In today’s world, it seems a lot of smartphone users tend to rely on their own entertainment to get through air travel.  Movies, TV shows, even games can keep us busy for a good chunk of our flight.  Nippon Airways recently announced they will be making some changes to their New York City to Tokyo flights, one of which is the addition of allowing passengers to connect their iPhone / iPod to their individual LCD screen to display videos and pictures.  Best of all, the iPhone / iPod connectors also charge your device while it’s being used.

You would think this kind of service would only be available to first-class fliers, but thankfully, Nippon Airways is offering the service to all of their passengers.  I definitely see the benefit for offering this service since I for one love to watch some TV shows or movies that I’ve got ready for travel, but having the video right in front of you instead of your lap can make the experience that much better.  All I ask is that no one bugs me for a spare earbud to watch an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm along with me.  I likes to hear my Larry David with both ears, thank you very much.

Now… if I could only find a reason to fly to Japan…

Straight from the “OMFGWTFBBQ” category, Japan is planning on rolling out a system some time in 2011 that will check the music files on your mobile phone, with a server located in some secret location that has 24/7 security courtesy of a group of specially trained ninjas, for pirated music. If the song doesn’t pass the “every time you pirate a song, Lars Ulrich cries in his sleep” test, your music doesn’t play. Scary shit when you think about it, and something that I’m sure will make young Japanese people want to buy handsets that they can modify.

[Via: Financial Times, Tech Dirt]

The au Design Project was created by Japanese operator KDDI in May 2001 because customers complained that they’re tired of seeing the same form factors, over and over again, with minor differences based on color and materials. They showed off three prototypes at launch, the info.bar, rotary, and wearable, and after much pressure they launched a device based on the info.bar concept in October 2003. Since then the au Design Project has been introducing more concepts and products. It’s been so successful that recently the infobar, talby, neon, and “media skin” designs have been added to a permanent exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Today three models have been added to the range, designed by Yayoi Kusuma, named “Happiness with Dots (pictured below),” “Doggie Ring-Ring (picture after the jump)” and “The groovy Hand Bag for Space Travel (pictured above).” You’ve got to love that. In Europe we’re still remembering 4 digit numbers, in America they have words with missing vowels such as RAZR, and in Japan they have whole phrases. The devices are going to go on sale July 30th and range in price from $1,000 to $10,000, with highly limited availability.

[Via: Wireless Watch Japan]

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Devices that are announced by NTT docomo (NYSE: DCM), that mobile phone fanbois like yourselves read about, are like mythical unicorns. People talk about them, but no one really sees them. Today another unicorn left the factory, the SH-08A. The clamshell measures 109 x 50 x 17.3 mm (21 mm at the thickest point) and weighs 140 grams. It has a 3 inch screen with a 480 x 854 pixel resolution that can render 16.7 million colors. It also has an 8 megapixel CCD camera, can be submerged in up to 1 meter of water, and a large solar panel on top gives it 1 minute of talk time for every 10 minutes in the sun. We’re never going to see this unicorn, but dreaming about it is OK.

NTT docomo (NYSE: DCM) just launched the HT-03A in Japan, better known as the HTC Magic, and no one really even noticed according to Wireless Watch Japan. It’s shipping in the land of the rising sun for $300 on a 2 year contract, and it even comes with an extra battery since the locals are afraid it isn’t going to last a whole day. It’s no surprise the Japanese don’t care about this thing. It doesn’t have mobile TV, it doesn’t have NFC, it doesn’t have a lot of the things that the Japanese market has been enjoying for past few years while European and American mobile phone nerds masturbate furiously waiting to see something even remotely similar in their local shops.

I’ll take a SH-07A thank you very much.

PacketVideo makes software for viewing video on your mobile handset, and they just became $45.5 million richer after Japanese operator NTT DOCOMO (NYSE: DCM) purchased a 35% stake in the company. NTT DOCOMO has already shipped 90 handsets with their software on board; now as an investor, they may have their say into the future direction of the company and a reduction on royalty fees.

Toshio Miki, Associate Senior Vice President, Managing Director of Communication Device Development Department for NTT DOCOMO, said: “PacketVideo has been a key supplier of software to DOCOMO and has made important contributions to the success of our services in the Japanese market. We are pleased to become an equity partner of PacketVideo and are very confident of the company’s continued growth and long-term success.”

James Brailean, Ph.D., CEO of PacketVideo said: “We are honored to welcome DOCOMO as an investor. We are building on our unique and highly successful relationship with DOCOMO to further strengthen PacketVideo’s position in developing the best in class media experience, regardless of format or platform. PacketVideo is the global leader in delivering rich media solutions for mobile operators, and DOCOMO’s support will enable us to accelerate our innovation and growth.”

For what it’s worth: PacketVideo is also a member of the Open Handset Alliance

[Via: NTT DOCOMO and NewTeeVee]

The Japanese Communications Ministry, which is sort of, kind of, but not really like the FCC in America, will allocate new spectrum by the end of this year to be used for the deployment of LTE. It’s estimated that during the next 5 years, over $11 billion will be spent on deploying LTE. What’ weird about all of this is the frequencies that Japan will be using for LTE. While Europe and Asia have standardized on 2100 MHz for 3G, the LTE scene looks to be drastically different. Europeans haven’t decided whether to use 2.5 GHz, 2.6 GHz, or to make use of the old 900 MHz band and we all know America had that big 700 MHz auction.  Japan however is assigning the 1.5 GHz band to NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) and Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) Mobile, KDDI will be using both the 1.5 GHz and 800 MHz bands and eMobile, a brand spanking new competitor, will get the 1.8 GHz band.

NTT DoCoMo will be the first operator to start rolling out an LTE network and they’ve decided to use standard LTE equipment, versus the Super3G system they’ve been playing with in the labs, after learning from the painful experience of rolling out their own 3G standard called FOMA. NTT DoCoMo did not get the 20 MHz chunk they wanted in the 1.5 GHz band, and instead received only 15 MHz, with 10 MHz chunks going to the other 3 players. They plan to spend $3.43 billion to get their network up and running in July 2010 and launch commercial services by the end of the year. Softbank Mobile isn’t breaking ground on their network until 2011 and they’ve budgeted $5.5 billion for their roll out. eMobile will start constructing their network in September 2010 and plan to spend $644 million. By 2014, the four operators expect that around 36 million people will be using LTE.

We’ll all be keeping an eye on Japan since they’re usually light years ahead of everyone else when it comes to mobile telecoms.

[Via: Rethink Wireless]

The government in Japan is looking at banning all mobile phones and devices from schools. Why? It seems there has been quite a rise in bullying associated with the devices. Government stats in the country have claimed that almost 6,000 bullying incidents have been linked to mobile phones this past year…. The year before somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 incidents occurred. One young boy actually killed himself when nude pictures found on his phone were emailed and shared around his school. Sad and tragic.

So what are the next steps here? A snippet from a report at Cellular News explains:

Responding to the issue, the government set up a group to study the problem – and it has now recommended a nationwide ban on mobile phones on school properties. The proposals will be put to the Prime Minister next month. The current Prime Minister is politically weakened at the moment, so it is unlikely that the move would be approved in a hurry as it would stir up a lot of controversy.

Looks like the wheels are in motion to impose a country-wide ban.

If you ask me, I consider children with mobile phones absolutely rediculous. I didn’t get my first phone until I was in high-school… Come to think of it, I didn’t know anyone with a mobile device until I hit high-school. Now don’t get me wrong, I realize times are completely different and the technology is so widespread and easy to find… it’s a different story. But still, I can’t imagine handing my own kid a mobile device… Unless the only thing he/she could do on it would be to call home or an emergency contact.

[Via: CellularNews]

We already expected Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to post an iPhone guided tour on their Japanese website, but what we didn’t expect (but should have) was the demonstration of the new character-recognition feature built in to the iPhone 2.0 OS firmware. Having already gone “gold,” the new iPhone 2.0 OS will bring character recognition to countries with demographics less in line with “Apple Bob” and more like the decidedly more Asian-looking chap we see in this video.

Hit up the guided video for a Japanese take on the iPhone. Highlights are the echoing voice-over and the hybrid touch and keyboard character input mechanics – truly trick, and worth a look.

Apple Japan

Having reported only yesterday on the suggestion of one researcher to proactively introduce Mobiles into schools as a learning tool, I now present for you a complete paradigm-shift in terms of the approach of the Japanese to the issue of kids with phones. Before you continue, it’s worth bearing in mind that Japan is one of, if not the most, advanced countries in the world as regards this tech..!

Japanese children should be prevented from using their mobile phones for anything other than talking to protect them from harmful influences, according to an advisory panel to the government.

The concerns are the usual bugbears: anonymous bullying via bulletin boards, and access to inappropriate material. Apparently only about one per cent of children have some form of content blocker in place, while a third of primary school (7-12) children have mobiles, a figure that rises to 96 per cent once they reach secondary.

Personally I can’t see Japan really enforcing this ban, and certainly there would be the not insignificant logistical issues of how this would be done – but it’s an interesting reflection of some of the thinking going on in a very Mobile-advanced country.
[Via: The Register]