New Prototypes, Gadgets And Devices From CEATE

Nooper writes: "This years CEATEC 2001 features a bunch of new wireless gadgets accompanying DoCoMo's 3G (FOMA) launch." Check out the cute pictures -- in their "Showcase of Japanese Keitai (mobile phone) Culture you can find 72 free to use photos from this years CEATEC. We even made a special gallery with the integrated camera of our new FOMA phone." Phones in the U.S. look like such monsters in comparison.

Comments

Small phones

[wiredog]

Tiny phones have a problem. Ergonomics. There's a size below which the buttons can't go before you need a stylus to operate them, and a size below which the displays can't go before they are unreadable. If a phone, or other device, is below that size people won't buy it, because it will be inoperable, no matter how cool the tech, or how low the price. Remember calculator watches?

Re:Small phones

[tomknight]

The other problem is having a very short phone, so the microphone ends up being nearer your ear than the front of your mouth.

This makes people think THEY HAVE TO SHOUT LOUDER on their phone to be heard. Man, that drives me mad! I have to fight off the impulse to explain that the recipient of the call is also using a phone, and shouting really isn't necessary.

Tom.

Bleah

[Cave Dweller]

I think their website is running off one of those things...2 replies and slashdotted already.

What is the used electronics market like?

[gosand]

Man, seeing all the cool stuff from these shows every year really makes me wonder what the used market is like in Japan, and how many of these things are obsolete in a year or two. And I mean really obsolete, as in they just don't work anymore. Are they so cutting edge that you might buy something that is useless in a year or two?

Apples and Oranges

[Frosty26]

You cannot directly compare Japanese Cell phones to North American or European Cell phones. Japanese cell phones are smaller because they can be, no because their technology is vastly superior.

The fact is Japanese cell phones can be smaller because their Cell grid is a lot more dense than in North America.

Think about it this way, in Japan almost all the population lives in a small belt of land near the ocean. In North America by comparison people are spread out over vast distances. Cell coverage obviously is going to be substantially different.

You just do not need the tranmitting power in Japan you need in North America. Thus you can make smaller more compact phones.

Vonnegut?

[Mr Neutron]

In Cat's Cradle, Bokonon defines foma variously as "lies," "harmless untruths" and "a useful and harmless sort of horseshit."

I think they're going to have to rename this if they bring it to the states.

Neutron

All I want is

[squaretorus]

A phone that I can say this to:
PHONE
!ready!
Email Dave
!send email to dave!
Hey Dave - meet in Prince of Wales at 7 OK!
SEND
!email sent - I love you!

and the phone emails dave! and the email goes to his phone or voice or whetever he has set up. I could use that SO often!

Japanese vs. US wireless markets

[Jordy]

I took a nice three week vacation to Japan recently and had a chance to take a look at their wireless products first hand and I have to admit, their cell phones are geared towards a very different market than the US.

For instance, while walking down the street, the number of people I saw talking on a cell phone was significantly less than the number of people I saw playing games on their cell phones or simply picking them up and checking them periodically to show them off (well, I guess they could have been receiving text messages as that is hugely popular.)

When visiting several large electronics stores, at first I noticed that the sheer number of cell phones was astouding and then quickly realized that there weren't a huge number of cell phones, there were a huge number of styles of cell phones. Given their relatively cheap price (toy phones here cost more), every teenage girl and guy I saw had one and it was really a fashion statement. Three shades of pink with various color antenna ringer lights, huge numbers of patterns were what drew people to buy them.

When it comes to actual technology of the cell phone, there is no doubt that the Japanese phones have significantly more features (and most not in any way shape or form related to using it as a communications device), but they weren't really all that small. Large color screens were more important than small size, so for instance, the Motorola V. series and the Nokia 8900 series are much smaller than most of the phones I saw.

I have to say that I don't believe the same thing will really ever happen in the US. When I walked into a store (well... most cell phones are sold at street level so you rarely have to walk "in"), there were boxes filled to the brim with last years cell phones that people would throw away when they bought a new one and I can't see the average American consumer buying a new cell phone because it comes in a new color or can store 32 randomized wallpapper styles rather than 16. The lifetime of a cell phone in the US just appears to be significantly longer.

Sevice providers also have a hand to play in keeping the variety of phones out. In Japan, as far as I can tell... there is basically one cell phone provider, NTT DoCoMo. In comparison, in the US there dozens operating on multiple frequency bands, multiple standards (AMPS, TDMA, GSM*, CDMA, PCS, iDEN) each having different CODECs based on service provider plus proprietary modifications to protocols and every change affects battery life and features available.

I really wish the FCC would restructure the frequency band allocations so that all cell phone providers would at the very least use one band. Of course, they couldn't use AMPS and TDMA in this case without significant interoperability between providers, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice :).