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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."
>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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.