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DoCoMo and Kadokawa to Form Alliance

Kadokawa Holdings, comprising group companies engaged mainly in publishing or movie content, and DoCoMo have announced that they will form a comprehensive alliance through a capital tie-up. The parties will develop mobile content related with Kadokawa movies and animation, including original video content developed initially for the mobile environment, prior to release via other media. Also, Kadokawa will increase the range of content it distributes through some 40 sites it has on the i-mode portal.

Bravia Mobile TV Phones Going Global

Sony Ericsson may have a worldwide roll out of its Bravia-branded handset that supports DVB-H (digital video broadcasting-handheld) mobile DTV (MDTV) in 2007, according to sources. Partnering with Japanese telecom service provider KDDI, Sony Ericsson launched its first Bravia-brand handset (W44S) in the Japan market this month. Sony debuted the Bravia LCD TV series in the third quarter of 2005. The strong sales of Bravia LCD TVs have helped Sony retain leadership in the global TV market.

Fujitsu to Develop Super 3G Base Stations

Fujitsu Limited today announced that it has been selected in NTT DoCoMo’s procurement process to develop and manufacture prototypes and commercial equipment for DoCoMo’s super 3G wireless base stations. Fujitsu has been actively involved in the 3GPP’s standardization initiatives from the outset, and has been developing the fundamental technologies required to improve spectrum efficiency for the Super 3G standard, such as multi-antenna system and OFDM technologies.

OKI to Exhibit at ITU Telecom World

Oki Electric announced its participation at the upcoming ITU Telecom World 2006, which will be held in Hong Kong from December 4th to 8th. OKI will exhibit its products based on its position of having launched the first VoIP system in Japan in 1996, and its strong track record with its carrier-grade softswitch, which has been used for 5 million subscribers, the world’s largest scale. At the session for “Towards a safer digital society,” CEO Shinozuka will be making a keynote speech under the theme, “Ubiquitous Security – Towards Realization of a Safe and Secure Digital World.”

Mobile Oracle from Kyoto

One of the most famous tourist traps in Kyoto, Japan, the venerable Kiyomizu-dera temple has jumped on the digital bandwagon, their solution is a credit-card sized charm. Printed on its surface are eight deity of good fortune. The image of deity actually hides a URL encoded with an embedded FPcode (Fine Picture code). This is a code system developed by Fujitsu [see our CEATEC video — Eds], an extension of the QR code which has become the de-facto system for Japanese K-tai terminals. 2D FPcode pattern utilizes a near-transparent color ink, and easily printed over the existing picture without spoiling it.

Wireless Watch Japan's Web Video Triple Play

Wireless Watch Japan’s Web Video Triple PlayIt’s been a fairly hectic six weeks for Japan’s mobile industry and therefore also for us here at WWJ. Starting with the Tokyo Game Show here in late September, followed in short order by CEATEC and DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch — and combined with the MNP (mobile number portability) official launch on 24 October — it’s been crazy.

Your WWJ staff have also been deep into planning next week’s Mobile Intelligence Japan (MIJ) mission, due to start on Sunday afternoon and we have over 250 folks registered for our next Mobile Monday event at the Canadian embassy on Monday 13 November! Phew!

We know how much everyone enjoys watching our web video programs and so we’ve bundled a few together that were finally produced over the last little while. The Tokyo Game Show was, as always and then some, a super event this year, celebrating their 10th anniversary and was held at Makuhari Messe; WWJ saw previews of DoCoMo’s 903i “Mega Games” while KDDI was running a massive (mobile) multiplayer Bomberman exhibit and SoftBank Mobile stepped out if full force with a wide selection of games targeted at Sharp’s 905SH handset.

Also, we have added our video coverage from DoCoMo’s new 903i-series launch, which introduced a whopping 14 new handsets complete with some interesting 3G data service upgrades as well.

Finally, DoubleClick Japan introduced their “Mobile MK” software and were kind enough to show us a full demo. — Yoroshiku!