Bandai Networks has announced that as of today it will offer a custom mobile service based on their popular Gundam character through KDDI’s ‘Au one avatar’ platform. Members will be able to create and update their own unique avatar from an initial choice of three characters; “Mobile soldier Gundam”, “Gundam SEED DESTINY”, and “Fmofmo” which can then also be used across several of the carriers other Au one portal destinations.
Only those who have been totally blocked-out from all media sources over the last year would wonder what an iPhone is as the so-called “Jesus Phone” has been in the mainstream headlines since even before it was officially unveiled in January. However, for a combination of reasons, there has only been mild speculation about when – or indeed how – it would become available in the Japanese market. Citing the initial lack of 3G capability, not too mention an ‘unusual’ operator revenue share arrangement, the story so far has centered around deployments in the US and Europe. Full skinny after the jump!
CyberAgent has reported consolidated results for the full year ended September 30, 2007, with net sales rising 26.4% on the previous year to 76,007 million yen, operating income rose 26.7% to 5,501 million yen, and ordinary income also rose 38.2% to 5,143 million yen on the year. These gains were driven by solid growth in site listing (search results) advertising and main portal site advertising sales in the advertising agency business, as well as sharp advances in the mobile business and commission and fee collection businesses such as the finance-related business and online game services.
Domestic market incumbant NTT DoCoMo came out with all guns blazing during their press conference at the Grand Park Hyatt in Tokyo on November 1st. For the first time ever they combined the launch for both of their upcoming 700 and 900 series models – a record 23 handsets unveiled at once – and the announcement included several new service offerings as well. Marking another notable difference from previous line-up introductions was the absence of Natsuno-san, famed ‘father of i-mode’ and always energetic MC, from the stage.
The companies flag-ship 905i-series included 10 models which will all come fully loaded with high-speed HSDPA, 1Seg digitial-tv, DCMX m-commerce, GPS, 2in1 dual-sim identity and enabled with GSM chipsets to allow global roaming complete with voice-to-text translation capabilities for English, Chinese and Japanese. Further enhancements in handset design include increased multi-media applications in motion sensor gaming, flat-rate music subscriptions and i-motion videos along with updated i-area mapping and cell broadcast emergency announcement services and Flash Lite 3 pre-installed all coming as standard features across the board.
Talk about Mega Games, wish we had seen this at TGS in Sept., Taito has announced it will release a motion sensitive music application for DoCoMo 904i-series handsets (D904i excluded) in December. Their so-called “Intuition Band” game also makes use of the built-in camera sensor and a/v output allowing ‘players’ to create their very own mobile music! It will apparently also do other instruments, such as drum tracks (not sure about vocals?), and the company will be offering a free trial version via the i-mode menu from early November.
We missed the this one somehow last week, KDDI has announced Opera Widgets will be available in December on three of their latest handsets; Toshiba W56T, Sony Ericsson W54S and Sanyo W54SA. Branded as “au one Gadget” by KDDI, the widgets provide instant access to services such as RSS feeds, game results, weather, traffic information, stocks, news, and social networking services. This is the first time Opera Widgets have shipped on mobile phones.
