Vodafone K.K. announced it has jointly developed a contactless interface prototype mobile handset with Sharp Corporation that is compatible with smart card-embedded flash memory cards. This prototype’s contactless communication is made possible by inserting a smart card-embedded flash memory card into the handset’s memory card slot.
In the burgeoning global WCDMA handset market, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are gaining market share. Hutchison Telecom is reportedly in talks with LG to purchase WCDMA handsets worth 1 billion dollars, or several million units. Last year, Hutchison Telecom procured 3G phones from Motorola and Sony-Ericsson. The carrier, however, experienced a delay in supply of handsets for several months due to fatal defects in software of 3 million units of 3G handsets received from NEC of Japan and Motorola.
NEC America, Inc. and Vuico, LLC, announced the availability of Vuico’s GoWireless PRO solution for NEC’s 525 High Definition Mobile (HDM) phones. The program was developed to provide a compelling solution for mobile users and includes free cell phones (after rebates) with the purchase of wireless and data services. The 525 HDM model is a GSM/GPRS quad band mobile handset, allowing individuals to access their email when traveling internationally.
ACCESS, a global provider of mobile Internet technologies, today announced the immediate availability of its NetFront v3.1 browser software for UIQ 2.x, a customizable user interface platform for smartphones based on the widely adopted Symbian OS. NetFront v3.1 redefines the mobile Internet browsing experience for UIQ 2.x devices with advanced rendering technologies like Smart-Fit Rendering(TM) and Rapid-Render(TM), two unique technologies that dramatically improve the quality and speed of the browsing experience. A free demonstration version of NetFront v3.1 for UIQ 2.x is available for download from the ACCESS Systems.
Due on the street in Japan this June, we think this could turn out to be a very disruptive technology for digital broadcasters. Japanese firm Solid Alliance, in partnership with Mitsubishi Plastics, Media Ring, and Connect Technologies, has come up with a little pyramidal device [.jpg image] that hooks up to your TV and records video in 3GPP format onto an SD or miniSD card for playback on a cellphone. Two hours’ worth of programming will fit on a 128-megabyte card, and can be played back on any of DoCoMo’s recent FOMA phones or most of the newer Vodafone handsets.
Wireless Watchers will have noted that it’s changing-of-the-guard season in Japan, with NTT DoCoMo’s Keiji Tachikawa about to move on just as the company enters a self-described “paradigm shift.” We believe we know what his successor, Executive Vice President Shiro Tsuda, will be up to — mainly because DoCoMo strives at every opportunity these days to tell one and allit’s not a carrier any more, but rather a budding e-commerce service platform provider. More intriguing, however, are the senior staff developments at Vodafone’s struggling Japan opco, Vodafone KK (struggling, that is, through a device dry spell that won’t see any significant new 3G models out until the fall). Big V has just shipped over a new COO, David Jones, who has arrived, we guess, with a briefcase full of spring-cleaning items. Certainly the appointment of a new chief operating officer hints at a change of gear for the company. Is this a push to boost the lagging 3G provider from neutral to at least first gear?
