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Japanese Cell Phones Offer a Glimpse of the Future
Dynamoo writes "Vodafone K.K. have announced a new range of phones, available exclusively in Japan which easily beat everything else in terms of features. In particular, two phones from Sharp, the V402SH and V602SH between them boast a TV tuner, camera with optical zoom, virtual karaoke machine and dog bark translater (woof woof), according to this review. Perhaps some features are more useful than others, but with a bit of luck we'll see these features in worldwide mobiles sometime in 2005. In the meantime I guess I'll just have to learn to speak dog by myself."
Technology has been evolving at a rapid rate. Consumer grade cellphones had been blended with actual camcorders and were able to record and transmit at 1080i over the airwaves. The video calls were amazing. They were still quite a bit more bulky than the ones you have in your pocket, due to the extra features and they had more of a shape of a camcorder. There seemed to be a lot more vigilante news reporting at this time too, and there was a lot more chaos in the world.
Maybe the time I saw in my dream is closer than I thought.
Mod me offtopic if you feel necessary, I think it quite in context.
>with a bit of luck we'll see these features in worldwide mobiles sometime in 2005
correction: with a bit of luck, we WON'T be seeing these features in worldwide mobiles EVER.
Whatever happened to the engineering concept of affordance?
Portable phone: The ideal one is really portable and really a phone. Make it small, light, have the battery last forever and never lose calls. I'll buy that one. Keep the dog translator, thanks.
Why do Japan, China and Korea get the coolest phones years before we do?
Because they are the guinea pigs and the phones get tested there before trying it in the "final" markets. Oh, and also demand
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
How is this offtopic? The story mentions a bark translator...and the poster wants a klingon translator instead.
Personally, I think a klingon translator would be more useful...
In my eyes, cell phones are starting to follow the path much like ICQ. They originally started out simple and functional...then it turned into a race to see how many useless features could be packed into it--rendering it mostly useless.
It's your regulatory environment.
While in the USA, multiple different companies went off and developed multiple, incompatible systems (which weren't particularly future-proof), and Telcos even implemented different networks in different parts of the country, the Europeans got together and developed GSM (Global System for Mobile telecommunications), which I'm sure you've heard of by now.
They actually bothered to implement things like inter-network and overseas roaming, and anticipate the need for an upgrade path for future requirements. They also assigned and reserved radio spectrum across Europe, and much of Asia followed suit.
Meanwhile, the USA hadn't reserved the same spectrums, so even when US operators decided that the bigger GSM handset market was a good thing to be involved with, handsets from Europe and Asia still couldn't be used because they had to be modified to work on different frequencies!
It's one case where an unregulated, free and open market has been quite detrimental to consumers, and in fact the whole country.
After spending 3 years in Japan, I was disappointed at the build quality of US phone when I returned. Anyone who's used a Japanese mobile phone will tell you they are built to hold up much longer than the ones in the US. I feel like if I drop my US cell once, it's a goner. I banged my JP phone up alot and it's still going strong.
Forget adding features, add some better plastics!
In Japan, these high-end cell phones are just used as PDA by young people, because these cell phones are not so expensive ($50~$100), and have basic communication mechanisms (phonic and e-mail) and web-browser. For most Japanese, cell phones are not only phonic communication tool but also necessary informational equipment.
In such situ., there will be "cell-phone-geeks", and want more complicated functions, like dog-human translater or tv, no doubt.
As a pet owner, I agree with you. I can't say I have children, but it seems to be the same way. I mean, when my cat is being bitchy, he either needs food, water, or attention. I don't need a translator to tell me that. I have seen some products that claim to translate the cries of a child. I imagine that there is/could be a market for a product like that, but that is a saddening prospect. Your child is crying. Gee, maybe he/she is hungry, needs a new diaper, or just plain misses you. Do you need a translator to figure that out? It seems to me that the world is moving away from a "hands on" approach to parenting (either a child or a pet), and these things maybe are not so obvious anymore. If you're getting that quality time (and yes, you can have quality time with a pet), you don't need a dang cell phone to translate anything for you.
If you are going to build translation capabilities into a cell phone, why not make it something useful, like japanese to english and vice versa. I would certainly appreciate something like that, even if it only worked for basic phrases. Put an SD slot in there, and you can switch out the language cards when you are going to a different country!
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
The Sharp models have very nice displays that boast 640x480 resolution on a 3" screen. you have to realize that people use it for email / web browsing (well, maybe more mail than web for vodafone service) more than they use their phone for a phone, since calls are so expensive comparatively.
it also comes with 2mpix digital camera, which, coupled with the screen, is a very nice treat.
the phone isn't too expensive when you factor in the various contract-length discounts. It comes out to be less than 200USD for the top of line vodafone has to offer, and consider how much a slim 2mpix digicam alone would cost you, i don't think it's a terrible price.
comments on the article is that, though: isn't this kind of old news? vodafone TV has been around for like half a year now and the reception isn't terrific - especially, erm, on subways; the pet-emotion-translator has also been about 8 monthes or so if not longer. it's an add-on 32MB SD card software package, though, so didn't try it.
phones with digicams that comes with optical zoom was probably first seen on one of the earlier model panasonic FOMA phones (for NTT docomo) and that was like two years ago.
hmm, but maybe i'm just spoiled bathing in the abundant supply of unnecessary toys readily available in japan.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
With all these additional features getting strapped on to phones, they must be coming up with some unique new battery solutions.
I wonder if it would be too much to ask for a cellphone that *just* made calls and lasted a really long time between charges. I think I could safely trade in the dog bark translator for that.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I work at Vodafone NZ; we've dealt with our Japanese colleagues on a few occasions relating to 3G. They brought their phones with them. Way cool. Some of that technology is filtering down to the 2G phones being manufactuerd by the likes of Sharp also.
Interesting was the speed with which they were able to roll out 3G sites: thousands of cells per month. Unlike us their 2G system is completely incompatible with WCDMA so they had no concerns with radio or core interoperability - and thus they were able to rollout at an unheard-of speed. Kudos to Vodafone K.K. They have been remarkably successful!
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
Except that the countries with the most advanced cellphones (Japan and South Korea) are using proprietary and incompatible standards just like the USA did, so your argument doesn't hold up.
I'm not saying standards like GSM are bad, but if this really was a standards issue, wouldn't we all be ooh-ing and aah-ing over Europe's awesome high-tech GSM phones, instead of Japan's awesome high-tech (insert random 2.5G/3G celphone standard here) phones?
If anything, Japan has proven that GSM isn't the best technology for densely populated urban areas.
Yesterday, a phone at a table near me announced very loudly to the entire restaurant "You have an incoming call!" over and over and over again. It took the guy forever to figure out how to answer it.
What do I want in a phone?
Limit the annoyance capabilities (volume, music, etc.)
Let me have two or more phones share a single phone number. It has got to be possible, but nobody will do it. That's the only missing feature that makes me think back fondly about my old land-line phone. If someone wanted to reach whoever picked up first, or leave a message for whoever checked first, they only had one number to call; now they have two (me and my wife) and have to leave a message for both if neither of us answer. And soon half our calls will consist of "sorry, he's not with me; try his mother (or father) instead".
Let it be an option to create a blacklist of numbers (including "unknown") which will NOT generate a ring at all.
Let me hit END to drop an incoming call unanswered so I can place an outgoing call immediately instead of having to wait for the incoming call to eventually shunt over to voicemail.
Get three-way calling working better. I have had 5 different models of phones in the past 4 years, and NONE of them has handled three-way calling well at all.
Let me choose between color and black-and-white for the display. I never had any trouble reading the B&W display on my older phones at a quick glance. With this color display on my new phone, I have to shield it from the light, even at max contrast, and stare at it for a few seconds just to read the clock which is in larger numbers than everything else.
Make data cables available. I should not have to go to the store and stand in line for half an hour praying that when I get to the end of the line and ask to have my phonebook copied out, that their computer isn't down, that their cable isn't broken, that their software isn't misbehaving, that the person I get actually knows how to perform such a simple task, etc.
Make the equipment consistent. Every time I upgrade (mainly due to loss/damage) my phone, I have to get a new charger (usually included), new car charger, new headset, new data cable (if available!), new belt clip/holster, etc. And I use the term "upgrade" loosely, because out of all the phones I have had, I still like the first one best. If that model were still available, I would keep getting it, but unfortunately being 4 years old it is obsolete.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Yes. Star Trek.
I am a simple person with simple tastes.
1) I want a phone that works like a phone should work. No games, no internet, no walkie-talkie functions, and no stinkin' roaming or overage fees. An easy to use directory would be nice, though.
2) I want this same phone to look exactly like the communicators on ST:TOS. Voice recognition, too, so when I say "Kirk to Enterprise" or "Kirk to Starbase 1" it dials the programmed number.
Really, is that asking too much?
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
When I go home to the U.S. on leave, I recognize most of the American cellphones are really korean, only about one to two years behind. Last February I showed some friends my SKY Slide phone and they said "wow, yeah, my sisters getting that one next month" or "hey I was looking to get that one after my current one", then I told them that I purchased mine a year ago, second hand. Well, it good to finnally know we're finally catching up.
Anyway, here the public transportation system is very good, so everyone has an all in one bus/subway card. The best feature yet has been the cell phone that acts as one of those, where the person takes thier cell phone out, waves it in front of the subway entrance gate, and it subtracts from thier phone bill.
Its not hard to see where thats going. . . regardless of any stupid features like cameras or karaoke, mp3 players etc. . . its easy to imagine someone instead walking up to a counter at 7-11, the cashier ringing up what you order and then you just pay by waving your handphone in front of a little reader.
Saying "Militia really just means National Gaurd" is like saying "Press really just means PBS"
While that's true, the difference is that in Korea and Japan there were a few large companies that spanned large regions or the whole country. And where the companies were regional, roaming onto other regions was neither difficult nor expensive.
In the USA by contrast, the Bell breakup shattered your industry into a million tiny competing pieces, who all went out and made life as difficult for each other as possible. That of course was the natural conclusion of the court order, which put so much fear of personal penalites (ie, you personally could go to jail) due to anti-trust issues into the company executives.
Also worth noting that for 3G, both Korea and Japan are following the rest of the world this time round and choosing WCDMA. It's likely that the US will be as isolated in it's 3G standard(s) as it was in 2G.
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
Actually the Vodaphone network in Japan has some compatability with GSM. They have a couple of phones that are "world phones" and can be used with any GSM network. However no-one has managed to unlock one of these phones yet, so you can't use it outside Japan. (Unless you have a japanese mobile phone account, which would be expensive.)
Besides you can't really blame Clinton that Japan has their own mobile phone system. They are actually worse than the american system because they have multiple phone systems which are incompatible with each other as well as the rest of the world.
Now that Vodaphone is on the japanese market that may help the situation though. I certainly hope so because I'd much rather get a phone in Japan than here in Europe. I like stupid features like described in this article.
Well.. The Nokia 7700 will be introduced withing a month or two. It'll include a TV receiver, a camera, and mp3 player. To name a few things. The best thing is it's running Symbian, which is already a big operating system for cell phones. As it's widely used, you also get many programs for it. You can also code your own programs for it at least with C++, Java and Python. So, the Japanese aren't actually that much far away from us.
Where have your banknotes been?!