Breaking news, information, and analysis on the latest mobile phones and mobile technology
Japan is home to some of the wildest mobile phones we’ve ever had the pleasure to read about. Every year at Mobile World Congress we spend a few hours at the booths setup by Japanese operators and end up crying like little girls because we know we’ll never, ever, get similar hardware out in Europe…
Sony Ericsson is certainly churning out a good number of Android handsets lately, and the newest, the Xperia Acro, packs a similar punch to the rest of the line. However, this particular handset won’t be coming to the US, or anywhere else for that matter. This Xperia Arc variant will ship only to Japan. The…
NTT DoCoMo USA, which is a subsidiary of Japanese NTT DoCoMo, will on April 6 launch a mobile phone service mainly for Japanese living in the U.S. From what I’ve understood they’ll launch an MVNO operation, which will use rely on one of the existing carriers’ networks. I know you’re thinking something like “I can’t…
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo recently launched this great commercial for the Touch Wood SH-08C that involved a giant xylophone in the woods, and a ball with some momentum. Every time the ball strikes a lower step, it adds a note to “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” by Bach. It’s a unique, peaceful piece of marketing, ripe…
Anyone who was CTIA 2011 in Orlando, Florida this week would have noticed a huge, empty space where NTT DoCoMo should have been. Instead, there was a banner above the space and a single vase filled with cherry blossoms. Many Japanese manufacturers and companies were affected by the earthquake that struck the country on March…
NTT DOCOMO announced that it will allow customers to unlock their new phones, which were marketed on or after April 1st, 2011. It is said that the new service reflects “DOCOMO’s desire to meet the needs of customers” who want to use unlocked phones on other operators’ mobile networks by simply switching SIM cards. As…
LG announced on Thursday that the Optimus Pad will be available for pre-order in Japan starting March 15th. The Korean manufacturer is teaming up with Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo to offer the 8.9-inch tablet. The Optimus Pad model L-06C will be tailor-made for its Japanese audience with BeeTv, a wireless entertainment service, and 2Dfacto, a…
NTT Docomo announced an agreement with South Korea’s KT Corporation to use near field communication (NFC) technologies to develop cross-border services for mobile payments, mass-transit ticketing, promotional coupons and other services. If everything goes as planned, the two market-leading operators will launch in their respective markets from around the end of 2012. Through the joint…
Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo have announced that they’ve received permission from the Kanto Bureau of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to start testing LTE Advanced in a real world environment and will be doing so in the cities of Yokosuka and Sagamihara. They’ve already hit download speeds as high as 1…
Three of the leading mobile operators in Asia — China Mobile, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s KT — are forming what they call a “broad-based business tie-up” to explore opportunities in the region. The three companies will set up a business cooperation committee to take advantage of trends such as “the further globalization of…