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Mobile TV Rocks!

In his 14 September WWJ Viewpoint, Philip Sugai raised some valid criticisms of the new TV cell phones and points to both technological and end-user behavior limitations that he believes doom TV phones to “DOA” status. Of these, the behavioral problems appear to be the most difficult to overcome. These criticisms, however, seriously underestimate both the technological developments that the devices will undergo in the next 18-24 months as well as the imagination and creativity that Japan’s end-users and broadcasters will apply to receiving and delivering, respectively, useful content via mobile TV (and FM radio).

Part 2 of a two-part series. Previously: MobileTV: Hype or Reality?, by Professor Philip Sugai.)

CEATEC 2004 & Japan's IT & Electronics Industries

The fifth staging of CEATEC JAPAN is nearly upon us. Optimism has returned to the industrial world this year, boosted by strong demand for mobile network-related products and car electronics equipment. Digital home appliances have been especially popular. In the Japanese electronics industry, domestic production reached peak levels of 25.4 trillion yen in 1997 and 25.1 trillion yen in 2000. In 2004, the figure also looks certain to exceed the 20.0 trillion yen mark.

Sony's New PSP Debut on Video

Sony's New PSP Debut on VideoThe Tokyo Game Show opened yesterday — with all the usual fanfare — at Makuhari Messe in Chiba. Amid the pounding music, laser light shows and the 3G’s (Games, Geeks and Girls), we found what has been one of the most highly anticipated product debuts of the season: Sony’s new PlayStation Portable; the device is also Sony Entertainment’s first step into the mobile gaming market. Today’s program brings you close-up video of the PSP during its first public unveiling. Bonus: get a hands-on look at a several new games for DoCoMo’s F900i-series of handsets.

ACCESS Announces Global Profile for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode Service

ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced the immediate availability of its new i-mode Global Profile, an integrated software solution that is optimized for the i-mode services deployed NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode alliance partners. i-mode Global Profile is a new profile that forms part of ACCESS’ NetFront Mobile Client Suite. i-mode Global Profile includes ACCESS’ market-leading NetFront technology as well as a Multi-Media Messaging Client, Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and an SSL encryption module. All technologies comprising i-mode Global Profile were developed by ACCESS and offer tight integration and functionality optimized specifically for i-mode.

BBMF Mobile Games for Japan

Han Lian, chief executive officer of mobile game software maker BBMF Corp., said entering the Japanese market made him feel like an alien landing on a new world. BBMF, which stands for Big Blue Magic Fire, was founded in 2002 by Lian and a friend, Antony Yip. The Japan unit will be set up in the coming months and 10 titles are scheduled to be offered on KDDI and Vodafone handsets.

Rocking & Rolling at Mobile Monday

Thrilled to join with nice folks at HP Bazaar to co-host a rocking good MoMo Tokyo debut event on 13 September and it seemed as though most of the unwired digerati within commuting distance of the Pink Cow, in ubertrendy Shibuya, were there. In today’s Portable Reportable, Chief Editor Daniel Scuka quizzes WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii on what he saw and heard at the Mobile Monday launch in Tokyo.

Mobidec 2004 Wireless Tradeshow

The Mobidec 2004 annual event is back for their 4th year, slated to run Aug. 26 – 27th in Tokyo’s Aoyama Diamond Hall. Discover the future for fusion of cybermoney, music distribution, rich contents, and broadcast. As the cellular phone and mobile web usage are increasingly expanding, this two day seminar will explore the affects of the wireless domain on the real economy. The key players in Japan’s cellular phone business and technology sectors will make presentations, and display company exhibits, of their unique experiance in this field.

Mobinet Index 2004

The latest Mobinet study from A.T. Kearney reports that 41 percent of the world’s wireless phone users expect to be regular or heavy users of data services by 2005. The Index looks at current and planned usage of wireless data services such as mobile email, games, music downloads, photo messaging, and news updates and the strong user demand represents a whopping 200-percent increase over the past year. Have mobile data services finally reached a tipping point?

Symbian Game Infected by Trojan

The Symbian operating system powers many cellular phones, and also supports a wide range of third-party applications—including games. Unfortunately, one popular game turned out to have a “cracked” version that was secretly infected with a Trojan horse. The Mosquito Dialer Trojan infects the popular game Mosquito with code that secretly messages pay-per-call numbers.

QUALCOMM, IDG Ventures and TOM Online Invest in Great Wall Software Group

QUALCOMM, pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology; IDG Technology Venture, a US venture fund focusing on the information technology industry in China and TOMOnline, a leading mobile Internet company in China, today announced the successful closing of a US$3.5 million investment in Sichuan Great Wall Software Group.