Crave

Just recently, Softbank Mobile, Japan's biggest cell phone carrier, signed a deal with Aoyama Gakuin University to provide iPhone 3Gs to 1,000 students to keep tabs of their attendance via the phone's Global Positioning System. The company now has a plan to equip the same amount of elementary-school students with GPS phones.

The iPhone 3G is one of the most popular GPS-enabled cell phones.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

However, the purpose this time is much more serious than nabbing truants. As reported by the Associated Press, this is to test how GPS-enabled cell phones can help track the spreading of an infectious disease and stop it from becoming a pandemic. This is part of the Japanese government's effort to promote Japan's Internet and cellular infrastructure to new users.

This government-backed experiment uses a virtual sickness that is highly contagious. A few months from now, a few students will be chosen to be "infected" with this sickness. Their movements will then be tracked via their cell phones and compared with other students. Stored GPS data can then be used to determine which children have crossed paths with the infected students and are at risk of having contracted the disease.

The families of exposed students will be notified via cell phone messages with instructions on how to get them checked out by doctors. In a real-world outbreak, this could help better control the rate of new infections.

The significance of this level of control is demonstrated via Softbank's calculation: If an infected person spreads the illness to another three people per day, and each newly infected person then makes another three people sick, on the 10th day about 60,000 people would catch the disease. However, if each sick person only infected two people a day, after 10 days, then only about 1,500 people would get sick.

Softbank is launching a promotion that involves giving away an 8GB iPhone 3G with a new contract.

(Credit: Apple)

Softbank Mobile, the iPhone carrier in Japan, plans to introduce a new program Friday that will give some iPhones away for free with a new two-year contract.

The 8GB iPhone will be free to new subscribers who sign up for a plan starting on Friday, likely to disappoint those who paid the equivalent of $235 (22,782 yen) in the recent past, according to CrunchGear. Softbank is also reducing the price of the 16GB version from $350 to $118 as part of the new "iPhone for everybody Campaign."

Softbank also cut the cost of its maximum data plan rates as part of the new announcement, from $62 a month to $45.60 a month. Voice calls and texts are free among Softbank customers, but if your friend or colleague is an NTT DoCoMo customer, charges can start to accumulate quickly at 20 cents for a 30-second call. AT&T's most expensive iPhone voice and data plan checks in at $129 for unlimited usage.

Japan always seemed like it would be a tough market for Apple to crack. Unlike in the U.S., where data-capable touch-screen phones are a relatively new idea, Japanese mobile phone users have been playing around with advanced devices for years. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Japanese iPhone sales were slower than expected, and there's no sign that anything has picked up since then.

There's no clear indication that Softbank is cutting prices in response to demand, but Apple COO Tim Cook noted during last month's earnings conference call that the company considers the price of the iPhone "clearly elastic," meaning that every time it has dropped the price, demand has increased. Softbank might have the same idea in mind.

(Credit: Apple)

After announcing Japan's iPhone 3G in one of the shortest press releases ever, Softbank is following up with a little more information in the way of pricing.

According to a Reuters report, the 8GB iPhone 3G will cost 23,040 yen ($213), while the higher-capacity 16GB model will retail for 34,560 yen ($319). Subscribers will need to sign a two-year contract when the handset, distributed exclusively by Softbank, launches in Japan on July 11. They can also opt for a plan that will allow them to talk for free among Softbank subscribers for most of the day with unlimited data usage at 7,280 yen ($67) per month.

The iPhone 3G will also be available in Australia (Optus and Vodafone), Hong Kong (Hutchinson Telecom), and New Zealand (Vodafone) on July 11, while Macau, the Philippines and Singapore will get the handset later this year.

(Source: Crave Asia)

The iPhone will make its official debut in Japan later this year on SoftBank's mobile network, the company announced Wednesday.

Japan's SoftBank mobile will bring the iPhone to that country later this year.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

SoftBank is the third largest carrier in Japan, behind NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. But DoCoMo and KDDI have has built networks based on the CDMA family of standards (used by Sprint and Verizon in the U.S.), while SoftBank's network is based on the GSM family of standards currently used by the iPhone. Apple is expected to unveil a next-generation iPhone next week, but few expect the company to have a CDMA-version ready at this point in the iPhone's history. (Updated 11:30 a.m. PDT: I screwed this part up, DoCoMo's network is indeed based on the GSM family of technologies.)

SoftBank made the announcement in one of the shortest press releases I've ever seen. The entire text? "SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan later this year." As such, we have no idea whether that means the 3G version will come directly to Japanese customers, but that would make sense given nature of the Japanese market.

Apple has now cut deals to bring the iPhone to dozens of countries worldwide, but Japan's cell phone-crazy market will be an interesting test for the company. Multimedia phones, mobile Internet browsing, and fast network connections are old hat to Japanese mobile phone buyers.

The last big whale out there for Apple is now China, which has a thriving underground iPhone market already. Talks between Apple and China Mobile, China's largest carrier, have been reported as off-and-on for several months but there's no deal in place.

(Credit: Disney)

Disney and Softbank have geen making phones for kids in Japan for some time, with the handsets becoming increasingly adult-like in both function and appearance. Its latest mobile handset also seems to be aimed at this ambiguous market in Japan, but the theme clearly belongs to the Magic Kingdom: Princesses.

The "Cinderella" line is being produced in a partnership with Sharp, using the Disney Mobility service offered by Softank, according to Akihabara News. The DM002SH has a 2.6-inch display, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, microSD card slot, 50MB of built-in memory, and the 1Seg TV tuner used in Japan.

Probably more important is the phone's crystal-like finish, which comes in three colors--clear crystal, brown topaz, and pink diamond. (No pumpkin.)

(Credit: Akihabara News)

It's kind of surprising that one of the big handset makers didn't come up with a Transformers phone at the height of the movie's hype last year. After all, just about every other form of gadget tried to cash in on it, from laptops and stereos to earphones and MP3 players.

Perhaps Softbank just and Toshiba knew that that true Optimus Prime loyalists would appreciate such a phone regardless of the movie. But it's unclear whether hard-core fans would look past the fact that the new 815T PB handset on the Japanese market doesn't really turn into an actual Transformer, though the untrained eye might be hard-pressed to make the distinction.

Instead the 3G handset, which has a 3.2-megapixel camera and a QVGA screen, was made for a new teen TV show called Ketai Sousakan 7, according to Akihabara News. You also have to glue a kit onto the back of the phone to get the robotic transformation. All of which, frankly, sounds like way too much work for something that would probably break pretty easily if it's treated like most other mobile phones.

(Credit: BornRich)

There are two basic questions about Tiffany's entry into the luxury phone market: why it took so long and why it doesn't cost more. Sure, $94,000 is a lot of money but, come on, this is Tiffany. You'd think it would have hit six figures on principle alone (though it does sound more impressive in yen--10 million).

The 3G handset, a joint project with Japan's Softbank Mobile, doesn't skimp either: It's encrusted with more than 400 diamonds totaling well over 20 carats, according to BornRich. Maybe Tiffany just decided that it can't pass up a literally golden opportunity on the Japanese market. If Zeus Computer is any indication, there's clearly plenty to be mined.

(Credit: Disney)

Sometimes it seems that Japanese phone makers target their products at children as much as adult consumers--in some cases even before they're born.

Disney Japan is no exception, of course, so it's no surprise that the Magic Kingdom of the Pacific is coming out with yet another mobile handset for kids. But its new DM001SH model, which MobileWhack says is produced jointly with Tokyo-based Softbank, looks decidedly more grown-up and polished than previous phones and other gadgets aimed at the kodomo market.

In fact, we wouldn't mind having one of these handsets either, with its 2.6-inch screen, 2-megapixel camera, and clean metallic finish (in gold, silver, or pink), as well as a media player and SD card slot. Except for the ears, of course. We've had enough of those.