Brad Pitt is at it again, appearing in yet another commercial for Japanese carrier SoftBank. In this commercial, Pitt plays a character doing everything he can to please sumo champ Musashimaru. I love it when his sandal breaks and Pitt comes to the rescue. Oh yeah, and I suppose there’s a cell phone in the ad as well. Hopefully the slim and easy to use phone doesn’t go right over the heads of the audience here. Hit play and enjoy.
Note: If someone could translate the text for me at the end of the ad… That’d be great.
The Japanese government has approved local service provider Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) to conduct an experiment with schoolchildren involving GPS-enabled phones. Basically, select kiddies will be designated as “carriers”, and their transmission of the disease will be tracked based on GPS proximity to other students. The goal of the study is to track how diseases move, and see if an SMS notification system could realistically warn people of potential danger zones.
This sounds cool on the one hand, but on the other, it would necessitate a phone keeping close tabs on your health readings, or otherwise manually marking yourself as infected. Call me crazy, but one way or the other, I don’t think anyone will jump on board to effectively wear a sign that says “Oh hai, I’m a plaguebearer!”, even if it may be considered a service to others nearby. Right now biometrics in cellular tech are mainly limited to peripherals, so it will be awhile before our phones start reading our vitals natively, but it’s not outside the realm of imagination.
While the American educational system continues to falter, Japanese educators are pushing for high-tech educational tools. A university in Japan is using the popularity of the iPhone to help keep track of their faculty and student body.
About 550 students and staff at Japan’s Aoyama Gakuin University will be getting free iPhones through SoftBank (OTCPK: SFTBF) as part of the school’s Mobile & Net Society Education and Training program. Aoyama Gakuin University will use the iPhone’s GPS hardware to help administrators determine if a student is on campus and whether or not they’ve actually been going to class. Because, you know, paper and pencil roll-call is so last decade.
Now, before you start spouting off about “Big Brother” and all that jazz, know that the Japanese university is also planning to send low-level tests and homework assignments through the iPhone. Although, it’s not clear if the school will have access to their fleet of iPhones’ location data when not physically on campus.
The program is slated to go into full-swing this Fall.
There really has to be a better way to take attendance…
Japanese carrier Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) is showing off a lot of new phones at their summer show, but the most eye-catching so far is the Sharp Aquos Shot 933SH featuring a beeft 10 megapixel camera with LED flash and smile detection. It’s not quite 12 megapixels, but damn is it close. Besides, most folks would be willing to drop 2 megapixels in favour of being able to crank their ISO up to 12800. Prying ourselves away from the camera bit, the 933SH also has a 3.3″ touch LCD screen, 16 GB of internal memory, and if that fills up too quickly with the GARGANTUAN pictures you’ll be taking, microSDHC support is also available. It’s times like this that the language barrier doesn’t seem that big of a hurdle for moving to Japan. Really, honest. Just gimmie the phone.
Four Japanese mobile operators will spend 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) during the next five years to build a next-gen mobile network with faster Internet speeds.
According to Nikkei – NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM), KDDI, Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) and Emobile will apply to the government for licenses for the new standard (LTE?) by May 7. DoCoMo plans to launch the new network during next year, while three other players will do the same between 2011 and 2012.
As for the rest of the world, we can only hope carriers elsewhere will follow the Japanese example and at least start planning their networks during the next year.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless announced that it plans to join the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) established by China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), SOFTBANK (OTCPK: SFTBF) and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) to “help accelerate the uptake of innovative mobile technologies on a mass-market scale.”
Primararily, we’re talking about mobile widgets here, which seem to be the hot topic these days with Microsoft and Samsung announcing their platforms, recently. That said, the JIL will launch later this year a range of tools for developers — including a common mobile widgets specification; developer kits; and an online repository, distribution and payment mechanism.
Aside from allowing web-based widgets, the JIL will also enable developers to access both handset and network functionality such as the address book, camera, location information and billing in a secure environment…
Perhaps iPhone sales aren’t as rosy as we think over in Japan. No solid sales numbers are available at this point, but one has to wonder how good it really is selling now that Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) Mobile intends to offer up the 8GB model for free. That’s right, free.
A report over at CrunchGear noted that Softbank is seeking a jolt in sales, and intend to offer the 8GB iPhone 3G for free on a 2-year contract, and the 16GB version for just over $100 on the same deal. The promo is set to begin this Friday and should run until the end of May. To coincide with the free iPhone, data plans are being discounted from just over $60 per month to somewhere in the $45 range.
Awesome news for everyone over in Japan for sure. If a free iPhone doesn’t start flying out the door, I don’t know what will! Now, if my carrier would only slash its data plan pricing, I’d be a happy camper…
Despite speculation that the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone 3G would fail to catch on in any significant manner in Japan – a country so used to advanced cellphone features that it makes the iPhone 3G’s feature-set look dull – it seems that Japanese geeks are just as enamored with Apple’s glossy-finished touchscreen handset as the rest of the world. A new Japanese survey reveals that many Japanese mobile enthusiasts consider the iPhone 3G the “Best Smartphone of 2008.”
Of the 3,000 survey participants, the iPhone 3G was voted 2008’s best smartphone 1,286 times. A solid 61% of those surveyed though the iPhone 3G, available from Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) in Japan, was the leader of the smartphone pack – no small feat in a country that defines high-technology. The Japan-only WILLCOM 03 was voted as the second-best smartphone of 2008, garnering just 321 votes (about 15%).
The iPhone 3G was criticized for its lack of an integrated mobile TV receiver, but it seems that Japanese smartphone fans have looked past the iPhone 3G’s feature-set and embraced its innovative UI and slick design aesthetic. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that Softbank released an external iPhone 3G mobile TV receiver a few months ago.
The iPhone 3G’s popularity around the world is a given at this point. But, it remains to be seen if the iPhone 3G can carry over its fanatical growth into 2009. Apple is rumored to be working on an iPhone Nano, which could give Apple more form-factor options with which to push their iPhone brand. We’re still holding out for an iPhone 3G HD with a larger, higher-resolution display and a 3- or 5-megapixel camera. Apple, you listening?
Softbank recently announced their 1-Seg TV tuner/battery pack add-on for Japanese iPhone 3Gs. The Japanese iPhone 3G was criticized for its lack of an integrated TV tuner, and the One-Seg TV tuner accessory was to be Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF)’s answer. The external TV tuner connects to the iPhone 3G over WiFi, streaming the TV stream to the iPhone 3G.
The Softbank One-Seg TV tuner was recently released to the TV-consumer public. That is, as long as you’re a Softbank subscriber. We’re not going to see this particular iPhone 3G accessory make the jump to
Thankfully, the lucky folks over at DVICE were good enough to post hands-on pictures and first impressions of the 1-Seg TV tuner. The device is sleekly styled (like the iPhone 3G itself), lightweight, and streams crystal clear TV to the iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, there’s the issue of power drain. Even with the integrated battery pack, you’re only going to get about an hour’s worth of TV viewing before your iPhone 3G starts complaining about low battery charge.
If you’re planning on moving to Japan anytime soon, the 1-Seg TV tuner might be a worthy investment. otherwise, you can just keep dreaming about getting terrestrial TV on your iPhone 3G.
The world’s economy may be in crisis but that doesn’t stop the uber-rich to get new expensive toys. As a matter of fact, Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF)’s newly unveiled 823SH Tiffany phone has been sold out within three days and the device costs a whooping 13 million yen, which is about $131k. To be fair, this is a limited edition phone so there were not that many of these available. Still, when you think about it — one would think with all those people losing jobs, even the super rich would restrain from buying the expensive bling gizmos. Nah, it’s just not worth it, I guess.
While the American educational system continues to falter, Japanese educators are pushing for high-tech educational tools. A university in Japan is using the popularity of the iPhone to help keep track of their faculty and student body.
