flash
flash

flash

Media Groove Unveils Chipuya Town

According to Infinita, Media Groove Inc. will beta launch a new mobile SNS service on September 15. Chipuya Town is a Flash-based 2D version of real-world Tokyo youth hotspot Shibuya that users will be able to navigate around and interact in with avatars. The offering also features a virtual currency system which can be redeemed for avatar clothing as well as interior goods for avatar rooms, and according to the press release for mobile content such as full track music downloads, too.

Failure to execute doesn't mean i-mode is dead (yet)

After last week’s O2 and Telstra i-mode cancellation news came out, it took hardly any time at all for the obfuscation and mis-analyses to hit the Web.

Failure to execute doesn't mean that i-mode is dead (yet)

The news, in case you missed it, confirmed that Australia’s Telstra would, and the UK’s O2 most likely would, end their i-mode services; Telstra will terminate i-mode support at the end of this year, while O2 will stop selling new handsets this month and phase the service out over the next two years.

O2 UK was reported to have 260,000 active users, a dozen i-mode-compatible handsets and some 150 sites; O2 Ireland has not stated their subscriber numbers, but the Times said total O2 subscribers were 546,000, implying that Ireland had 286,000 i-moders. Telstra reportedly has fewer than 60,000 subscribers. WWJ members login for the full skinny.

DoCoMo Bringing Chocolate to Japan

DoCoMo introduced their 704i-series of eight 3G FOMA handsets, as mentioned yesterday, featuring a range of models from Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, Mitsubishi and the LG Chocolate design. The F704i, SO704i, N704iμ and P704iμ will be available this month while the D704i and SH704i will go on sale by the end of August. The P704i will be launched by the end of September and we’ll have to wait for that LG sweetness until sometime in October. Specs and images after the jump.

Toshiba Pushing NAND Memory

Toshiba has announced a new series of embedded NAND Flash memories for mobile phones offering both a configurable single-level cell (SLC) memory area and a multi-level cell (MLC) memory area, allowing applications and data to be stored on the same chip. The five memories in the mobileLBA-NAND series range in capacity from 2- to 32-gigabits(1) (Gb). The 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb versions can be allocated as SLC up to their full capacity, while the 16Gb and 32Gb versions can support up to 8Gb of SLC, offering manufacturers greater flexibility in allocating memory in their products. Samples of mobileLBA-NAND packaged in MCPs will be available from August 2007.

A Totally Vivid User Interface

A Totally Vivid User Interface - Video DemoThe Next-Generation of UI’s hit the street here recently on DoCoMo 3G handsets produced by Sharp and NEC. The Vivid UI by Tokyo-based Acrodea “integrates various types of multimedia content including 3D graphics, Flash animation and full-screen movie backgrounds which enable handsets to be easily personalized with graphically enhanced menus and dynamic standby screens.”

As more developers get their hands on the content creation tool, and as brand owners begin to realize this is a natural vehicle to connect with their markets, we fully expect this style of user interface to become a common standard in the near future.. and not just in Japan. Meanwhile, remember you saw it first here on WWJ!

Urgent News Flash System Planned

KDDI announced yesterday that they are working with rival operator NTT DoCoMo and the Meteorological Agency to develop a platform which will deliver urgent earthquake “news flash” information to cell phones. According to the limited details made available it seems like they are planning to target users only in the immediate area where an earthquake is expected to hit.