panasonic
panasonic

panasonic

Panasonic and Picsel Tie Up For SD Memory Cards

Matsushita Electric, best known for its Panasonic-brand electronics and communications products, and Picsel Technologies, a pioneering provider of embedded software, today announced that the two companies entered into a licensing agreement to embed Picsel Browser and Picsel File Viewer on Panasonic SD Memory Card products. Under the agreement, Panasonic will globally market the Picsel PoweredTM SD Memory Cards, which will greatly enhance the Internet Browsing and File Viewing capabilities of mobile information devices.

What's Being Switched On in Japan's Wireless Biz

If any of you begin to note a slightly limey tone to future Viewpoints, it’s because the WWJ team has a new member, moi – Paul Kallender, as Tokyo correspondent. Take a look at my my bio. below and you will see that I am fully capable of deploying my creative weapons of article construction well within 45 minutes! I’ll be filing weekly with my take on the trends animating Japan’s mobile biz, as well as offering insight you can’t get from our competitors -most of whom either don’t live in Japan or are not actually independent journalists. I can’t follow in ex-editor-in-chief Daniel Scuka’s footsteps (partly because he’s in Germany and I’m in Japan), but I do hope you’ll bear with meas I attempt in my own way to “rip the faceplate” off Japan’s wireless industry. Given my Aikido background, I will be doing my best to at least throw some of the PR pap journalists have to rewrite into the digital dustbin of history. In short, come to WWJ for the stuff you can’t get elsewhere.

Panasonic Introduces Networked Home Appliances System

Matsushita Electric, best known worldwide for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronics and digital communications products, announced today that it will begin marketing of “Kurashi (Japanese for ‘home life’) Net”, a networked home appliances/housekeeping system to enhance the users’ daily living. The system, to be marketed from September 1, will enable the user to control networked home appliances, such as air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens, through wireless control from the central terminal, named “Kurashi Station,” or from a mobile phone. The system also monitors security and other household conditions, alerting the users by sounding an alarm linked to the “Watchdog Safety Sensor” in cases of emergency.

Panasonic Announces Development of A QVGA-supporting MPEG-4

Matsushita Electric, best known worldwide for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronics and digital communications products, and its principle subsidiary Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. today announced the development of the MPEG-4 multi codec LSI (MN195906), nicknamed MarvieTM3* standing for an abbreviation of “MPEG-4 Advanced Real-time VIdeo codec Engine.”

Natsuno and Ai Kato Launch 505i; and WWJ – Facing a Transition

Herewith, I’d like to query you, the loyal and keen WWJ readers (some 30% of whom are in Europe, according to last fall’s subscriber survey), on what an outsider needs to know about Europe’s mobile Internet. What are the companies, technologies, business models, and content services serving to boost the future? What – and who – matters most? Which will triumph: i-mode or Vodafone Live? Can Japanese terminal makers kick their way into the market? And will the Open Mobile Alliance boost Europe’s wireless industry far ahead of Japan’s – given sufficient buy-in from content providers and software creators?

Making Money: P2P in Japan's Wireless Space

Face-Recognition Magic Comes to MobileEach client interacting with the sign can choose to allow an icon representing the owner to be displayed on the screen; the icon can display a message like “looking for partner to attend jazz concert at 7:00PM.” If you wish to accept the offer, simply drag your icon down to “mate” with the other. The clients will then be notified how to contact each other and a date can be made on the spot. Unlike the Americans, the Japanese are building highly personal, device-to-device, and socially interactive communication capability into their system from the ground up.