The prime feature of the ubiquitous society is being able to access networks anywhere, anytime, and one of the leading roles in this society is being played by cellular telephones, which let users remotely control elements of lifestyle and entertainment, and link directly with people around the world through video and data communications. At CEATEC JAPAN 2003, visitors are experiencing the developing world of the cellular telephone.
With former J-Phone’s 3G rollout stalled and, it seems, little left in the goodies barrel to counter DoCoMo’s sleek summer-six 2G 505i rollout, and swelling 3G subscriber figures from both its rivals here in Japan, J-Phone needed to distract press attention from the company’s terrible summer. Last week, Darryl E. Green just did that. There was a strong sense of DeJaVu at WWJ when Green, eschewing fowl or game, pulled the NEC ‘tellycelly’ out of his corporate top hat at October 1’s inaugural Vodafone KK press conference. Remember Sha-mail? How fleet-footed J-Phone sidestepped DoCoMo and stole the hearts, or at least the images, of 10 million teenagers with cool keitai camera phones? It looks like the rebranded J-Phone-cum-Vodafone KK combo is going to leapfrog DoCoMo and KDDI again with Japan’s first TV-Phone this December. And, beyond that, Vodafone KK has a lot more up its wide sleeves with six new 3G phones, new business billing plans and bargain rates to fight back.
Flashback a few years when J-Phone stunned the competition, and started a global wireless trend, by rolling out their new camera phones; well they may have just done it again. J-Phone was officially renamed as Vodafone KK on Oct. 1st. We were on hand to see President and CEO Darryl E. Green announce the company’s strategy going forward. After his brief pep talk, and during the rather harsh question period from reporters on J-Phone’s recent performance, Green pulled out a shiny red metallic NEC handset. The cameras strobed and the room began to buzz as it became clear that Vodafone had scooped everyone yet again with Japan’s first TV-Phone, set to hit Tokyo streets just in time for New Years. Full Program Run-time 14:24
KDDI Corporation and Tokyo FM Broadcasting Co., Ltd. have agreed to jointly develop and commercialize a new service integrating programming to be broadcast over digital terrestrial audio network and telecommunications on the KDDI wireless network. The service trials will be launched on October 10th. A prototype of the device being developed for that service will be presented during the CEATEC Japan 2003 event to be held from October 7 to 11th in Tokyo.
Wireless Watch Japan was on hand for FOMA’s first international video call in Sept. at the WPC 2003 event. After the keynote introduction from Hutchison’s CEO Bob Fuller, and the World Call demo., we chatted with DoCoMo’s Mariko Hanaoka about their new service. We also took a ride on the upcoming telematics platform in a quick interview with Hidenori Obara of DoCoMo’s ITS Business Promotion Office, and heard that Seiko will add a color display, but not a camera function, to its next generation of the Wristomo PHS phone. Perhaps someday DoCoMo will bundle all three services together…!! In a seperate development we got a peek at Panasonic’s killer app. for camera phones everywhere. Full Program Run-time 16:22
By December HelloNet Co. Ltd. of Busan, Korea, will launch a Massive Multi-Player (interactive) BREW based game in Japan making use of KDDI’s CDMA 1X speed, Chief Executive Officer Lee Hwan Joon told WWJ at last week’s Tokyo Game Show. He also put us straight on a few pertinent questions floating around the event. Namely: Is BREW difficult to write? Will MMPGs be too expensive for users? There just won’t be a market for such apps, right? The answer we got from Lee was NO-NO and thrice NO. With a grin and a game that supports 8,000 players acting out on his phone, he was of the opinion that BREW’s a better way to go for the next generation of interactive, keitai-based games. Lee was the most upbeat developer we met at TGS, which itself was an upbeat show. With the mobile games industry set to explode, the evidence is that new JAVA games continue to rock and developers need to be brave if they are to take advantage of 3G’s potential. Oh, and by the way, in our upcoming video program you’ll be some of the first to see Final Fantasy played on a ‘coming soon’ FOMA handset.
