Fujitsu
Fujitsu

Fujitsu

DoCoMo Picks Super 3G Vendors

DoCoMo has chosen Motorola Inc. and NEC Corp. to supply handsets for its so-called super 3G network, an industry source said. The source said Fujitsu Ltd. would supply the base stations for the network, which is an upgrade to DoCoMo’s existing 3G infrastructure. DoCoMo Technology Inc. President Kouta Kinoshita told a news conference earlier this week that the mobile operator had selected equipment vendors for the network in October, but he did not provide their names.

Japan's Still the World's High-Tech Testbed

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…

Video Round-up: Ultra-cool Mobile Tech at Tokyo's CEATEC 2006

Video Round-up: Ultra-cool Mobile Tech at Tokyo’s CEATEC 2006Last 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!

Solectek Chooses Fujitsu WiMAX

Solectek Corporation has selected the MB87M3550 Fixed WiMAX SoC from Fujitsu Microelectronics as the standard silicon for integration into its new WiMAX-compliant series of SkyWay-MAX base stations and subscriber units. The SkyWay-MAX system will be available in limited quantities at the end of 2006, and will be generally available during the first quarter of 2007.

Renesas Ships Sample SH-Mobile G2 Chips

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.

DoCoMo Aquires Fuel-Cell Stake

DoCoMo announced today they will form a business and capital alliance with Aquafairy Co. to develop fuel-cell products. DoCoMo will acquire an approximate 36.5-percent stake in the company through a purchase of newly allocated shares in the near future. Aquafairy, which develops and markets micro fuel cells for mobile devices, was established in Osaka in 2006 and has 11 employees. It has capital of 33 million yen.

In Praise of My Japanese Cell Phone

We just noticed this article by Brad Stone on the Newsweek website and smiled quietly to ourselves… he gets it! Nothing in the way of news there though – if you’re a regular WWJ reader – but for main-stream media consumers based in the U.S., it’s certainly one of the better pieces we’ve seen in some time. The obvious reason for accuracy therein comes from the fact that he actually spent a little time here in Tokyo on vacation this summer and had the chance to really test drive a great handset. While Brad’s item did miss on a couple of points (DoCoMo launched their DCMX mobile credit card service this spring with biometric fingerprint authentication capability on Fujitsu phones, for example), overall it’s refreshing to see a story without too much “Gee Whiz, Martha”-material about how people in Japan are using their cell phone to surf the web or send email.

Fujitsu Upgrades Fingerprint Sensor

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.

Fujitsu Announces Micro Mobile HDD's

Fujitsu has announced their first hard disk drives that use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to deliver enhanced storage capacity. The company unveiled its MHW2 BH-series of 2.5-inch hard disk drives for mobile PCs which will go on sale to the industry in October this year. The two PMR models are the 160GB MHW2160BH, which Fujitsu claims has the industry’s highest storage capacity for a 5,400 rpm HDD, and the 80GB MHW2080BH. The company aims to ship six million units of the two models.

Symbian Conference in Tokyo

The folks over at Symbian Japan held their Symbian Summit 2006 event in the Tokyo Westin hotel yesterday. Sponsored by DoCoMo and — by the looks of the site — well attended (Japanese only), it would seem they have been improving the platform presence here with three more handsets rolling out recently from… DoCoMo!