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Japan’s third-largest mobile phone operator, Softbank, chose yesterday to unveil its master plans for an assault on market leaders NTT DoCoMo through its spring line up of handsets.

This is an odd one – a mobile phone that’s designed to sit on a desk and operate as a speakerphone, rather than actually go anywhere.

So, KDDI and NTT DoCoMo went off the rails today and unveiled 20 new phones between them but there’s really nothing much to write home about. As usual, we get a bunch of clamshells with not much originality to speak of, however…

Apple’s iPhone isn’t going to be available anywhere for half a year and won’t even make it to Japan at all unless a non-GSM version appears. Considering that isn’t happening until 2008 at the earliest, is the “Jesus Phone” even relevant to the Japan market? After all, aren’t the handsets here the best in the world anyway?

What would you do if you received an unsolicited email or SMS purporting to be from a hard-up and horny young female nurse desperate for love?

If you’re already weary of all the CES hype, with its rampant consumerism and one-upmanship and in need of a little divine help, then how about a cellphone strap featuring seven lucky, dangling gods from Japan?

Hypothetical question — If you’re a cheating dog who lives with his wife, yet spends most evenings fielding cellphone text message and emails from your little bit on the side, do you…

Don’t you just hate it when big companies take legal action that seems to rest on assumptions that their customers are morons? This story about RIM suing Samsung over the use of the word “Black” in the Korean firm’s BlackJack smartphone is a perfect example.

After at least one false start, Thursday this week sees Japan finally get a Motorola RAZR to call its own when DoCoMo launches the M702iS.

It may be ugly as get out, but Korean firm Miu’s new UMPC seems fairly feature packed.

Next time you fancy getting the theme from The Godfather or Close Encounters as a cellphone ringtone, just be careful where you buy it — you could be helping put the seller behind bars.

Palm’s Treo just went on sale in the US for $400 unlocked or $200 with a contract. Check out our video of the Great Candy-colored Hope after the jump.

Far Eastone Telecommunications has begun offering MSN/Windows Live Messenger to users of i-mode mobile phones, one of just a handful of companies offering the service globally.

Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 21.5 percent year on year to 251 million units in the third quarter, with India and China driving growth, according to research from Gartner.

Construction of Singapore’s planned free Wi-Fi service, called Wireless@SG, is now underway as the three operators chosen for the project prepare for the network to enter operation in early January.

Google has expanded to several additional countries a test to provide ads to mobile devices, as the search engine giant pushes into this uncharted territory and attempts to extend its vibrant advertising business into the realm of cellphones.

NTT DoCoMo and Intel will publish Wednesday a set of specifications that will allow users to load a second operating system onto their cellphones, the companies said Tuesday.

Taiwanese handset maker E-Ten Information Systems has launched a new Windows Mobile-based smartphone packed with GPS, computing capabilities, and VoIP software from Skype.

Sony has just let slip that its mylo folly is due to go on sale in Japan after all — in the middle of December in fact.

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has attracted more than 860,000 people to its DCMX service that allows a cellphone with an IC chip to be used to make credit purchases in stores, it said Thursday.

Intel is blazing a trail from fixed to mobile WiMax with a chip that has just begun shipping in sample quantities.

With some vendors and service providers looking to WiMax as the next big acceleration in wireless, Nortel Networks says it has a supercharged version of that system.

Remember that show-off from Samsung bragging about his 10-megapixel cellphone last March? Well, it’s finally on sale in Korea (as of today) and it’s one hell of an attention seeker.

The Cell processor sits at the heart of the PlayStation 3, most powerful game console yet developed, and a high-performance computer from IBM and now Toshiba wants to put that power into mobile devices and cellphones.

Hitachi this week updated its AirLocation II system, which uses WLAN (wireless LAN) technology to track goods and employees, with the introduction of a smaller tag.

NTT DoCoMo is showing at this week’s Ceatec show in Japan a prototype fuel cell that it’s developing with a Japanese start-up for use as a cellphone recharger.

Nokia has developed a new, short-range wireless technology that it says could improve on some of the shortcomings of Bluetooth.

MTI MicroFuel Cells has demonstrated a prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) to the U.S. military, the company’s president said Monday.

Suvil is one of those firms that produces plenty of the little bits and pieces you never knew you wanted. One case in point is the Hong Kong company’s ClipFree iAudio BT Bluetooth add-on for pretty much any piece of kit with an audio output.

We’ve been taking a ride in Nissan’s new super-safe cars fitted with wireless driver-aid technology to make the roads a lot less dangerous. Check out the vid after the jump to see how we’ll all be driving in 15 years.

E-money point-of-sale terminals are becoming a very common sight in the stores and restaurants of Japan but there’s one significant problem barring their path to total acceptance — the lack of a standard.

BenQ Mobile will launch a new mobile phone in December, a half-egg shell design that fits in the palm of your hand.

Vodafone and HTC have signed an agreement to jointly develop and market 3G smart phones in Japan, the companies said Thursday.

It’s a card, it’s a phone, it’s an MP3 player, it’s a Bluetoothing 2-megapixel camera — yes, it’s the SGH-P310 Card Phone II from Samsung.

We all know how much fun piping audio directly into your cranium can be, so it’s with glee that we bring you the news on DoCoMo’s first bone-conduction cellphone earpiece, the beautifully named Sound Leaf.

RealNetworks plans to acquire South Korean mobile entertainment provider WiderThan in a cash deal worth around US$350 million.

Samsung is sampling a new type of flash memory device that could make it easier for makers of mobile phones and MP3 players to increase the storage capacity of their products.

Samsung showed off its first 40 nanometer chip, a 32GB NAND flash memory that can be used in memory cards able to store up to 64GB of data, or 40 movies.

Samsung unveiled a new kind memory chip Monday, PRAM (phase-change RAM), aimed at replacing NOR flash memory in mobile phones.

NTT DoCoMo is planning to buy a slice of a Japanese venture company that has made some promising advances in fuel-cell technology.