access information aired on a TV program or commercial by receiving the URL of the information on the handset that functions as a TV remote.
KDDI has teamed up with Japanese mobile-phone manufacturers to develop a fuel-cell-powered phone equipped with functions for receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. KDDI has signed joint development agreements with Toshiba and Hitachi. Although the two manufacturers will develop fuel-cell-equipped mobile phones separately on the basis of their own technology, they will use the same user interface that includes the fuel inlet.
Are they ahead, or behind the curve. WWJ has great coverage coming up of the future showing KDDI au/ Hitachi’s W11-based digital TV tuner concept keitai at Wireless Japan 2004 in action. For the present, however, Vodafone continues to press on with analog TV tuners, and massive TV advertizing. The latest offering is Sharp’s V402SH, which will be on sale tomorrow, armed with a swivel screen that allows punters to watch TV (reception willing) even when the phone is closed. The V402SH comes with a 2.2-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) LCD screen and a 1.3 megapixel CCD camera. Happy viewing! [.pdf here]
Texas Instruments Inc. and NTT DoCoMo, Inc., have announced a joint agreement to develop a cost-competitive, multi-mode UMTS (W-CDMA/ GSM/GPRS) chipset to serve the Japanese, U.S. and worldwide 3G handset market. An integrated UMTS digital baseband and applications processor will be developed based on TI’s OMAP(TM) 2 architecture and NTT DoCoMo’s W-CDMA technology for NTT DoCoMo handsets and other 3G handsets worldwide. Additionally, the agreement will include development and testing of power management, RF and protocol software that will be made available as system solutions to TI’s worldwide customer base.
Today, Portable Reportable looks at the future of cell phone broadcasting and consider what will happen when cell phones will be able to received digital TV broadcasts. NTT DoCoMo and KDDI have quite different plans on how consumers will use digital TV. KDDI appears to be planning to allow the handset to receive digiTV and then use the phone’s 3G data connection as the viewer feedback, marketing, and sales channel — similar to how the FM Keitai works now with analog radio and the preinstalled BREW application.
Full program run-time: 5:01Portable Reportable audio updates are short, 3- to 5-minute news items in MP3 format. You can listen via PC or download and copy to your portable player for tomorrow morning’s commute. — Eds.
