TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop a new service that combines DoCoMo's i-mode service and SCEI's Playstation.Under the terms of the agreement, DoCoMo and SCEI will jointly combine Playstation with conventional i-mode, Java-enabled i-mode...
The immediate problem has been solved. The 700 MHz auction has been postponed to March 6. Now the government quickly must decide on a long-term strategy for the use of the spectrum.If government wants the wireless industry to pay for 700 MHz frequencies, rules...
NEW YORK-To catch a thief, at least two companies are turning to wireless technology.The first out of the box is Aeris.net, San Jose, Calif., which provides back-up wireless messaging for residential alarm systems when the wireline connection is severed.The company's MicroBurst technology enables short...
NEW YORK-Manufacturers increasingly are planning to outsource production as more companies transition to the virtual manufacturing model, according to a recent Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. study.A substantial number of electronics manufacturers plan to outsource a collective average of 72 percent of production, a...
The Federal Communications Commission awarded a spectrum license to ArrayComm Inc. to trial its i-Burst wireless Internet system in San Diego, signaling the launch of the San Jose, Calif.-based company's broadband technology."Clearly we have to acquire more spectrum, but we have a plan to...
ArrayComm Inc. secured $15 million in funding last week to help accelerate the deployment of its i-Burst broadband technology, led by an investment of $8 million from Sony Corporation of America.This marks the first major round of financing the company has announced since unveiling...
Spyglass Inc. has agreed to merge with OpenTV, a worldwide provider of interactive TV software that plans to buy all of Spyglass' outstanding stock in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at about $2.5 billion.By acquiring Spyglass, OpenTV hopes to expand its interactive digital TV services...
Since its exit from the highly competitive U.S. mobile handset market in late 1998, Siemens AG has vowed to return.The German manufacturer will make its comeback this summer, but to a mobile-phone market that is even more crowded and competitive than ever before. Rapidly...
REDMOND, Wash.-Microsoft Corp. announced handset manufacturer Sony Corp.'s Digital Communication Europe division has licensed its Mobile Explorer microbrowser for its CMD-Z5 Global System for Mobile communications handset.Mobile Explorer is a dual-mode, Hypertext Markup Language/Wireless Application Protocol microbrowser for feature phones. Both Sony and Finnish...
NEW ORLEANS-Siemens AG announced it will re-enter the U.S. mobile-phone market in 2001, about two years after it left the market unable to compete with rapidly falling handset prices in the United States.Siemens always has maintained its exit from the U.S. market was a...
There's an ancient Japanese custom in which a man wooing a woman leaves romantic haiku poems tied to flowers or branches on her front lawn every day for as long as it takes until the woman agrees to accept his advances. According to one...
TOKYO-The number of Japanese PHS subscribers expanded in the December-January time frame, demonstrating that the long-ailing PHS business is starting to revitalize.The number of PHS users in the country has decreased for the last few years since hitting a high of 7 million in...
The focus on the mobile industry has been enormous during the last year. Device vendors, service providers, application developers, infrastructure vendors and content providers have all been jostling to position themselves in the new value chain. Like the PC industry, control over the technology...
Aether Systems Inc. rose to the top of the news last week after it was identified as Metrocall Inc.'s mysterious third investor and joint venture partner-joining PSINet Inc. and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst-as well as for announcing a plan to acquire Riverbed Technologies...
Kyocera Corp. hopes to do what no Japanese handset manufacturer has been able to do to date. It wants to become a dominate global vendor.To do that, Kyocera needs to gain a significant share of the market in North America, analysts say. Kyocera has...
Kyocera Corp. hopes to do what no Japanese handset manufacturer has done to date. It wants to become a dominate global vendor.Kyocera needs to gain a significant share of the market in North America to accomplish this goal, analysts say. Kyocera has made some...
NEW YORK-In the last seven years, semiconductor processing capacity has increased by about 2,600 percent while battery technology has improved by approximately 65 percent on a watts basis, said Phillip Redman, program manager, wireless/mobile communications for The Yankee Group, Boston.Moore's Law, which says the...
LAS VEGAS-Palm Computing Inc. and Sony Corp. have agreed to collaborate to expand the capabilities of the Palm Computing platform and create a new platform for handheld consumer electronics products with audio-visual functionality, the companies said.Under terms of the agreement, Sony will license the...
GENEVA-Sun Microsystems Inc. announced three manufacturers of Global System for Mobile communications handsets have agreed to incorporate Java technology in their products.First, Motorola Inc. plans to launch the Timeport P10888 smart phone with Java technology in Europe in the second quarter. Also, Sony Corp....
Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications plans to adopt both W-CDMA and cdma2000 technologies for next-generation mobile-phone systems.The ministry said it will make its decisions regarding 3G technology based on the recommendation of the Telecommunications Technology Council, an advisory committee to the ministry.Japan is...
TOKYO-Softbank, Microsoft and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced they will establish a joint company to provide wireless access line services.According to the announcement, the new joint company will provide the wireless service at a speed of 1 Megabyte per second (Mbps) for individual...
After months of denying any plans to sell its wireless handset division, Qualcomm Inc. is publicly relenting to the pressures of severe competition from Asia and the likes of Nokia Mobile Phones and Motorola Inc."With increased competition, parts shortages and industry consolidation reducing margins...
WASHINGTON-Millions of cellular telephones may be getting safety approvals by the Federal Communications Commission despite possibly exceeding the agency's radio-frequency radiation exposure guidelines.Professor Om P. Gandhi, a prominent RF scientist at the University of Utah, contends some testing of mobile phones for radio-frequency radiation...
TOKYO-Softbank, Microsoft Corp. and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) announced in August they will establish a joint company to provide wireless access line services.According to the announcement, the new joint company will provide the wireless service at a speed of 1 Megabyte per second...
