Get the stories!  Or just the comments...

• Home
  • Top
  • Archives
  • Categories
  • Tags
  • Sites We Like
• About & Contact
• Datefinder
• Buy J-Gadgets!
• Snapp! PR
• Advertise!

Samsung has just taken the wraps off its “Ultra Edition” series of cellphones at CommunicAsia 2006, revealing one handset it claims is the thinnest phone ever made. Pics and full details after the jump.

A new commercial broadcast mobile TV service was launched just in time for the World Cup soccer tournament and our playas in Germany got a little facetime with it on a DMB cellphone and a DVB-H handheld prototype. More after the click.

Yesterday was a big day in the high-paced world of Japanese cellphones, for DoCoMo has just announced that Sunday saw its 3G-toting customers outstrip those with 2G handsets for the first time.

Citizen’s new Abacus Smart Watch 2006 can hook up with MSN Direct. Optional services include Outlook and MSN Messenger, and the battery lasts a week without a recharge.

Sanyo is following up the December release of its W33SA digital TV phone with the W33SAII, just in time to see the Japanese soccer team lose to earn a battling draw against an equally poor Croatia side on Sunday.

Japan Media Review has an extract from a new academic tome about mobile phone manners in Japan that displays some surprising findings.

A group of top mobile phone makers and operators are launching a foundation to create an open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices, they said on Thursday.

In something of a surprise move, six of the planet’s biggest wireless and consumer electronics players have announced they’re about to start work on an open platform for mobile phones based on Linux.

This weekend the number of GSM mobile phone users worldwide is expected to reach 2 billion and the GSM Association (GSMA) is making plans to ensure that a healthy portion of the next billion customers will use 3G phones.

Those among you keen on torturing yourselves with visions of mobile phones we can never have should check out this short BBC gallery of concept phones created by students from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Vodafone’s exit from Japan has been well covered but what is Softbank Mobile going to do to pick up the pieces from the wreckage? Will it be able to restore the luster to the network’s tarnished reputation or is yet another sale and rebranding all that lies ahead for Japan’s third biggest cellphone network. Arjen rubs his crystal ball after the link.

If you happened to pass through Milan’s Malpensa Airport in March, your mobile phone may have been scanned by the BlueBag. Billed as a research lab on wheels, BlueBag was created by Milan’s Secure Network to study how malicious software might be able to spread among devices that use Bluetooth.

We just heard the long-awaited news that Japan is finally to catch up with the rest of the BlackBerry-toting world when NTT DoCoMo and RIM start selling handsets to corporate customers this fall.

Microsoft has adopted yet another platform under its broad strategy to provide games and game communities wherever users go.

The completely wireless office has remained the holy grail of wireless aficionados for years, but when will it truly happen?

Good old Samsung — we just love the photos you mail us with your press releases; they’re never dull, they’re colorful and they always, but always, feature over-excited women holding things in a way that says: “Buy me — you want me, you need me.”

South Korea’s SK Telecom has switched on an upgrade to its 3G cellphone network that increases download speed by several times.

Qualcomm has introduced a chip designed to bring mobile television to consumer mobile phone handsets, the company said Friday. Although the company named the chip the Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM), it supports three leading mobile television standards.

After an enthusiastic consumer reaction to Walkman-branded cell phones, Sony Ericsson is planning more handsets that are focused around a single, major feature, the company’s president said in an interview in Tokyo this week.

The long-awaited Q smartphone from Motorola will finally be available at the end of this month, nearly half a year late and facing tough competition from the likes of RIM’s BlackBerry.

Hey, have you seen the NEC PC fuel cell that was supposed to be on the market in 2004? Now it looks as if made-in-Japan fuel cells for portable CE might be headed for a non-appearance next year as well.

KDDI, Japan’s number two cellular carrier, will add a Google search box to its EZWeb mobile Internet service from July, the company said Thursday.

Fujitsu has developed an RFID (radio frequency ID) tag that can be put through the washer and still come out smelling of roses — or at least transmitting.

Sony Ericsson has quietly slipped out a new FOMA handset for the DoCoMo 3G network in Japan. The SO902iWP+ is basically the same phone as the SO902i we reviewed in March but with a totally useless twist.

As we mentioned earlier, Vodafone Japan used this morning’s press event to unveil a few new handsets for the summer. Of the five shown today, three are W-CDMA 3G models and two are 2G phones on the old PDC network.

Following the purchase of Vodafone Japan by Softbank, the expected rebranding was announced this morning here in Tokyo, with the cellphone giant taking on the name Softbank Mobile from October this year.

Samsung has announced the launch of Korea’s first HSDPA phone, the SCH-W200, which supports 2G, 3G and 3.5G, and packs in an MP3/AAC player and a satellite DMB receiver.

Singapore is planning a national broadband network that would provide ultra-fast Internet access at speeds up to 1Gbps for every home and business.

Microsoft China will push for wider adoption of Windows Mobile and Windows Media software with mobile handset developer China TechFaith Wireless, the two companies have announced.

Softbank, Japan’s third-largest cellular carrier, and Apple have reached a basic agreement to develop cellphones that can play songs downloaded from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, according to local press reports.

NTT DoCoMo has just released details about a bunch of new handsets, including the company’s first HSDPA model, more Felica/credit card-function sets and news that future models will support both WMA and Win Media DRM.

Samsung’s E500 may remind you of a knock-off Chanel handbag that you’d see in Shanghai, but the leather-trimmed design was actually based on Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” Yes, really.

Users of NTT DoCoMo’s 3G FOMA service will soon make up half of all the carrier’s subscribers, and will account for two-thirds of subscribers by this time next year. Also, 3.6Mbps HSDPA will be available later this summer.

If you get your phone stolen and are in the mood for either a smack down or setting up a sting operation, then this new tracking solution from an Indian company may just suit.

Feeling left out with your old-skool mobile phone that is oh-so-lacking in the IC card department? Now, thanks to Japan’s largest printing company, you can now stick a FeliCa chip on the outside of your phone and play along with the e-money big boys.

Who needs 3G when you can walkie the talkie with Kenwood? This seems to be the message from U.S. consumers, who are snapping up Japanese walkie-talkies at a rate that might threaten even MOTO.

We know next to nothing about Samsung’s new range of cellphones it has, in its infinite wisdom, chosen to dub “Skin” but we see that the company still values that good old spokesmodel concept when launching new products.

More and more manga maniacs are now getting their anime fix via mobile phones, with NTT’s Comic Site for keitai comic lovers surpassing 10 million downloads since the service went live in August 2004.

Apple’s iTunes isn’t the only innovative online music store, you know. It may be the most successful worldwide, but there’s a Little Service That Could here in Japan and it’s called Lismo.

We don’t have XM radio in Japan and we don’t need this device.