GPS
GPS

GPS

Desirable Mobile Services for the Future

Info-Plant has issued a very interesting report on mobile-phone usage in Japan focusing on ‘Desirable Mobile Functions and Services’. Data was collected via a nationwide survey of mobile phone users from the networks of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI/au, and Vodafone and valid responses were received from 7,905 users. Questions asked what mobile phone functions or services were used regularly and respondents were asked to list the services or functions they would like to see added to mobile phones in the future (log in for details).

EU Presses Japan on Galileo GPS

In just four years, Europe will bring about a sea change in the world of car and man navigation, which has long depended on a single service source, the American global positioning system. As the continent prepares for the full operational launch of Galileo, its own version of GPS, the European Union and industry are watching with keen interest to see how Japan, a heavy GPS user, eventually positions itself. “Japan would be a very good test market for Galileo because there are many people using mobile phones and people who like gadgets,” Paul Flament, administrator of the Galileo Program at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy and Transport, said.

Vodafone Launching Sharp 904

Vodafone K.K. has announced that it will commence nationwide sales this weekend of the Vodafone 904SH. This 3G handset by Sharp features the industry’s first VGA liquid crystal display, four times the resolution of current QVGA, making it possible to reproduce visuals and render small characters with more vividness and clarity than before. The model will also support new services and features, such as Face Recognition for enhanced privacy protection, Bluetooth and their Motion Control Sensor capable of measuring handset posture in all directions in 3D a popular function for mobile gaming.

Qualcomm Single-Chip, RF CMOS Transceiver

Qualcomm has announced what is said to be the industry’s first single-chip CDMA2000 radio frequency CMOS transceiver with integrated receive diversity and simultaneous-GPS. The RTR6500 transceiver’s integration of receive diversity improves network capacity, and its integrated support for simultaneous-GPS provides a way to meet the demand for location services while enabling handsets to feature a slim form factor. The transceiver also features IntelliCeiver technology for dynamic power optimization.

NEC to Launch New TFT LCD Module

NEC LCD Technologies today announced that it will begin shipping samples of its new 3.5-inch (8.9-centimeters-diagonal) amorphous silicon thin-film-transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD), part number NL2432HC22-40A, in the beginning of June. The new LCD is extremely suitable for installation in various portable devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and portable GPS terminals as it can reproduce colors clearly and vividly even in indoor/outdoor environments with high ambient light.

Japan Launches Digital TV for Mobile Phones

Japan Launches Digital TV for Mobile PhonesNHK and five commercial TV broadcasters held a splashy launch party in Tokyo’s central Shinjuku train station on Saturday afternoon, announcing the official start of terrestrial ‘One-Seg’ broadcast services. The carriers have lined up accordingly: NTT DoCoMo has partnered with Nippon Television and Fuji Television, while KDDI has forged a partnership with TV Asahi.

The new digital tuner-enabled handsets, coming from Panasonic, Hitachi and Sanyo, should deliver up to three hours of TV viewing time by processing and decoding only the requested channel — as opposed to current analog units which run only about an hour and eat more juice as they decode all incoming broadcast channels. Vodafone’s 905SH from Sharp is rumoured to be available just in time for the World Cup in June.

WWJ has been covering this story since the spring of 2004 when early prototype handsets were first introduced at an NHK open-house event.