CELL Co. Ltd, the leading developer of mobile content in Japan, announced today that it has signed a distribution deal with Shockwave.com to bring CELL’s most popular mobile games to the US market. Shockwave.com will distribute CELL’s games through its live Shockwave Minis offering available to Verizon Wireless customers on select Get It Now-enabled phones. This is the first time CELL games will be available to US customers.
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries today announced 14 new 3G FOMA handsets, including the 903i-series, the ‘SIMPURE’ series and N902iL. All 11 new 903i handsets provide a wide range of entertainment functions, said the company. They are equipped for DoCoMo’s Chaku-Uta Full full-track music-downloading service. Five models can play tracks transferred from PCs that were used to download music from sites such as Napster Japan, which offers unlimited access to approximately 1.5 million downloadable tracks for a flat rate. HSDPA-capable models work with the Music Channel service, which enables up to two music programs to be downloaded automatically during the night, and the expanded i-motion video clip for downloading up to 10MB files. All models are compatible with Mega i-appli rich applications, and some are also equipped for “One-segment” digital terrestrial broadcasting.
The new 903i-series offer a number of improved conveniences for daily life. They have IC cards with triple the storage capacity of conventional models, and they come preinstalled with software required to use DoCoMo’s DCMX mobile credit card on DoCoMo’s iD platform. Six 903i models are equipped for the Keitai-Osagashi Service, a GPS service that enables a misplaced handset to be located with a PC.
Last week, Tokyo’s annual CEATEC show (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) was once again a showcase for some of the coolest mobile technology on Planet Earth. Today’s video round-up features audio QR, Fujitsu’s ‘UB Wall‘ – an ultra-high-tech, one-to-one customized video advertising display – and FP codes, and – not to be missed – NTT DoCoMo’s 3G mobile-based ‘Drunk Driver’ detector, apparently in high demand by bus companies and trucking firms.
Organizers said that the consumer electronics event drew 550,732 during the public days, 4-7 October, while WWJ ducked in out of the torrential rain during the press & industry day on 3 October, when the crowds weren’t quite as waku (wild).
WWJ thinks the FP codes (essentially, invisible barcodes) and audio QR technology stands a pretty good chance of fast adoption, given the masses of rabid advertising agencies out there trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of (a) camera phones that grab info via QR code and (b) digital broadcasting. An audio QR code is simply broadcast as metadata in a digital audio signal, such that the browser displays text, a clickable URL or other advertising message while you listen to a radio or tv program on a suitably enabled mobile phone. But for sheer outdoor-advertising-meets-mobile marketing genius, the UB Wall can’t be beat!
WWJ Editors, 28 September 2006
The long summer silence from SoftBank on the rebranding of Vodafone K.K. to SoftBank Mobile is over with no less than 12 press releases issued today in advance of the official launch on 1 October. The company has introduced 13 new handsets, a variety of updated service offerings and new personnel. As mobile number portability (MNP) arrives on 24 October, and with strong competition from market leader NTT DoCoMo and No. 2 carrier KDDI, the struggling former Vodafone franchise clearly needed to get their house in order.
Some little-known news: Industry insiders here were surprised to learn in late August that the long-time head of Qualcomm Japan, Ted Matsumoto, had moved over to SoftBank taking on the title of CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) for Masayoshi Son’s newly minted celco. The official announcement was made during a wide ranging press conference that also introduced Cameron Diaz as the star attraction for their new advertising campaign that planned to blitz TV and outdoor ads over the coming weeks.
On the network front, they have announced that ‘Super 3G’ (HSDPA), with availability limited to the greater Tokyo area, will start in October to service their new HTC – X01HT smartphone. This Windows Mobile-enabled unit will default to regular W-CDMA (or GSM/GPRS overseas) in areas without high-speed coverage. The company also announced new applications and services ranging from the widely expected Yahoo Mobile Search integration, “Hot Talk” instant messenger, a “3D Town” event guide map, and – finally – a “Live Monitor” scrolling text push service.
After 6 months of beta offering the Windows Live Messenger official PC version became available for upgrade & download in June this year. Together with this latest release, the company also introduced a mobile Java Appli for DoCoMo customers using FOMA 3G handsets. WWJ met with Ho Chang, Product Manager for Windows Live at Microsoft Japan, to take a test drive on the companies Live Messenger for BREW due to be available on selected KDDI/au devices later this month. Also note, Mr. Chang made a presentation earlier this year to Mobile Monday Tokyo and his powerpoint presentation is available Here.
Just like the PC version, it will enable users to sign-in, exhange text messages – including emicons – with their existing contact list, check and send email (Hotmail), show their online presence and display name all in real-time. According to Ho, the entire certification process took about one-year from their intial proposal to the carrier for planning, testing and product release. However, the final offering is “far more robust than whats available in the U.S.” running a faster network with a larger app. on the latest BREW version. Targeted at flat-rate data customers the app. will not come pre-installed but will be offered as a free download it will be the first Microsoft app. deployed on KDDI’s official menu.
Fujitsu Microelectronics and Phoenix Technologies recently announced that Fujitsu has introduced the latest member of its fingerprint sensor IC technology, the Fujitsu MBF320 Sweep Sensor. The new MBF320 features TrustedCore pre-boot authentication (PBA), fingerprint-matching algorithms and biometric software from Cogent Systems, and a USB 2.0 full-speed interface. According to the companies statement, a single, rapid fingerprint sweep across the MBF320 sensor captures fingerprint features associated with high-resolution, 500-dpi fingerprint data.
