The Touch Wood mockup (top) and prototype based on the SH-04A model (bottom).
(Credit: NTT DoCoMo)If you don't think plastic is fantastic, here's some good news: Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has created a new prototype cell phone made from cypress wood.
The Touch Wood handset is crafted from surplus wood culled during forest maintenance work.
DoCoMo teamed up with Sharp and Olympus to create the prototype (seen bottom right, with an ergonomic mockup above). More Trees, a reforestation group supported by musician and actor Ryuichi Sakamoto, was also involved.
Olympus contributed "three-dimensional compression molding" that made the wood usable for phones, according to DoCoMo. The molding also made the cypress shiny and resistant to insects, mildew, and water.
The prototype's GUI features graphics based on the work of photographer Mikiya Takimoto.
The Touch Wood phones will be shown off next month at ITU Telecom World 2009 and Ceatec Japan 2009.
Considering many MVNOs have failed or been acquired in recent years (Helio, Disney Mobile, Virgin Mobile, just to name a few), we can't help but think they're a bad idea. (MVNOs are Mobile Virtual Network Operators that sell their own service plans and handsets, but piggyback on another carrier's network). Still, that apparently hasn't stopped Japan's NTT DoCoMo from thinking about starting one up in the U.S.
Indeed, it seems that the Japanese company is contemplating leasing capacity from either T-Mobile USA or AT&T. While we can't imagine it'll make too much money in the beginning, we're kind of excited about the idea, especially if it means we finally get to play with the high-end handsets with the i-mode mobile Internet service that heretofore have only been available in Japan.
(Via Engadget Mobile)
The 1GHz smartphone has arrived. A Japanese telecommunications carrier is the first to launch a device based on Qualcomm's much-anticipated Snapdragon processor.
The Toshiba-Docomo T-01A uses Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon chip.
(Credit: Docomo)Docomo is now offering the T-01A in Japan, while Microsoft is pitching the phone on its Japanese Web site.
This would mark the first commercially available product using the Snapdragon chip, a Qualcomm spokeswoman confirmed Monday. The chip's claim to fame is that it's an ARM design running at 1GHz. Typical ARM architecture chips used in mobile phones, such as the iPhone 3G S, peak at about 600MHz.
A legion of other chip suppliers offer ARM-based chips for mobile devices, including Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, Samsung, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics, and Broadcom.
The Toshiba-Docomo T-01A--which will be offered outside of Japan as the TG01--runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and is designed to take on the iPhone. Only 9.9mm thick, it uses a 4.1-inch WVGA 800x480 384k pixel resistive touch screen and comes with support for 3G HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and assisted-GPS.
The TG01 is also slated to be available in Europe this summer.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon supports high-definition (720p) video decode, 3D graphics (up to 22M triangles/sec), XGA display support, a 12-megapixel camera, and mobile broadcast TV.
Qualcomm has been talking up the Snapdragon (aka QSD8250) since November 2007, when the company announced initial sample shipments of the chipset.
And Qualcomm won't stop at 1GHz. The San Diego-based company has demonstrated Netbooks running a 1.3GHz Snapdragon processor and will eventually push the chip to 1.5GHz.
The future Qualcomm QSD8672 will be a dual-core Snapdragon that features two CPU computing cores and will include HSPA+, up to 28Mbps download speeds, 1080p high-definition video, Wi-Fi, mobile TV, and GPS. The graphics core is based on Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit's technology.
Pricing is not immediately available.
(Via Engadget)
DoCoMo HT-03A
(Credit: Ubergizmo)Looks like Vodafone isn't the only carrier getting the HTC Magic. Japan has just received one of its own, a DoCoMo version known as the HT-03A. Plus, it will have Android's new 1.5 Cupcake update already installed on it.
Like we reported at GSMA earlier this year, the HTC Magic has a 3.2-inch HVGA touch screen, a trackball navigator, a 3.2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Android's Webkit HTML browser.
Right now the GSM version is only available in the U.K., Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. No word on pricing just yet, though. Still, this does mean that the HTC Magic is slowly spreading its wings and might mean it's coming to the U.S. in the future too.
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Can't decide if you want a slider or candy bar? Wish your phone had a gamepad or QWERTY keypad? NTT DoCoMo's modular phone takes an inexpensive handset unit and allows it to be slotted into different sleeves depending on your fancy. More than just a fashion tweak, the different holders actually change the functionality of the mobile. This is a prototype model, so no further details were available besides a simple panel showcasing possibilities.
(Via Crave Asia)
Also be sure to check out more cool prototype phones here.
For your next spy mission, consider the F-01A phone from Fujitsu.
It's a sleek-looking phone with some serious, sophisticated technological and rugged credentials. It's submersible--it will still work if dunked in 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes--and also functions as a fingerprint-scanning device.
Fujitsu phone is waterproof and uses fingerprint-scanning technology.
(Credit: Tech-On)The phone uses AuthenTec's TouchStone technology, which is a fingerprint scanner that is utilized to navigate the device's controls, and TrueFinger, which is security software from AuthenTec, which matches fingerprint patterns. It's the first phone to use the software/hardware combination, according to AuthenTec.
The F-01A also functions as a normal (for Japan, anyway) phone: It's a Symbian-based phone with a 3.5-inch VGA touch-screen. There's a 5.2-megapixel camera, built-in GPS, mobile payment capabilities, and a built-in TV tuner.
It's going to be available from NTT DoCoMo in Japan, though no prices are available yet.
(Via Electronista)
CHIBA, Japan--If the concepts on display at Ceatec are any indication, completely deconstructing the traditional form factor of the mobile phone is one of the next major phases of design and development research.
Fujitsu concept phone
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News)Japan has one of the most robust mobile phone cultures anywhere, and it shows here on the second day of the show. Sharp, Fujitsu, NTT DoCoMo, and KDDI each had intriguing takes on the next form factor for devices used not just for mobile communication, but watching videos, playing games, and performing mobile navigation.
Take the necklace on the right. It alerts the wearer when there's a call or a message incoming. It's made by Fujitsu and, while it isn't an actual product, is indicative of how cell phones are thought of here: not just communication devices, but accessories made to fit neatly and inconspicuously into the daily routine.
Then there were a host of phones whose screens and keyboards pull apart to be used separately. The Fujitsu version shown below uses magnets to connect the two pieces in the desired configuration. NTT DoCoMo was demonstrating a similar concept.
But as far as futuristic, elegant design goes, KDDI was far and away the winner. The wireless company showed off beautiful designs, which are nowhere close to being reality, but show the aspirations it has for the cell phone. The Ply was part of its yearly Design Project. (Here's a picture of last year's version.)
Designed by Hideo Kambara, the Ply imagines the phone as a device with a series of layers. One layer is a pop-up projector, another is a slide-out keyboard, and another is a printer, a game controller, and so on. The ones on display here and shown further down the page are just papercraft renderings.
The Fujitsu phone can be configured in any way and stuck together magnetically.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News)... Read more
This Nissan smart key is also your cell phone.
(Credit: NTT Docomo)In the latest move by convergence, your car keys are about to be swallowed up by your cell phone. The big goal of convergence seems to involve emptying our pockets, not of cash, although that is a side effect, but of things. The fully equipped tech nerd used to carry a cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, and digital camera. Cell phones took over all those functions, so convergence went rummaging through your pockets looking for something else to subsume. And it found your car keys, which, thanks to new smart keys, can easily be converged into the cell phone.
Nissan, Sharp, and Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo is spearheading this latest effort. Nissan has been offering smart keys in its cars since 2002, and we've become so used to them that we don't bother mentioning it in our reviews any more. Sharp designed a phone that would, we assume, work on NTT DoCoMo's service, and include the functionality of a smart key for a Nissan car.
In practice, you would keep your cell phone in your pocket and approach your Nissan car. Sensors in the car would detect the unique signal from the phone when you got close, and unlock the doors when you touched the door handle. This same signal from the cell phone makes it possible to crank over the engine by pushing the car's start button. Nissan, Sharp, and NTT DoCoMo will show a demonstration of the cell phone/smart key at Ceatec Japan next week.
We assume the next things integrated into cell phones will be pocket change and lint.
Seven new mobile phones have passed the LiMo Foundation's certification process, and the group has a few new members to welcome aboard.
The new phones, from Motorola, Panasonic, and NEC, are the latest to ship with Release 1 of the LiMo Platform, a Linux-based operating system for mobile phones developed by a consortium of wireless carriers, handset makers, and others. Panasonic and NEC's phones will be available in Japan through NTT DoCoMo.
There are now 21 phones in the world running the LiMo software, mostly in Asia. But a few, such as Motorola's Rokr E8, are sold in the U.S. The whole idea behind LiMo is to give handset makers and carriers the basic underpinnings needed to create a modern mobile phone, but with the freedom to customize the look and feel of those phones to suit their desires.
These are interesting times for the LiMo Foundation, coming off market leader Symbian's decision to embrace an open-source model and the expected debut later this year of Google's Android software. Many of the members of the LiMo Foundation are also members of the other groups, which could make for some interesting discussions as the LiMo Foundation works on future releases of the software.
LiMo also announced Monday that 11 new companies have come onboard, including chipmaker Freescale, PacketVideo, and Telecom Italia, bringing the total number of companies involved in the project to 50.
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Good things come in pairs--and NTT DoCoMo does just that at CommunicAsia in Singapore.
We spotted one of its phones, the P906i, running Ridge Racer 7 and the otakus' favorite, Gundam, in full 3D glory. What surprised us was that each game has a maximum file size of only 1MB, yet the graphics and frame rate were smooth and comparable to handheld gaming consoles.
A representative from the Japanese company told us the phone has two processors inside, much like many newer PCs. However, instead of working together, these two chips function independently. One will handle the device's primary functions, while the other will focus on gaming graphics. This not only allows graphics-intensive games to be run on mobile devices, but it also solves the old problem of software lag.
Sadly, the rest of us in Asia can only envy the Japanese for having all the fun stuff. Me? I'm resigned to the fate that the only game I can play on my phone right now is Mini-Golf: Castles. (Get more CommunicAsia 2008 coverage here.)
(Source: Crave Asia)
