There are many hugely efficient ways to get around Tokyo, but for visitors taxis usually come at the bottom of that list. Drivers rarely speak English and, compared to the rest of the world, they’re quite expensive (about $8 to start, going way up from there). But, should you find yourself in one they’re naturally hugely clean and sophisticated, that sophistication getting a boost now by DoCoMo. 820 black sedans for hire in Tokyo will be outfitted with WiFi, freely available to customers who dishonor the back seats with their backsides. 100 of the cars will even have Sony PSPs back there too, which is odd because we were pretty sure everyone in Tokyo already had one — or a DS, at least. These specially equipped taxis can be identified by the red DoCoMo WiFi stickers on the doors, so don’t accept anything less, no matter how late you are for that KneuKlid Romance concert in Shinjuku.
You sassafrass you, NOOKcolor! Last night we spoke about how NOOKcolor had been rooted and presented to you the final chapter in our “A Week With” reviews of that device, but what’s this?! I snuck another one in on ya! A Week with NOOKcolor: The Missing Link – Viewing Manually Loaded Books and What a Root Means for the Future. Then there’s news about how NOOKcolor saved B&N’s butt financially this year, and the iPad responds with a magazine – it’s got TRON on it! Maybe not a direct response, and I know it’s released by Richard Branson, but, you know, but I don’t think iPad is worried about the B&N competition. Then we’ve got some Farmville news and some NASA news about what might be aliens – this expressing the range of information we present here at the R3 Media Network. ALL THIS AND MORE on the SlashGear Morning Wrap-up!
NTT DoCoMo has Darth Vader selling its Android wares, so what could KDDI au possibly counter with? Why, a force even darker and more heinous than the Sith Daddy himself: Lady Gaga. Yes, the music fiend we love to hate has remixed Poker Face just to make sure we take notice of Sharp’s IS03, and the kindly Japanese carrier has taken care of inserting her into the phone for maximum promotional value. Yes, au, now that we’ve seen Lady Gaga strutting around inside it, we totally want to own one of these handsets! See the video promos after the break.
Because not every smartphone has a full 1080p resolution (yet), KDDI‘s R&D Labs have come up with a new method for massaging the most out of HD movie streams while on the move. You’ll still be able to pummel your poor mobile device and connection with the full-res stream, should you wish it, but KDDI’s innovation is in developing a system whereby you can zoom in on particular parts of the feed, have the stream cropped to your requirements on far-off servers somewhere, and then receive only the stuff you want to see onto your device. And because of your phone’s aforementioned pixel deficiency, the employment of this technique will most often result in negligible picture fidelity loss, if any. The biggest benefit, however, might be to carriers like KDDI who end up having to carry less data back and forth, even if it does come at a slight server-side cost. Video after the break.
If there’s one benefit to living in the technological backwater that is Europe, it’s that “innovations” like iAds take a little longer to filter though — but filter through they eventually do, as evidenced by Apple’s announcement that its mobile advertising platform is hitting the Old World this December. French and British iOS users will get to enjoy being pestered by L’Oreal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, and Unilever next month, while their German counterparts will have their lives enriched in January. This follows on the heels of news that iAds is headed to Japan in early 2011 as well, covering the biggest developed markets with glorious promotional material. Advertisers don’t seem to be shying away from the platform, either, as Apple boasts it has signed up half of the top 25 US ad buyers (as judged by Ad Age). Full press release follows after the break.
Panasonic may not be new to cellphones, but it has sat out of the smartphone explosion of recent years — an oversight that it’s now apparently looking to correct. Speaking at a news conference today, the head of Panasonic’s mobile division, Osamu Waki, said flatly that the company “misjudged the speed at which smartphones would be taken up in the Japanese market,” and that “with the rapid shift to Android, we want to catch up quickly.” Exact details on how it plans to catch up are expectedly still a bit light, but Panasonic’s phones will indeed be based on Android, and it apparently hopes to differentiate them by emphasizing their networking capabilities with other Panasonic products. As for when the first ones will roll out, Panasonic plans to kick off sales in Japan sometime next year, with overseas markets set to follow in 2012.
NTT DoCoMo and its Japanese competitors have a long, rich history of announcing dozens of new phones in one fell swoop, but the carrier is saying that its latest line — comprised of a mind-bending 28 devices — is its largest single launch ever. We’ve already told you about a couple of the notables (and some of these we saw at CEATEC not long ago), but the company proudly proclaims that the lineup includes 11 waterproof units, three that can function as WiFi hotspots, 10 with touchscreens, nine that shoot HD video, and five capable of shooting 1080p. Perhaps even more notably, though, NTT DoCoMo is sharing details of the launch of its so-called Xi network — the consumer brand for its LTE airwaves — and it turns out locals will be able to get in on the action come December 24th, initially in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Interestingly, there will be no unlimited data plans offered on Xi; when you consider that the service is billed as being ten times faster than FOMA with downlink speeds of up to 75Mbps, that’s a little disconcerting — but if you’re not scared off, you’ll be able to choose from a USB modem and an ExpressCard at launch.
NTT DoCoMo and its Japanese competitors have a long, rich history of announcing dozens of new phones in one fell swoop, but the carrier is saying that its latest line — comprised of a mind-bending 28 devices — is its largest single launch ever. We’ve already told you about a couple of the notables (and some of these we saw at CEATEC not long ago), but the company proudly proclaims that the lineup includes 11 waterproof units, three that can function as WiFi hotspots, 10 with touchscreens, nine that shoot HD video, and five capable of shooting 1080p. Perhaps even more notably, though, NTT DoCoMo is sharing details of the launch of its so-called Xi network — the consumer brand for its LTE airwaves — and it turns out locals will be able to get in on the action come December 24th, initially in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Interestingly, there will be no unlimited data plans offered on Xi; when you consider that the service is billed as being ten times faster than FOMA with downlink speeds of up to 75Mbps, that’s a little disconcerting — but if you’re not scared off, you’ll be able to choose from a USB modem and an ExpressCard at launch.
You might have expected Sharp’s pebble-shaped Touch Wood concept to remain just that, a concept, but the eclectic Japanese market has found a spot in its heart to fit 15,000 units of the curvy, wood-trimmed cellphone. Built from locally sourced cypress timber, each handset will have its own unique pattern and color, while the innards will be filled with a five megapixel imager, a 3.4-inch (854 x 480) display, a MicroSDHC expansion slot, and your usual GSM and 3G wireless radios. You can get yours through NTT DoCoMo some time around February or March.
Dear Nokia and Samsung, please come to reception to collect your old and busted 12 megapixel cameraphones. The new king of the phonecamera heap, in appearance at least, has arrived in the shape of LG’s L-03C. It comes with a retractable 3x optical zoom lens from Pentax, a 12 megapixel CCD sensor, a Xenon flash, and a 720p movie recording mode. The L-03C is also intentionally styled to remind users of the more timeless compact camera designs of the past (and present) and it’s only by entering the NTT DoCoMo OS and hitting up the dialer that you discover that it’s also a cellular phone to boot. In spite of its 3-inch display and 800 x 480 resolution, this is still strictly just a featurephone, but it’s sure put in a lot of work to make sure one of those features stands out. Look out for it in Japan from this January.
