Japan’s KDDI said on Sunday it aims to offer a cellphone service in the United States using a network operated by Sprint Nextel.

KDDI, the second-biggest mobile phone operator in Japan after NTT DoCoMo Inc., aims to cater to mainly Japanese customers in the United States.
KDDI will offer services using CDMA standard, developed by Qualcomm Inc and adopted by U.S. carriers such as Verizon and Sprint Nextel.

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Cool 🙂

vivek

Bluestreak Technology, developer of the award-winning Bluestreak Technology(tm) platform for mobile and television, today announced it has joined the Symbian Platinum Program, a move that signals its continuing support for the growing market of Symbian smartphones. Symbian OS is licensed by the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers and to date, more than 110 million Symbian smartphones have been shipped worldwide to over 250 major network operators.

MachBlue, which enables rich-media applications, runs Flash(R) -formatted(x) files on mobile phones and digital TV set-top boxes. “The open standards and flexibility of Symbian OS are driving the kind of innovation that allows Bluestreak to fully demonstrate the power and value of MachBlue,” said John McCalla, CTO of Bluestreak.

MachBlue Mobile implements a subset of the Flash(R) 7 specification, supplemented with the MachBlue Mobile API, which enables enhanced handset control and integration.

They have shown couple of videos demonstration, which can be seen here.

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vivek

Nokia Research Center has released their wonderful Nokia Sports Tracker application which is a GPS based activity tracker that runs on S60 smartphones. Information such as speed, distance and time are automatically stored to your training diary. To be able to use application for real, you need Nokia S60 3.0 phone with Bluetooth GPS device or Nokia S60 3.0 phone with integrated GPS.

Freeware version

So time to start the jogging 😀

Looks cool 🙂

vivek

Jan Chipchase of the Nokia Research Center talks about how behavioral research feeds into the phone maker’s design strategies.

He talk many things about behavioural design and uses of mobile in different cultures or regions. how actually people use mobile in villlages etc.

Intresting interview!!

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vivek

Danny shares some of his experiences from SXSW 2007: Mobile Application Design Challenges and Tips.

Intresting!

vivek

via Scott Adobe’s User Research team is looking for individuals to participate in an upcoming research study. We are seeking individuals who are involved in or interested in mobile development in order to learn about you got started with mobile development, challenges you encounter, and improvements that you would like to see in the future. The study will consist of a 30-60 minute phone call, and you will receive an Amazon.com gift certificate as a token of appreciation.

If you are interested in participating in this study, please answer the questions at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=412513363969

If you are a good fit for this study, we will then contact you about scheduling a session. Otherwise, we will keep you in mind for participation in future projects. We look forward to hearing from you.

Adobe User Research

vivek

 

The winners of the Nokia and SingTel Multiplayer Game Quest have been announced after several months of exciting competition between Forum Nokia PRO developer finalists from around the world.

The Game Quest was launched last June with a challenge to develop connected multiplayer Javaâ„¢ games that would capture the imaginations of millions of mobile subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Winners and Runner-ups are:

Category: Cross Platform Gaming

Winner
Game: Chess Game
Developer: G-mode, Japan

Runner-up
Game: 4ToScore
Developer: Hungama Mobile, India

Category: Multiplayer Gaming for the Male Segment

Winner
Game: Street Golf
Developer: Mauj, India

Runner-up
Game: Battle Jams
Developer: Activate, Singapore

Category: Multiplayer Gaming for the Female Segment

Winner
Game: Puzzle Bobble
Developer: Taito, Japan

Runner-up
Game: Mapan
Developer: 01 bit-side, Germany

 vivek

Great idea from Citizen, their new W700 Bluetooth watch gives you an alert if your phone is ringing. And it tells you who’s calling via your phone’s caller ID. IF you get to far away from your phone the watch lets you know, and this is a nice loss prevention tool. It also charges wirelessly for a battery life of about 5 days when fully charged. Available in mid-March (in Japan at least), but no price announced. via DJ Neawedde

Very cool 🙂

vivek

I just read this post, very intresting and show how user is emotionally attached with their mobile devices and design really matters. 🙂

Japanese place the highest emphasis on “design” when choosing a mobile phone, according to a survey by MyVoice Communications, Inc. The company conducted the survey targeting mobile phone and PHS users in January 2007, in which it asked the reason why they chose their current handset models, and 37.9% of all (10,400 respondents) answered “because I liked its design.” “Because I was used to its menu and mode operation” came next at 20.2%, followed by 16.5% responding “because I liked its manufacturer.”

Asked when they purchased their current handsets, “more than 1 year ago” accounted for the most 55.3%, followed by 20.8% responding “in the last 6 to 12 months.” By manufacturer, Sharp won 20.2%, Panasonic Mobile Communications constituted 14.1% and NEC made up 13.9% of all the respondents’ current handsets. The same three companies won the largest shares in the respondents’ previous handsets as well (15.7% by NEC, 14.5% by Sharp and 13.3% by Panasonic).

Asked whether they would want to use a new function that allows current handset settings (such as ring tones, wallpaper, etc.) to be transferred to a new handset, 50% of respondents answered “yes,” indicating that many Japanese mobile phone users would rather continue to use handsets that they are used to than seek the novelty of a new handset.

vivek

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/8kLFPfaxQ6U” height=”270″ width=”350″ menu=”false” /]
NVIDIA, showing a next-generation mobile interface, powered by its GoForce 5500 chipset. The demo shows a mobile screen switching between video, photos and gaming with all manner of spangly visual effects. really cool 🙂

vivek