Imagine you are a pro-democracy protester on the streets of a repressive government. You’ve got your cellphone and you are messaging your friends. In the crowd near you, the police start making arrests. Fearing the government will confiscate your phone and investigate your contacts, you push a “panic button” on your phone. It deletes the contacts in your address book and sends out an alert. … → Read More
I can’t think of too many use cases for this, but they did it: A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo (Japan’s MIT if you will) has developed a technology that makes it possible to “physically” convey emotions from cell phone to cell phone. The key elements of the technology are a sensor and a Peltier device that’s attached to the back of the phones. → Read More
If you’ve ever got upset about not being able to view what your cell phone screen displays while you are outside your house, NEC’s new color-compensation chip is probably good news for you. The chip, which is specifically made for LCDs for mobile phones, helps to make them easier to view in bright outdoor settings. → Read More
Sharp, the biggest (in terms of market share) of all eight major Japanese cell phone makers, has been talking about internationalizing its phone business for quite some time now. It makes sense, as the domestic market is shrinking and as Sharp only sold 20% of all their cell phones outside Japan (1.6 million units) last fiscal. → Read More
KDDI did it as early as last month, and today it was NTT Docomo’s and SoftBank’s turn to unveil their line-ups of new cell phones for the Japanese market. Here are all of SoftBank’s 17 future models [JP], which will be sold in Japan from this fall through spring 2010. → Read More
I’ve seen countless straps in my many years in cell phone-crazy Japan, but this one beats them all. The so-called “Street Fighter IV Real Voice” is essentially a mini joystick that plays the voice samples that follow a number of special moves in the game. All sounds from the major attacks Chun Li, Ken, Ryu and Dhalsim can pull off are there – provided you’re skilled enough with your hands. → Read More
Do cell phone producers really need to think of female customers as a specific market segment? So far, most of them think if they make the devices pink, cute or small enough, women will just take the bait. But quite unsurprisingly, a German design researcher from Deutsche Telekom says this isn’t enough [GER]. → Read More
These are some very early prototypes Japan’s No. 1 telecommunications company NTT recently showcased during the JPCA Show 2009 in Tokyo, but they are pretty cool to look at and may show a glimpse of the near future. The basic idea is to one day be able to offer cell phones featuring an interface for attachable and replaceable hardware add-ons. → Read More
FED and SED are practically dead, Plasmas never really took off and OLED are still too expensive to produce. Now Hitachi Displays wants to change this by dramatically improving the good old LCDs, at least for mobile devices (even for these, OLED are far from being a regularly used). → Read More
The majority of those awesome Japanese cell phones I keep blogging about unfortunately never leaves this country (at least in legal ways). But this may soon change, as Japan gets older (which results in a rapidly shrinking customer base) and is severely hit by the recession. Especially Sharp seems to now be bullish about bringing some of their cell phones to America and other areas. → Read More
For geeks who a) happen to believe in Buddha and b) are able of reading Chinese, this must be excellent news: Buddhists can now actually buy a Buddha cell phone in China. The device is not a joke product, but it actually works and makes kind of sense (if you are a Buddhist). → Read More
Japanese telecommunications giants SoftBank and Docomo unveiled their summer 2009 line-ups last week and were followed by the country’s No. 2 carrier, KDDI au, today. While SoftBank is to roll out 15 new cell phones this summer and Docomo even presented 17 models, KDDI au showed only 8 new candy bars [JP] in the morning. But some of these are amazing. → Read More
Japan’s national TV station NHK and technology giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (better know as NTT) have developed a technology allowing users to interrupt watching online content on one device and resume the playback later on a different device. → Read More
NTT Docomo not only announced eight new cell phones in their SMART and STYLE series today but also presented nine other models that are part of the so-called PRIME (top row in the picture) and PRO (the three devices on the right in the bottom row) series. Here is the complete rundown of the PRIME and PRO models. Some of the specs are unbelievable. → Read More
Following Softbank, Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier NTT Docomo announced its summer cell phone line-up [JP], consisting of a total of 17 new candy bars. Docomo breaks down the handsets into four series: STYLE (top row in the picture), SMART (the two phones on the left in the bottom row), PRO and PRIME. And some of the models just look awesome (sales begin this month). → Read More
Big news from Japan’s cell phone market today as Japan’s No.3 telecommunications company SoftBank and the No. 1, NTT Docomo, presented their new cell phone line-ups for the summer. Softbank announced a total of 19 new models [JP] (sales start within this month), and many of them are made by Sharp. → Read More
A precarious lawsuit is currently in the news in Germany: According to various reports, a streetcar driver in the Southern city of Karlsruhe made pictures of his private parts with his phone camera (while being on duty). As if that alone isn’t stupid enough, the guy also sent the two pictures out to the world via Bluetooth. → Read More
Following KDDI, Japan’s No.3 telecommunications company SoftBank today also presented the new cell phone line-up for this spring. The company presented a total of nine models and will start selling the first handset of the line-up (the Panasonic 930P) from tomorrow. → Read More
Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au today presented their new cell phones [JP] for this spring. The first handsets will be available in Nippon on Saturday.
And they have a few spectacular models to offer – if only the Japanese carriers did what they promised a few months back (large-scale internationalization due to a shrinking home market), everyone could get their hands on… → Read More
James Bond is a huge brand name in Japan. In cooperation with regional telcom Okinawa Cellular [JP], KDDI au (the nation’s No. 2 telecommunications company) will start selling a special edition of its W63S (CDMA 1X WIN) cell phone tomorrow. → Read More
Fujitsu Japan has developed the F-01A [JP], the world’s first cell phone that’s waterproof and also features a security function utilizing fingerprint biometrics. In Nippon, it’s part of the line-up of NTT DoCoMo, the country’s biggest telecommunications company. → Read More
I am not really sure if this is really a product licensed by Sanrio, the company behind uber cartoon cat Hello Kitty, but this “branded” handset looks kind of cool. → Read More
NEC today announced [JP] they developed automatic software for mobile phones automatically translates travel-related words and phrases from Japanese to English and English to Japanese and that seems to be more advanced than this solution. → Read More
It was pointed out to me recently that the citizens of the U.S. are just about the only people on the planet that carry their cell phones in holsters. After a moment’s reflection I realized this was pretty accurate: in all my travels through Scandinavia, and Western and Eastern Europe over the last couple of years, I don’t think I saw a single cell phone carried anywhere other than in… → Read More
The days for Japan’s mobile digital TV standard One-Seg may be counted Renesas, the world’s biggest manufacturer of microcontrollers, is planning to unveil a processor that will make it possible to view full HD video in 30fps on cell phones during the ISSCC 2009 (International Solid State Circuits Conference) that will take place in San Francisco from February 8 to 12, 2009. The… → Read More
Japan has always been a tough market crack for Nokia, the world’s biggest cell phone manufacturer. While the Finnish company boasts a 40 percent share of global handset sales, this figure has been steady at about 1 percent in Japan. Now it has come to light that Nokia plans to launch an MVNO with Nippon’s No. 1 cell phone carrier Docomo starting in either February or March next year. → Read More
Joining the T-Mobile fray today is the Samsung Behold. Yet another touch-screen device that will surely underwhelm from a manufacturer that could easily churn out better devices if they’d ditch those crappy plastic screens for real glass. However, it does have an AF 5-megapixel camera with flash, built-in GPS and it’s a 3G device. The rest of the specs can be found after the jump. It’s… → Read More
Japan’s biggest telco NTT DoCoMo today announced 4 new cell phone series (STYLE, PRIME, SMART and PRO ), which are part of the company’s fall/winter product line-up. Docomo will offer a total of 22 new handsets. As Japanese handset makers have recently vowed to internationalize more agressively, there is a good chance at least some of the new models will become available outside Japan… → Read More
Softbank Mobile today announced the release of a One-Seg digital TV tuner for the iPhone [JP] for the middle of December. One-Seg is a digital TV system only available in Japan and Brazil and usually stands for great picture and sound quality. The device makes it possible to watch digital TV via WiFi by converting TV signals into IP-based data. Buyers can use the TV tuner (weight: 80 grams)… → Read More
Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au yesterday unveiled new cell phones for its year-end sales campaign. Priced between $400 and $550, the first handsets will be sold in early November. Here is the complete line-up: Hitachi Wooo 63H (featuring a 3.1-inch OLED display) → Read More
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