In a world where the mobile industry is becoming increasingly saturated, especially in Japan, another one bites the dust. IPMobile from Tokyo is filing a voluntary bankruptcy after failing to pay off 900million yen of debts to creditors.
Read more from Wireless Watch Japan
The KDDI showroom showcase some of the latest futurist phone concepts that you can put your paws on. Some of the latest concepts looked kinda boxy and chunky but I think a lot of its design is still in the process of refinement. Check out some of its designs:
Toshiba’s W56 is the new OLED phone for AU. It’s sleek and thin exterior with a splash of color (orange in this case) makes for a very chic phone aimed at the younger masses. Specs for this phone is as follows:
With a 2.8″ OLED screen (QVGA) which can rotate 360°, our phone supports both the 1Seg TV (Digital TV) and Digital Radio, supports LISMO (A service like iTUNES from AU), supports multitasking, has a 3.2Mpix AF camera, GPS module, PC Site web browser, Bluetooth, EZ Felica (electronic wallet), and a storage capacity of 800Mb; this in only 145g and 50×106x17.8mm.
There are also three colors to choose from.
A new Sony Ericsson’s Smart Phone is coming out in the middle of 2008. Golly, time sure passes by fast isn’t it? We’re already on the 4th quarter of 2007. But I am sure for some Sony Ericsson fans, time could not pass soon enough. Not much of the specs for the new smart phone is out yet but what we know is this smartphone is a Windows Mobile device.
WIMAX is a wireless broadband technology that is going to be introduced in Japan really soon. And WIMAX handset is said to be gracing the Japanese shores really soon although no definitive date has been set yet. The design of the phone is really slick and simple, check them out.
Picture from Akiharabara.
I always thought Kyocera made good cell phones but their designs are always so…chunky and unrefined. But the latest models from Kyocera changed my mind about the unrefined part. No doubt it is still chunky as compared to say the Samsung phone Or or…LG’s chocolate phones, it’s definitely sleeker and it appeals better to the crowd, imho.
Here are a few coming soon cellphones from Kyocera that you should lookout for:
Kyocera E5000
Kyocera E1000
Kyocera E2000 (Music & Stereo Bluetooth)
Kyocera M1000 (QWERTY Keypad & Camera)
The IMOBILE Flying C1000, a mouthful to say, is fantastic. It’s a GSM telephone, a Digital Audio Player, a touchscreen, an MP3/MP4 player with bluetooth and you can put it on your wrist. This is the ultimate geekiest geek gadget out there in the market. You really need to get this. You know who you are. :P
Phone Daily via Akihabara
For those of you who don’t know what “raku” means, it means “easy” in Japanese. The latest RakuRaku phone from Fujitsu aim at older people and for those who wants a frill free phone. The specs of the phone will not be a page long but it has what it takes to look trendy as well in a world where being fashionable is quite important to stay “in”. These RakuRaku’s comes in three colors, pink, silver and black, the size of the phone 17.6mm in thickness only, has GPS and a digital camera. One of its more interesting features is the noise canceling speakers for a clearer conversation :)
This is a pretty interesting breakthrough for Sharp. The multi touch LCD screen is definitely going to come in handy for displaying maps on their car’s GPS system and what not.
Sharp Corporation has announced a new proprietary “System LCD” equipped with touch screen and scanner functions. The company claims to have successfully embedded an optical sensor, used in devices like scanners, in each pixel of the LCD panel. This technology eliminates the need for films, resulting in a thin clear screen display compared to conventional touch screens. Sample shipments will begin in September of this year, with volume production slated to start next spring.
Taken from Wireless Watch Japan.
Read the press release here.
That is for the mobile content market in Japan alone in 2006.
Here’s part of the source:
According to a recent report released by the Mobile Content Forum (MCF), Japan’s largest independent mobile industry trade organization, Japan’s mobile content marketplace in 2006 was worth some 928.5 billion yen, an increase of 129% over the previous year. Broken down by category, the mobile content market (i.e., transactions for fee-based content) comprised 366.1 billion, marking an increase of 116% over 2005. Mobile commerce (including hard goods, services, and transactions) made up 562.4 billion yen, an increase of 138% over the previous year, marking definite growth in the mobile market overall, and confirming a growth trend that is expected to break the trillion yen mark in 2007.
As of the end of June, 2007, the number of mobile phone subscriptions in Japan was 98.06 million, of which 85.65 million were Internet-enabled mobile phones. Of these 85.65 million, some 74.69 million were next-generation mobile phones contracts (source: Telecommunications Carriers Association) of which 28% were signed up for flat-rate data packages (source: MCF White Paper 2007).
As indicated by these figures, the Japanese market offers an environment in which users can easily access a wide variety of mobile Internet services, a factor which is contributing greatly to help drive the expansion of the mobile content business as a whole.
You can read the rest at D2 Communications.
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