toshiba
toshiba

toshiba

World First 8GB SDHC Memory Card

Toshiba announced the global launch of the latest addition to its new series of high-capacity SDHC Memory Cards: the industry’s first 8-gigabyte Class 4 memory card. The new card will be introduced in early January 2007, alongside the 4GB products launched in September, and will give Toshiba a larger commercially available lineup in high performance SD Memory Cards. The SDHC (SD High Capacity) Memory Card is based on the SD Card Association’s SD Specifications Ver2.00, which defines high capacity, high performance enhancements to market-leading SD Memory Cards. The new card meets the Class 4 standard, a speed standard that requires a data write speed of at least 4GB/second. Toshiba is first in the industry to announce the launch of Class 4 8GB SDHC memory card.

KDDI's Aggressive EV-DO Upgrade

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has reported that KDDI is strengthening its technological and differentiated services lead in Japan by upgrading its CDMA network to so-called Revision A. Rev A’s most compelling benefit will be a dramatic increase in uplink speeds up to 1.8 Mbps and downlink speeds up to 3.1 Mbps, as compared to EV-DO Release 0 that supports speeds up to 153.6 kbps and 2.4Mbps, respectively. KDDI has already announced the availability of two handsets from Toshiba, the W47T and DRAPE, to support the commercial launch of its advanced broadband technology services by December 2006.

Gemini Launches Mobile Community Platform

Gemini Mobile Technologies has announced a new software platform to power mobile communities. The Gemini platform, called eXplo, is the foundation of a new 3D interface from SoftBank Mobile Corporation in Japan, named S! TOWN. SoftBank Mobile’s new S! Town-enabled phones are available today throughout Japan on selected Sharp and Toshiba phone models. Gemini expects to announce new carriers and content providers for eXplo in the coming months.

Wireless HD Coming in 2008

A collection of the biggest powers in consumer electronics, including LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and SiBEAM announced today that they are teaming together to ratify a standard for wireless high-def signal transmission. United as a technology group going under the name WirelessHD, the companies aim to have a finalized specification in spring 2007. The WirelessHD (WiHD) standard will allow for uncompressed, digital transmission of HD video and audio signals, essentially making it equivalent, in theory, to wireless HDMI.

Japan's Still the World's High-Tech Testbed

This past week, WWJ’s own Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, our hard-working director of digital media (and pretty much everything else in our humble shop), appeared on US Web radio program "Into Tomorrow," hosted by Dave Graveline. Dave and his crew pop over to Tokyo each year for the annual CEATEC consumer tech show, and he makes it his business to hook up with a slate of guests who can provide insidery gen on what’s happening in Japan…

Number Portability – DoCoMo Relying on Napster Japan

DoCoMo relies on Napster by Mobikyo KKDespite the resounding silence from DoCoMo’s website, Tower Records (part-owned by DoCoMo) have just introduced a joint-venture service with Napster in Japan. The Tower Records Japan-Napster JV will provide music distribution services for PC and mobile from an initial catalogue of 1.5 million songs. The initial service launch only allows content purchased by premium subscribers – a subscription costs 1,980 JPY per month – to be moved from the PC to mobile devices – and at this time only one handset (F902is) is supported.

DoCoMo took a 42 percent share of Tower Records here in November 2005 and – if the on-scene hype at DoCoMo’s booth at this week’s CEATEC consumer electronics show is any guide – they appear ready to announce a more aggressive mobile music device line-up in the coming weeks.

The Tower Records initiative appears not unrelated to DoCoMo’s overall mobile music strategy, which has so far run a distant second to mobile market leader KDDI/au.

Since 2002, KDDI have seen strong traffic, sales and handset popularity with their Chaku Uta, Chaku Uta Full, and Chaku Motion full-track audio and video offering. More recently, their new ‘LISMO’ unified PC/mobile content download and syncing service has started to gain customers, while DoCoMo have only this year in June started pushing Chaku Uta Full.