jeffrey funk wrote:
> It won't be
> long before the distinction between phones and PDAs becomes meaningless as a
> huge variety of devices emerge. a recent article in the shukan toyo keizai
> (10/14) claims that docomo will release regular handsets, TV and video
> handsets, data special handsets, and navigation handsets for the wcdma
> standard next may. Will these be considered PDAs or phones?
Yeah, that's what DoCoMo's CEO was saying yesterday at MoMuC2000
(BTW, any other Keitai-listers going to YRP tomorrow?). Unfortunately
the slides don't seem to be available on the Internet... but DoCoMo's
newest buzzword is "MMD", Mobile Media Distribution, mainly just audio
for starters though as DoCoMo itself confesses that 3G's initial 64 kbps
won't be enough for "real" video.
And the word "handset" is a little misleading: while the "traditional"
phone will continue to exist and will be supplemented by videophones
with little cameras built in, DoCoMo is also expanding to
PCMCIA-card-type machine interfaces and car-based navigation systems
that aren't "phones" at all in the traditional sense, just wireless
Net access devices. It'll be interesting to see how they take off...
as most of you probably know IMT-2000 will be launched in Japan
March 2001 initially only in the Tokyo metro area (27% of Japan's
pop.), expanding to 60% by 2002/3 and 97% by 2004/3.
Cheers,
--
Jani PATOKALLIO / jpatokal@iki.fi / +81 90 7722 3557
Sanpo Laboratory, Mechano-Informatics Dept., University of Tokyo
ヤニ・パトカリオ / jani@sanpo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp / 090 7722 3557
東京大学、工学系研究科、機械情報工学科、算法設計研究室
Received on Wed Oct 25 07:10:51 2000