http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/te...=1&partner=rss

This is rather interesting. If the guys in Japan can figure out how to expand to the rest of the world, we might see some interesting trickle down technologies find themselves into our phones and even our NITs. Or at the very least they will highly benefit our NITs.

bah, not going to happen. imo, japan is a clone of usa when it comes to mobile networks, and some other ways of doing things in the modern age...

that, in combo with their honor system (slowly eroding), makes them a scary force, should they ever get out from under the WW2 slap down...

I don't know. They punked us for quite a few years economically. Who needs machines of war when you can take over a country and rule it economically. ^_^;;

I think tso is right to some extent... It is a fact actually....






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What Transformers Quiz Character are you?

one cant fully operate without the other...

Haha, yeah, a NIT from Japan.. err.. a Sharp Zaurus from Finland.

Japan is very self-centered (and self reliant) as country and culture, with little external influence. The Japanese also very much value privacy (which you will find back in the way their homes look, the way they interact, their opposition to Google Earth/Google Maps, and yes, even in the way their cellphones are designed). Add to that the language barrier. As part of the Japanese culture is small electronic devices (including mobile phones) which were (and are) more common there than anywhere else in the world. Chicken egg problem. The author realizes this:

Makes me wonder how he defines 'the market'.

Japan has actually very fast (true) broadband internet access (FIOS) widely available. WWAN cannot replace a low latency, always on/wired, high bandwidth networks. And, a smartphone is simply optimized for different tasks than a PC or laptop.

While here in Europe (and if I understood USA as well), for many people a subscription for 3G is still too expensive. You cannot count these people as potential customers right now. Unless you think their choice is either broadband like ADSL or cable or 3G such as HS*PA.

Then he goes on about standards like i-Mode. Like WAP, this never took off here. Too expensive and limited, lack of backwards compatibility. And a different TTM (in Japan bigger, and earlier than here). China has this too (no WiFi).

The opposite is also possible. Nowadays a device which cannot abstract rich data from WWW (and other protocols) sucks as well. Which is why all kind of little (and big) tools are popping up for smartphones. And we got protocols to work around that. Basically, 'Web 2.0' (RSS, Twitter, App Stores, ...)

Besides, devices are also optimized for Japanese people (language, hardware, size of keys, functionality) instead of Europeans or Americans. It isn't easy to enter the market on foreign territory. It took Asian car manufacturers a lot of work and dedication to market their cars successfully in Europe and America. Heck, the first good Asian sports cars are just appearing on horizon. Not to say Asian products are bad btw, but if marketed elsewhere in the world they must adapt, to a certain degree, to the culture and standards there.

Nothing special. A camera unlocked by face recognition is simple software. Credit card function we have too on smartphones (by 3rd party software). Barcodes are not common here to be used; chicken egg problem again. But this is simply again, software used by the phone's camera. The power of the devices lie in the software utilizing the hardware. And that is what application repositories allow one to fullfil on Android and iPhone. Heck, IMO even on Linux OSes like Fedora and Ubuntu.

We are lucky to have Nokia and Google around, who do realize that there is not such a thing as 'the best hardware' with only software being versatile while going open source for the core software. Because no matter how versatile your iPhoneOS software is, it will always be limited to that shitty camera iPhones have. With Nokia devices, that is question. With Symbian-based devices, same. And frankly, I see sometimes awesome innovations on these devices. Such as an application which scans a barcode and then uses a price compare site to find out what it costs. Great when you are in a store seeing a good deal.

So back on topic, this is just some rumor that several Japanese corporations are going to market their mobile devices world-wide. One with a lot of hoompa around, which isn't explained well, and the rumor is not backed up with hard evidence. Nor is there anything concrete, for example I'd like to see what would be imrpvodd on these devices; what they'd learn from Apple's iPhone success. Concrete examples of applications.

Now that I would disagree with. They integrate a lot of things into their culture. They're huge fans of the US just like we're huge fans of them. hehe. Think of it as cross cultural pollination. Sure, each keeps their own unique culture, but a lot of other stuff comes into the mix too.