Pager service in Japan is finally coming to an end

Posted on 03/12/2018 by Engadget RSS Feed

After nearly five decades, Japan is finally ending pagers for good. The last service provider in the country, Tokyo Telemessage, announced that it will terminate its service in September 2019, according to SoraNews24. The company said about 1,500 peo...

Autonomous wheelchairs arrive at Japanese airport

Posted on 08/08/2017 by Engadget RSS Feed

Passengers with limited mobility will soon be able to navigate airports more easily thanks to Panasonic's robotic electric wheelchair. Developed as part of a wider program to make Japan's Haneda Airport more accessible to all, the wheelchair utilizes...

Making TV shows in 8K is about to get a lot easier

Posted on 15/02/2016 by Daniel Cooper

If you want to broadcast a TV show in 8K resolution, then you're going to need a whole room full of computers to encode the image. After all, a regular machine would struggle to process the 60, 35-megapixel images that need to be crunched every secon...

Indycar driver tests smart shirt to track the perils of racing

Posted on 03/02/2016 by Daniel Cooper

Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo has revealed that it quietly tested its futuristic smart clothing during Indycar races last year. The firm teamed up with driver Tony Kanaan to create a version of its Hitoe garment that's suitable for use in the spor...

NTT’s Visual SyncAR brings augmented reality to video, spices up the second screen (video)

Posted on 20/02/2013 by James Trew

The second screen has largely asked that you take your eyes away from the action, even if that is to play along in real-time. Visual SyncAR, however, brings that tablet or mobile right back into the thick of things. Developed by Japan's NTT, the platform uses digital watermarksg that presents a timecode to the app running on the second device, allowing it to display content in sync with whatever is on the primary display. In the video after the break you can see the concept being illustrated with playful examples that interact with the program, but more useful applications include the ability for users to pull up subtitles for public information videos, or overlay sign language. Naturally, there's also a massive potential for advertisers, who we're sure would be more than keen to embrace the technology, and ably guide you from their commercial to an online outlet or additional promo material. Especially if they're selling a cure for all that inevitable arm ache...

Filed under: Science, HD, Alt

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Via: DigInfo

Source: NTT

NTT cuts fiber internet prices in Japan, may be reacting to an LTE generation

Posted on 21/11/2012 by Jon Fingas

As manic as LTE adoption has been in the US, it could be triggering a full-fledged generational rift in Japan. NTT is cutting prices for fiber-to-the-home internet access by as much as 34 percent in the midst of falling landline subscriptions, and Australia's Delimiter hears from unofficial sources at the provider that the cuts may be in response to youth being enamored with 4G on their phones. The tipsters believe that many of the younger set are picking one expensive LTE plan, even with data caps, instead of paying for two services; a price drop would be an attempt to keep at least a few of these wireless rebels onboard. Take the assertions with a grain of salt when there's no official statements to match, but there's no doubt that 4G demand is booming when NTT's own DoCoMo just landed its 7 millionth Xi contract. We only wish American wired and wireless carriers would be so accommodating of our temptation to cut the cord.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Networking, Internet, Mobile

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Via: GigaOM

Source: NTT West (translated), Delimiter

NTT DoCoMo unveils winter lineup, pushes big displays, LTE, quad-cores and NFC payments

Posted on 11/10/2012 by Sharif Sakr

Just as the air begins to chill, NTT DoCoMo has announced its forthcoming lineup for release in November and December, including nine smartphones, four feature phones and a tablet. As the Japanese populace would no doubt demand, all of the bigger smartphones -- from the 4.7-inch Arrows V F-04E through to the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II -- come with 1,280 x 720 displays, a healthy degree of water- and dust-proofing, plus decent quad-core credentials. The new Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E stands out for its low-power 4.9-inch IGZO panel and 16-megapixel camera, while the Arrows Tab F-05E 10-inch tablet packs a 1,980 x 1,200 display and what sounds like the latest 1.7GHz iteration of Tegra 3 (as seen in the HTC One X+). It's also interesting to a see a Korean-style variant of the Galaxy S III (the Alpha SC-03E) packing a souped-up 1.6GHz Exynos chip and 2GB RAM. In related news, NTT has also announced that it's partnering with Mastercard PayPass and will offer the contactless payment system for Japanese customers travelling abroad by fall next year -- and indeed all the new smartphones are NFC-equipped. Click the first source link below for the full run-down.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

NTT DoCoMo unveils winter lineup, pushes big displays, LTE, quad-cores and NFC payments originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via Licensing assembles an LTE supergroup to share standards-essential patents

Posted on 04/10/2012 by Daniel Cooper

Dolby spinoff Via Licensing has shone a signal into the night sky and assembled some of the world's biggest telecoms players to form a patent supergroup. AT&T, NTT DoCoMo and Telefonica are some of the names that'll pool their standards-essential LTE patents to prevent getting embroiled in litigation over FRAND licensing. While there are some notable holdouts to the team, we suggest company president Roger Ross coax them over by hiring Michael McCuistion to write them a rockin' theme song.

Continue reading Via Licensing assembles an LTE supergroup to share standards-essential patents

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Via Licensing assembles an LTE supergroup to share standards-essential patents originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 01:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NTT DoCoMo’s i beam tablet prototype is driven by your eyes (video)

Posted on 02/10/2012 by Mat Smith

Another prototype from DoCoMo aimed at Nihon's commuters, the i beam concept tablet forgoes any touch at all, allowing the user (once they're at the specified 'sweet spot') to navigate around apps and screens using your eyes. Two sensors along the bottom edge of the tablet track both of your eyes and after a slightly laborious configuration setup, we were able to tour around the prototype slabs features without laying a finger on it. The navigational dot was a little erratic, but we'll put that down to prototype nerves. The tablet was otherwise able to follow our eye-line and fulfill what we wanted it to do.

Returning to the home screen by targeting the kill box in the top right corner proved to be the most difficult thing -- we soon resorted to tapping at the screen for that. DoCoMo showcased an eye-controlled game, alongside picture galleries, a web browser and a reader app. The e-book client seemed to be the most heavily involved, with the ability to look up words with a hard-stare, and flip pages by eyeing the two lower corners. The Japanese carrier isn't planning a consumer launch any time soon -- and the hardware comes with a pretty pronounced chin at the moment, but if you like staring at someone staring at a tablet, our eyes-on is after the break.

Gallery: NTT DoCoMo's i beam tablet prototype hands-on at CEATEC 2012

Continue reading NTT DoCoMo's i beam tablet prototype is driven by your eyes (video)

Filed under: Tablets, Alt

NTT DoCoMo's i beam tablet prototype is driven by your eyes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NTT DoCoMo hands-free videophone prototype replaces that off-center webcam stare with your digital doppelganger (video)

Posted on 02/10/2012 by Mat Smith

In a sort of reverse-Project Glass, one of DoCoMo's latest prototypes flips its cameras back at the wearer. This hands-free videophone headset ties together seven separate cameras, each recording 720p video from wide-angle lenses. Aside from the single camera pointing behind the user (and beaming the background image), the rest of them point at the users' face, recording different quadrants. These are then composited together, creating a three-dimensional avatar of the user that's then broadcasted to the other caller. The model then nods, blinks, and moves -- all based on the camera footage -- all in real-time.

In its current guise, the bottom half of the face is still composed from high resolution stills captured beforehand, but the program is able to animate the mouth based on the words and tones that the built-in mic picks up. NTT DoCoMo had some lighter, slight less clunky, future prototypes on show, and suggested that the headset could have medical applications, embedding further sensors that could gauge blood pressure, pulse and temperature and possibly broadcast this data during a call to your future physician. Work is currently underway to utilize smaller, higher quality sensors. We take a closer look at CEATEC after the break.

Gallery: NTT DoCoMo hands-free videophone prototype at CEATEC 2012