Japan will start an aggressive push to market its mobile technology abroad, especially the nation’s popular “wallet phone,” a government official said yesterday.
Although Japan boasts some of the most sophisticated cellphones in the world, delivering high-speed Internet connections, digital TV broadcasts and video downloads, the nation has failed to make its handsets, wireless technology and mobile services hits outside of Japan.
The latest initiative spearheaded by the government with an industry group of Japanese carriers and manufacturers is an effort to help Japan catch up in wooing global users, said Masayuki Ito, official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Among the wireless innovations Japan hopes to peddle is the wallet phone. The technology relies on a tiny computer chip called FeliCa, embedded in each cellphone, which communicates with a reader-device at stores, train stations and vending machines for cashless payments.
FeliCa was developed by Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony Corp. Such technology is more common in smart cards, popular in Singapore and parts of Europe. But Japan hopes to market the technology abroad for cellphones.
In Japan, wallet phones have been available since 2004, introduced by top mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo. Most recent handset models here have the wallet function.
Older Japanese technology had compatibility problems with other global standards, but new third-generation (3G) technology allows new products to be used outside the country, and can be more easily adapted to overseas products.
Japan leads the rest of the world in 3G cellphone proliferation, with nearly 104 million 3G handsets in use, or about 90 percent of cellphones being used in Japan.
Japan also hopes to promote overseas other kinds of wireless technology, including 3G mobile phones with GSM, or Global System for Mobile communications, which allows the same phone to be used in most countries.
Ito acknowledged that wireless technology must adapt to differing social needs around the world. Wallet phones have been hits in Japan because of omnipresent convenience stores and vending machines, as well as the relative lack of credit card use. But conditions in other nations may differ.
“Some critics say Japanese mobile technology tends to be quirky like the Galapagos Islands,” he said, referring to the isolated Pacific islands reputed to have undergone unusual evolutionary changes in a reference to the incompatibility of older Japanese cellphones and their quirky services.
“But Asian nations such as Taiwan and South Korea have for years expressed great interest in Japanese cellphones,” he added.
Other technologies that Japan hopes to promote abroad are more futuristic such as fourth-generation wireless, Ito said.
Details and budget plans for the government effort are being outlined in the next few months, but a proposal was approved at a ministry meeting last month.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards. The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month. In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China. The Strait Herald — owned by newspaper
NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS: ‘No matter what threats and challenges Taiwan faces, democracy is the only path,’ William Lai said, urging progress ‘without looking back’ President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday urged parties across the political divide to democratically resolve conflicts that have plagued domestic politics within Taiwan’s constitutional system. In his first New Year’s Day address since becoming president on May 20 last year, Lai touched on several issues, including economic and security challenges, but a key emphasis was on the partisan wrangling that has characterized his first seven months in office. Taiwan has transformed from authoritarianism into today’s democracy and that democracy is the future, Lai said. “No matter what threats and challenges Taiwan faces, democracy is the only path for Taiwan,” he said. “The only choice
CORRUPTION: Twelve other people were convicted on charges related to giving illegal benefits, forgery and money laundering, with sentences ranging from one to five years The Yilan District Court yesterday found Yilan County Commissioner Lin Zi-miao (林姿妙) guilty of corruption, sentencing her to 12 years and six months in prison. The Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office in 2022 indicted 10 government officials and five private individuals, including Lin, her daughter and a landowner. Lin was accused of giving illegal favors estimated to be worth NT$2.4 million (US$73,213) in exchange for using a property to conduct activities linked to the 2020 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential and legislative election campaigns. Those favors included exempting some property and construction firms from land taxes and building code contraventions that would have required
RSS