Japan’s Communication Research Laboratory (CRL) plus NTT Communications, KDDI, Hitachi and Fujitsu are teaming up with the China Academy of Telecommunications Research, the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and some local carriers to formulate and develop an 4G standard and to fight off the ITU’s standardization bid…
We have been thinking of doing this for a long while, you know, writing about next-generation battery technologies for cellies. Well, we’ve just found a shortcut to the topic that covers some of the basics. WWJ watchers will have noted that Fujitsu has just become the latest Japanese IDM to announce a methanol fuel cell replacement for even Hitachi Maxell’s new Lithium Ion option. There is an interesting feature story of the market at NE Asia online.
Japanese companies are rapidly commercializing the so-called Net Kaden system for electronic control and monitoring of homes through links with mobile phone and high-speed broadband systems. Toshiba Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. are already marketing segments of a Net Kaden network. Hitachi Ltd. plans to debut one on the domestic market next spring and Sony Corp. is preparing a home server using new semiconductors.
In a decision that could be a huge boost for mobile phones to become e-wallets, KDDI has decided to adopt Sony Corp’s technology in smart cards for use in third-generation mobile phones that it will develop with Hitachi Ltd. This is wonderful news for chances of the evolution of the mobile phone’s morph into one of the so-called ubiquitous devices that Sony’s Idei has been promising for longer than hack journalists can remember. The news is out that KDDI has decided to adopt Sony’s FeliCa, thus removing a major barrier to the contact less IC card’s promulgation outside of DoCoMo in Japan, and also bringing the technology into a major cdma carrier.
Lost your forklift in your cluttered factory? Hitachi Ltd. and Hitachi Cable Ltd have announced they are launching the IEEE802.11b-WLAN/ GPS Hitachi AirLocation system that can locate it. With an accuracy of 1-3 meters, the system works with twin servers and five dedicated basestations to find whatever, for a cost of 5 million yen for the system.
In September, a group of IT professionals visited Japan to roll up their sleeves and find out who are pushing what enterprise applications here. With FeliCa debuting in trial form a few weeks from now, we were interested in hearing their views about Japan’s ready-built business apps. infrastructure. You may be surprised by their findings. Independent consultant (and WWJ subscriber) Donal O’Shea was part of the group that included representatives of a major French airline, an Australian steel company and a UK-based package delivery company, together with Douglas Neal and Piet Opperman of CSC Research Services and Sebastien Bacholet of Cigref. They met with Qualcomm, HP, IBM, NTT DoCoMo, Alcatel/Fujitsu, Telecom France, Nissan, and Hitachi, and toured the Yokohama Reasearch Park. Wow, Big Big Itinerary… In a nutshell, concludes O’Shea, “carriers have never understood the enterprise…”
