KDDI has teamed up with Japanese mobile-phone manufacturers to develop a fuel-cell-powered phone equipped with functions for receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. KDDI has signed joint development agreements with Toshiba and Hitachi. Although the two manufacturers will develop fuel-cell-equipped mobile phones separately on the basis of their own technology, they will use the same user interface that includes the fuel inlet.
The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Hitachi have jointly developed an organic thin-film transistor (TFT) color LCD prototype which uses organic TFTs as a driving switch. The 1.4-inch prototype has a resolution of 80×80 pixels, each of which measures 318×106 microns. The TFT is 50 microns in width and 5 microns in length. AIST expects that the organic TFT technologies will pave the way for the development of next-generation displays at lower costs.
KDDI has announced an agreement with Toshiba Corporation and Hitachi Limited to cooperate on research into the next generation of batteries for mobile communication devices such as mobile telephone handsets. The objective of the research is to develop a compact fuel-cell battery that can be used in mobile phones by the end of 2005.
Are they ahead, or behind the curve. WWJ has great coverage coming up of the future showing KDDI au/ Hitachi’s W11-based digital TV tuner concept keitai at Wireless Japan 2004 in action. For the present, however, Vodafone continues to press on with analog TV tuners, and massive TV advertizing. The latest offering is Sharp’s V402SH, which will be on sale tomorrow, armed with a swivel screen that allows punters to watch TV (reception willing) even when the phone is closed. The V402SH comes with a 2.2-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) LCD screen and a 1.3 megapixel CCD camera. Happy viewing! [.pdf here]
The Nikkei reported on Saturday that KDDI aims to commercialize fuel cells for keitai using Hitachi and Toshiba technology by 2007; this is supposed to be at least two years behind claims often made by Japan’s mobile-phone leader NEC that it will have fuel cells ready for commercialization for mobile phones by next year at the latest.
Originally published as a guest column in Fierce Wireless, 9 June – Ed.
If 2001-2003 has been Phase 1 of Japan’s 3G era (all three major carriers launched W-CDMA or CDMA 2000 networks in this period), then 2004 is definitely shaping up to be Phase 2 — and the difference is that now Japan 3G is moving overseas. The assault is being led in part by Japan’s keitai makers who, under NTT DoCoMo’s lash, have invested heavily in sophisticated new terminals and are now looking to markets further afield in order to generate additional ROI.
