ESPN and The Walt Disney Internet Group are to launch the Japanese version of X Games Mobile, a new content-based service for wireless consumers. KDDI and Vodafone have agreed to make X Games Mobile available to their customers. X Games Mobile will offer X Games-branded content including news and information, screensavers, ring tones, wallpaper, photos, logos, and streaming audio and video.
Reuters is reporting that NTT DoCoMo is close to signing a deal with Russia’s mobile phone firm Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) to license i-mode, potentially boosting MTS’s revenues, sources close to the matter said to Reuters. A cooperation agreement between the two firms will be signed on Friday, a different source in Moscow had said, without giving further details.
Vodafone just announced the signing of a new Partner Network Agreement, which makes SmarTone Vodafone’s exclusive partner in Hong Kong. SmarTone will re-brand its business to SmarTone-Vodafone, bringing the Vodafone brand into Hong Kong’s (significant) mobile market. Under the agreement, both companies will co-operate in developing and offering products and services, through the SmarTone-Vodafone brand, to international travellers and domestic customers.
Vodafone Japan is back in Japan’s 3G data race with today’s launch of Vodafone live! BB, a fixed-line PC Web site [only in Japanese so far] that allows users to search and download content for use on mobile terminals. Vodafone live! BB will operate with Vodafone’s new 3G handsets and serve as a a sort of Mother-of-all-Mobile-Portals solution for getting biggie-sized files (think audio, music and video) onto phones. Anyone can download the content files to a PC or laptop, copy them onto miniSD memory cards, and transfer them to a phone, but only Vodafone customers with a spanking new 3G celly can receive a digital key (distributed over the air) to unlock the files for playback.
Two new top-level domain names moved closer to approval this week, as the body charged with overseeing the Internet’s technical matters moved into negotiations with the companies applying to set up and run the “.mobi” and “.jobs” domains. .Mobi is sponsored by Microsoft, Nokia, and Vodafone Group, who hope to target the domain specifically at mobile content and service providers as well as mobile device manufacturers, vendors and individual companies.
Vodafone K.K. have just announced they will commence sales of their new 3G handset lineup, the Vodafone 902/802/702-series, starting with Nokia’a V702NK [.jpg image] 8 December in the Kanto-Koshin region, 10 December in the Tokai and Kansai regions, and other areas following thereafter. New Vodafone live! 3G services like video call roaming, large-size mail, and streaming will also be offered from 8 December to coincide with the sales launch.
