NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced today that it has acquired 760,500 shares, approximately 3.0% of total issued and outstanding shares, in Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV). Under a tie-up agreement concluded in February 2006, DoCoMo has already been working with NTV to provide attractive services converging mobile communications and broadcasting.
Magic iLand has quickly established itself as the gold standard for mobile phone novels. Work published there is guaranteed hundreds of thousands of readers and lots of street cred. Since its inception, the library has added at least 10 new titles per month. It includes frequently updated reviews and instructions on how to write a mobile phone novel. Last month, the site held the world’s first mobile phone novel award — with the cooperation of heavyweights like NTT DoCoMo, D2 Communications and video-rental giant Tsutaya.
DoCoMo will keep initial investment on its so-called super 3G network down to 100-200 billion yen ($841 million-$1.7 billion), according to reports in the Nikkei shimbun. DoCoMo has spent a total of 2.8 trillion yen on its 3G network in the past six years. Since the company will use existing base stations and other equipment for the super 3G, it would be able to keep down the necessary initial capital spending, the Nikkei said.
It was the best of times, it was… well, it really was the best of times! Also, as the famous line from Dickens goes, it was the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness and the season of.. Mobile!
Looking back on 2006, it’s hard to decide which news from Japan’s mobile scene was the most spectacular. Vodafone pulled out, Softbank stood up, mobile number portability struck, a record number of new handsets hit the street and – as December winds down – Motorola and Samsung are shipping first foreign-made 3G units into Japan.
A ‘quick’ look at what caught WWJ’s attention in ’06 after the jump.
HitachiSoft has announced the launch of its “GeoMation Keitai” series, a GIS (Geographic Information System) product that will allow users to view and renew GIS-managed business data previously restricted to environments such as the office LAN from their mobile phones. “GeoMation Keitai” enables users not only to view business data from the field, but also renew it securely from their mobile phones. The software can be used with DoCoMo and au, and is compatible with other mobile phone applications.
Seiko Epson Corp. has developed an ultra-sensitive, ultra-compact GPS module to meet high demand from manufacturers of mobile phones and other handsets with GPS functionality. Volume shipment of the S4E19863 series has already begun, the product has been loaded in all GPS-capable models of the FOMA903i series phones recently released by DoCoMo. According to the companies press release this chip is the world’s smallest commercial GPS module at 7 mm x 6 mm x 1.28 mm.
