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DoCoMo's Fuel Cell for Mobile Devices

The Fuel Cell Development Information Center (FCDIC) recently held a seminar titled “Dawn of the age of fuel cell for mobile devices” with lecturers were invited from leading companies involved in fuel cell development such as NTT DoCoMo, Inc., NEC Corp., Toshiba Corp., Hitachi, Ltd. and Canon Inc. In the lecture, the company mentioned not just the basic performance as a power source for mobile devices but also specific requirements with respect to reliability and safety in actual usage.

Japan Spectrum Draft Report

Frequency issues may be a gating factor in Japan, where WiMAX penetration depends on how the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) regulates the usage of the 2.5GHz band. In December 2005, the group offered recommendations for spectrum usage from 800MHz to 81GHz. The MIC study group chose the 2.5GHz band specifically for low-cost broadband mobile wireless services not provided by current mobile-phone networks. An advisory telecommunication council will issue a draft report in September, with a final report due in November.

SiteCast Mobile Service Announced

Dai Nippon Printing has launched a new platform offering called SiteCast, an ASP service which has been developed for companies to easily create mobile formatted websites for campaigns in both print and broadcasting media. The system features a 2D barcode loaded with information including URLs of products which users can connect to campaigns from newspaper, magazine or catalogue advertisments via their mobile.

Mobile Entertainment Forum Presentations on Video

Mobile Entertainment Forum Presentations on VideoNaviblog Corp., which showcased their local search and location-based information sharing technology at Mobile Monday Tokyo in May, gave a very entertaining presentation at the Mobile Entertainment Forum, part of the recent Wireless Japan 2006 trade show. In the presentation, Naviblog CEO & President Mandali Khalesi explained their browser-based approach to mobile products in more detail.

Naviblog is a finalist for this year’s Red Herring Asia 100, an award program recognizing the most promising and innovative private technology companies with high growth potential in Asia.

We also have clip of the opening remarks from Qualcomm’s Ted Matsumoto, one of Japan’s and Asia’s most knowledgeable mobile thinkers!

Boeing Terminates Connexion

Boeing has announced it will abandon its Connexion unit providing high-speed Internet service on planes. Boeing said in June that it was reviewing the future of the service, which enabled passengers on Connexion-equipped flights to access the Internet over a satellite-based broadband connection. Only 12 airlines, mostly Asian carriers flying long-haul such as Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Air China, had signed up for the service. In Europe, Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines had also subscribed. The airlines typically charged 30 dollars per flight or 10 dollars for 30 minutes of in-flight Internet access via satellite.

NFC Forum Issues Specifications

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association advancing the use of near field communication (NFC) technology, has announced the publication of its first four specifications. NFC technology is a short-range, standards-based wireless connectivity technology which allows consumers to perform safe contactless transactions, access digital content and connect electronic devices with a single touch. The NFC Forum’s Sponsor Members include: HP, MasterCard, Microsoft, Nokia, NEC, Panasonic, Renesas, Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sony Corp., Texas Instruments and Visa Intl.