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CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of Wireless

CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of WirelessThe Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) is Asia’s premiere trade show for information technology and electronics sectors, including the fields of imaging, information and communications. This event brings together the complete spectrum of new technologies with a total of 505 companies and organizations, including almost every major Japanese electronics and communications company, 170 exhibitors from 16 counties and regions worldwide, exhibited in 2,460 booths. We visited KDDI to take a closer look at their prototype Sanyo Digital TV phone, talked to the Kyocera folks about the upcoming convergence of GSM and CDMA and interviewed DoCoMo about their IT-House service offering coming soon for 3G FOMA handsets. Full Program Run-time 20:39

Wireless Watch at CEATEC; Next Stop Ubiquity

There was some real gold buried in the 2,460 booths and 505 companies that exhibited at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) 2003 last week, and a bunch of press releases over the last two weeks have induced us to write a comprehensive tech review of what’s new with mobile technology. At the show we managed to corner the chief designer of Mitsubishi Electric’s next generation keitais (NGKs?) on a new series of very cool modular phones they have developed for next year, Melco looks to have made a conceptual breakthrough with these prototype handsets. Suffice to say we think that series with plug-and-play games console, megapix camera, GPS and other modules that snap onto it’s sleek clamshell design, looks as if they will blow the competition (Sony Ericsson and Samsung versions) out of the water. We also took a ride on the new Sanyo TV-Phone coming out for KDDI and saw a few other goodies like ASIMO and fish feeding with FOMA! We’ll show you all these cool new keitai in action, so be on standby for our video program that’s coming soon. The central message we took from CEATEC was that there are plenty of outstanding innovations coming on stream in the next 18 months that will finally herald the dawn of “ubiquitous” communication. Ahh, ubiquity, the means-anything buzzword that launched a thousand PowerPoint presentations…

KDDI to Launch EZ Navi Walk, a Full-scale Navigation Service

KDDI, Okinawa Cellular and Navitime Corporation are pleased to announce that they will launch ‘EZ Navi Walk’ at the end of October 2003. EZ Navi Walk is a full-scale navigation service for pedestrians that makes use of location information from GPS satellites. EZ Navi Walk has been developed from EZ Navi, and allows users to quickly measure the location of a mobile phone through GPS positioning enabling real time continuous display of their location. The service is equipped with voice guidance and other functions that can navigate users to their destinations.

Sony Ericsson 3G Handset Delayed

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB has pushed back the launch of its first 3G mobile broadband phone in Europe and Asia by several weeks to early January as the Japanese-Swedish joint venture continues interoperability tests with wireless operators. The Z1010 will support 2G GSM and GPRS technologies, as well as the new 3G mobile broadband networks based on WCDMA technology.

Handsets Selling like Hot Cakes

According to analysts at IDC, our need for handsets seems almost insatiable as far more phones were sold in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2002. The worldwide market for handsets took off in the second quarter of 2003, reflecting continued consumer demand for mobile telephony. According to IDC’s Worldwide Handset QView, worldwide handset shipments grew by 19.2% year-over-year in 2Q03 and increased sequentially by 6.7% to 118.3 million units.

helloNetwork and Far East Tone to Launch Multimedia Services in Taiwan

helloNetwork, the top developer of Java(TM)-based wireless streaming media technology, has partnered with Today Fast East Tone (FET), the third largest mobile carrier in Taiwan, to launch a new range of services which provide multimedia services to FET’s Bravo subscribers. These new services include downloadable movie clips and MTVs for a variety of different GPRS and JAVA enabled handsets.

KDDI and Okinawa Cellular Launch 5 New 3G Handsets

KDDI Corp. and Okinawa Cellular recently announced plans to launch five new handsets from the end of May increasing their new lineup of 3G mobile phones (CDMA 2000 1x), a format that enables high-speed data transmission of up to 144 kbps. All the new phones are Movie Mail-compatible, a function that allows users to shoot and send seamless movies. The new handsets scheduled for launch are the A5401CA manufactured by Casio, the A5402S produced by Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, the A5306ST and A1303SA both made by Sanyo, and the A5303H II manufactured by Hitachi.

Sony Ericsson: Sublime Japan Handset Design

Sony Ericsson: Sublime Japan Handset DesignThis week, WWJ sits down with Sony Ericsson to look into the design process that animates Japan’s ubercool handset industry. We ask about product planning, design peculiarities of the Japanese market, development for overseas, and about new technologies – like removable memory and swivel cameras. Sony Ericsson is one of Japan’s top handset factories and their new-last-week 505i handset for DoCoMo is the only one with a 1.3-megapixel camera. If there’s something these folks don’t know about creating handsets, it’s not worth knowing. Full Program Run-Time 22:13

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?