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Panasonic and Picsel Tie Up For SD Memory Cards

Matsushita Electric, best known for its Panasonic-brand electronics and communications products, and Picsel Technologies, a pioneering provider of embedded software, today announced that the two companies entered into a licensing agreement to embed Picsel Browser and Picsel File Viewer on Panasonic SD Memory Card products. Under the agreement, Panasonic will globally market the Picsel PoweredTM SD Memory Cards, which will greatly enhance the Internet Browsing and File Viewing capabilities of mobile information devices.

What's Being Switched On in Japan's Wireless Biz

If any of you begin to note a slightly limey tone to future Viewpoints, it’s because the WWJ team has a new member, moi – Paul Kallender, as Tokyo correspondent. Take a look at my my bio. below and you will see that I am fully capable of deploying my creative weapons of article construction well within 45 minutes! I’ll be filing weekly with my take on the trends animating Japan’s mobile biz, as well as offering insight you can’t get from our competitors -most of whom either don’t live in Japan or are not actually independent journalists. I can’t follow in ex-editor-in-chief Daniel Scuka’s footsteps (partly because he’s in Germany and I’m in Japan), but I do hope you’ll bear with meas I attempt in my own way to “rip the faceplate” off Japan’s wireless industry. Given my Aikido background, I will be doing my best to at least throw some of the PR pap journalists have to rewrite into the digital dustbin of history. In short, come to WWJ for the stuff you can’t get elsewhere.

Sharp and TI to Market with Turnkey Reference Design for GSM/GPRS Camer

Sharp Corporation and Texas Instruments Inc. announced today they will combine their respective strengths to provide a reference design for GSM/GPRS camera phones, significantly cutting the necessary design time and resources required by manufacturers to introduce new camera handsets into market. This reference design will combine Sharp’s 1 Mega Pixel CCD camera module, flash memory and liquid crystal module (LCD), together with TI’s TCS2100 chipset for GSM/GPRS cell phones and TI’s OMAP-DM270 multimedia processor. The reference design also supports high level video including Nancy Technology from Office NOA and MPEG-4 standards. In addition, TI and Sharp will work together on the development of related software and technical support.

NTT DoCoMo Camera Phone Offers World's Highest Resolution

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that on June 4, 2003 they will begin marketing the SO505i, the world’s first camera phone equipped with a 1.3-megapixel (effective resolution) CCD camera. This is the second model in the new 505i series of enhanced-2G handsets. Equipped with a Flash browser, 505i series handsets can access a broad range of rich content and applications with highly fluid animation.

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.

SD Card-format PHS Mobile Data Cards

Went to Machida on Saturday to buy a 256-MB SDRAM memory module to replace the original one that has long plagued my PC with crashes and other devilry (3900 yen, for those that are interested). Sofmap was selling the new SD Card-format mobile data cards for DDI Pocket’s PHS network for 17,800 yen – a little pricey for something that is so small it can be lost in a blink.

Smartphones Stir Up Japan's Mobile Market

Smartphones Stir Up Japan's Mobile MarketIn Japan, phones and PDAs are viewed within the industry as separate vertical markets. DoCoMo and other carriers – who control the development and sale of cellular devices – have not seen fit to create a hybrid phone/PDA. Is it fear of loss of control over the subscriber billing relationship? Fear of allowing foreign makers – like Nokia – into the market? Is it the lack of Japanese third-party developers who have worked with overseas platforms (like Symbian)? Today’s program looks at a company helping to stir up a market that needs some stirring.

DoCoMo Adds Flash to Phones

Japanese cell phone giant NTT DoCoMo will become the first phone carrier to offer services based on Macromedia’s Flash animation player, Macromedia is set to announce Monday. Flash is one of the most commonly used PC applications, installed on more than 98 percent of PCs worldwide to serve up everything from animated Web ads to homemade cartoons.