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Walkman Cell Phone Announced

Sony Ericsson today kick-started its entry into the mobile music market with the announcement of the W800 [ .jpg image ], the first Walkman-branded mobile phone. It will now be possible to listen to music, handle phone calls and take pictures and video — all with one device and with, according to company claims, no compromise in quality. The Sony Ericsson W800 is the first device that combines a mobile phone, a high-quality digital music player (with up to 30 hours’ battery life), and a 2-megapixel camera.

Vodafone V603 Models Appeal to 2G Mobilers

WWJ’s director of digital media Lawrence Cosh-Ishii was on the platform at JR Ebisu station on Tokyo’s Yamanote circle line earlier today and spotted a new ad for Vodafone’s V603T (from Toshiba). The Toshiba model and its partner, the V603SH (Sharp), released in February, both feature much-improved analog TV and FM radio functionality and the Sharp model has a built in 3D motion sensor. The ad campaign and the new cellys highlight Vodafone’s continued development of cutting-edge 2G models.

Home Phones Join Texting Revolution

Telstra today launched Australia’s first text message service for home telephones, giving more than 10 million households the chance to join the “texting” revolution. The launch of this text message service means home phone users with compatible services can now read and send text messages on their landlines using specially designed telephones in the same way they do with mobile phones.

Is it just us, or does anyone else think this is uncommonly useless? “We anticipate that having text messaging available on the home phone will trigger a new wave of text messaging popularity, particularly among mums, dads and grandparents.” WWJ thinks Telstra’s launch of i-mode was a much more positive move for consumers and shareholders alike.

Sprint and Sanyo Introduce the MM-5600 Mobile Phone

Sprint and Sanyo announced today the Sprint PCS Vision(SM) Multimedia Phone MM-5600 by Sanyo at this year’s Photo Marketing Association Annual Convention and Trade Show. The MM-5600 by Sanyo allows customers to listen to stereo-quality music; take, share and print quality photos; and view the latest video content from nationally recognized brands in the news and entertainment industry at up to 15 frames per second with the built-in media player, all from a single device.

ACCESS NetFront Global Profile Selected for First Motorola i-Mode Handset Deploy

ACCESS announced that its NetFront i-mode Global Profile integrated software solution has been selected by Motorola for deployment in its E378i handset. This innovative handset will initially be offered by leading Spanish mobile operator Telefónica Móviles, with additional carrier deployments to follow.

EZ Game Street: Watch Out, DoCoMo

EZ Game StreetKDDI rolls down EZ Street with an engaging new mobile gaming platform due to go live today. Designed for KDDI by Square Enix –- the gaming powerhouse behind the massively popular Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises — EZ Game Street invites gamers to stroll rather than scroll down a cellular landscape of 350 games from 43 of the world’s top game makers, including Capcom, Disney, Koei, Hudson and Namco.

Text-based searches give it up for interactive icons in the new BREW-powered platform created for KDDI/au CDMA 1X WIN 3G phones. Users click on the icons for more info plus a sample of the game’s theme song. Admittedly, there is some initial text-bar crawling: users first click on “games” in the KDDI WIN menu to reach Game Street. There, the menu is divided into six choices: title, genre, new games, producer, randomizer and recommended. Click on any line and a colorful screen pops up decorated with familiar characters from each game -– up to nine per screen. Pick a character and click through the payment/subscription screen to play. Options include one-time game play, monthly subscription plus game information sites, online communities and game software sales.