This past week, WWJ’s own Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, our hard-working director of digital media (and pretty much everything else in our humble shop), appeared on US Web radio program "Into Tomorrow," hosted by Dave Graveline. Dave and his crew pop over to Tokyo each year for the annual CEATEC consumer tech show, and he makes it his business to hook up with a slate of guests who can provide insidery gen on what’s happening in Japan…
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!
Despite the resounding silence from DoCoMo’s website, Tower Records (part-owned by DoCoMo) have just introduced a joint-venture service with Napster in Japan. The Tower Records Japan-Napster JV will provide music distribution services for PC and mobile from an initial catalogue of 1.5 million songs. The initial service launch only allows content purchased by premium subscribers – a subscription costs 1,980 JPY per month – to be moved from the PC to mobile devices – and at this time only one handset (F902is) is supported.
DoCoMo took a 42 percent share of Tower Records here in November 2005 and – if the on-scene hype at DoCoMo’s booth at this week’s CEATEC consumer electronics show is any guide – they appear ready to announce a more aggressive mobile music device line-up in the coming weeks.
The Tower Records initiative appears not unrelated to DoCoMo’s overall mobile music strategy, which has so far run a distant second to mobile market leader KDDI/au.
Since 2002, KDDI have seen strong traffic, sales and handset popularity with their Chaku Uta, Chaku Uta Full, and Chaku Motion full-track audio and video offering. More recently, their new ‘LISMO’ unified PC/mobile content download and syncing service has started to gain customers, while DoCoMo have only this year in June started pushing Chaku Uta Full.
The September presser with NTT DoCoMo’s President Nakamura contained some interesting bits of info on 3G coverage; WWJ subscribers can log in and listen to the entire event on MP3 audio (see today’s Viewpoint).
Yes, I know that there has been an ongoing drumbeat in the media reporting spotty coverage for FOMA users. But Nakamura devoted a lot of time to explaining their ongoing and upcoming base station and 3G FOMA network coverage plans, emphasizing that the carrier would boost coverage at “JR stations, universities, junior colleges and high schools.”
Renesas Technology Corp. today announced that it has begun shipping samples of the SH-Mobile G2, a single-chip LSI for dual-mode HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile phones. The LSI was jointly developed with NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and Sharp Corporation, and evaluation samples have been shipped to these handset manufacturers since the end of September 2006. Renesas plans to begin volume production of the SH-Mobile G2 in the third quarter of 2007 and will offer the W-CDMA mobile phone platform worldwide to W-CDMA and FOMA handsets.
NTT DoCoMo announced today that starting September 29, they will market the FOMA M2501 HIGH-SPEED PCMCIA Type II data card [ .jpg image ] for speedy mobile packet transmissions with PCs. Downlink speeds of up to 3.6Mbps are available in HSDPA service areas in Japan. The card works on W-CDMA, GSM and GPRS networks.
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.
DoCoMo just announced that they will launch a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) service on August 31, when they start sales of Japan’s first HSDPA-compatible handset, the 3G FOMA N902iX HIGH-SPEED. In FOMA HIGH-SPEED areas, the N902iX is capable of packet downlinks of up to 3.6Mbps, approximately 10 times faster than current FOMA handsets. From August 31, all of central Tokyo will be included in these HIGH-SPEED areas, and all major Japanese cities will be covered by the end of October.
NTT DoCoMo and it’s regional subsidiaries announced today that they would separately manage call and data packet transmission congestion over the 3G FOMA network to prevent voice traffic congestion control from affecting packet communication traffic and vice versa. Currently, excessive congestion in either voice or data transmissions can force DoCoMo to limit network usage for both voice and data in order to prevent network breakdown.
