For the moment, they're offering one standalone Windows Mobile 5 gadget, the Sharp EM ONE, which looks to be a remix of the WinMob units Sharp's provided to Willcom thus far; it sports Bluetooth 1.2, 802.11b/g, OneSeg digital TV support, a 4.1-inch wide-VGA screen, and a "dual-slider" keyboard that can expose either the full QWERTY goods HTC-style or simply a directional/enter key, as desired. It will support voice calls once the network does, and it looks like Skype can fill in some of the gap for the meantime. (The remainder of the current range are CF/Express Card/USB devices for laptop use.)

Service costs run about Y5,980 per month before discounts, with the initial cost for an EM ONE determined by whether you opt to remain unfettered by contractual obligations (Y95,000), or go for a one-year contract (Y71,000) or two years (Y39,800).

Voice services will be supported in their initial phases by a roaming arrangement with NTT DoCoMo to provide nationwide coverage; it's not entirely clear at present how extensive eMobile's own network is.

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]

The wizpy comes in at a pretty compact 84x42x12mm and a featherlight 60g, with battery life claimed at 10 hours. It's only a prototype at the moment (though the Turbolinux folks had one connected to a Windows laptop to give the launch presentation, so it's certainly beyond the Photoshop stage), but they indicate it should be out next February for under Y30,000.

[Via Impress PC Watch (Japanese)]

Actually, reading through the details of the press conference we find that this is aimed at businessmen in their 40s--so the emphasis may be more on sneaking in some TV time on the train or while pretending to write that important memo to the New York office.

Out on December 8 in Japan, and should sell for about Y50,000.

[Via K-tai Watch (Japanese)]

Thoughtfully, the U-tan can be hung from your cellphone, where it promises to alert you should you enter an area "where it looks like a UFO could appear". A short push on the button also gives you the ability to manually confirm the possibility of a Close Encounter, and, should you be in the presence of a suspected alien, you can hand them the detector and ask them to hold the button until it beeps. As it appears to work on skin resistance (in the same way as devices that measure body fat), you may find that it has a tendency to tell you that obese people are aliens. If, however, you're still convinced that you don't have a false positive, your choices are limited to playing dumb or begging for your life; hopefully future models will include the all-important option of giving your new friend the U-tan as o-miyage so that the included miniature nuclear device can auto-detonate inside its mothership and wipe out its race.

Developed under the supervision of renowned UFO-chaser Yaoi Jun'ichi, for maximum kudos, and available via Solid Alliance's Rakuten store for Y2,222, though they appear to be sold out until end-November at the moment.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

The reason is simple: mopera blocks port 25 for mail sending. However, there's hope: check with your provider if they allow you to send via port 587 or 465. If they do, open up your mail account settings and add ":587" or ":465" after your sendmail server's address (we also had to tag the "send using SSL" option). And away you go.

[Via Windows Mobile powered Smartphone Help & How Tos (Microsoft Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Mobile Computing, Mobile device), and several conversations with bemused DoCoMo tech support people and one great bloke who knew exactly what he was doing]

The 903i series, announced late yesterday Japan time, finally adopts GPS in many models, updates the FeliCa chips, brings in HSDPA and OneSeg on more phones, and offers support for Napster's new music download service. In short, there is a lot here that should keep existing subscribers where they are and help encourage defections from competitors.

Most symbolic of the abrupt and aggressive shift in DoCoMo's stance may be the SH903iTV, the second of Sharp's "Aquos Keitai" models. The first Aquos phone was Softbank's jewel in the crown, with its unconventional screen-flipping act brought centre-stage in TV commercials to emphasise how "unexpected" the new company was. DoCoMo has hit back with a bit of good old Crocodile Dundee-style one-upmanship ("that's not an Aquos keitai; this is an Aquos keitai") by getting Sharp to create a version that boosts the screen size considerably and makes Softbank's look second-class. The real challenge, of course, will be to see whether it can slow au's advance, and in terms of brand image the latter has the advantage, with DoCoMo coming across as the safe, staid choice while au has all the thrills.

[Read: DoCoMo press release]

All that dry stuff aside, the real question here is why the two companies are selling essentially the same phone for prices that are almost Y50,000 apart. Softbank's model comes in around Y20,000 with a two-year contract, while DoCoMo is selling the hTcZ through its docomo.biz site rather than usual retail channels, to existing subscribers only, and wants you to stump up Y73,000 for the privilege.

Sure, there's a question here of DoCoMo not wanting to get out of bed unless you're willing to sign on for the full Exchange Server push email deal and a bushel of handsets. But that's no reason to give such a monumental shaft to the individual customers who must now be positively priapic at the thought of a decent smartphone that works in Japan, after the miserable Motorola M1000. Why not stuff a few down the retail channel at a reasonable price and risk being pleasantly surprised if you shift a few units?

We're hesitant to switch to Softbank Mobile just to get our hands on a better phone, given the poor rep it has for network coverage, but seriously, if DoCoMo keeps pulling this lumbering mammoth act in the age of number portability then it deserves to get its ass filled full of spears by more aggressive and lightfooted pursuers.

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese]

A quick look at some Japanese online shopping sites shows that prices for officially-imported Roombas in Japan approach 3X those in the US. A Roomba Red that currently sells for US$149.99 on Amazon will set you back at least Y46,980 on Rakuten (an online mall that's usually a standout for its low pricing). That's just over US$400 at today's exchange rates. Higher-end models run to more than double that price.

This kind of differential isn't unknown in Japan, but it's intermittent. On the whole, where there's an official distributor -- as with the Roomba -- our experience has been that prices tend not to be extortionate, except for items like clothing and leather goods that carry hefty import duties. So why does the Roomba cost 2X-3X as much here? There's presumably some overhead for localizing the documentation, and possibly for regulatory approval, but it's hard to believe that would double the unit cost, and easier to think that the company and its importer see the pricing point as being acceptable here. We'd be interested to be proved wrong.

Anyone in Japan and similarly unwilling to part with the sums described above for a Roomba can draw some consolation from a site called Shop.com, who we don't know from Adam, but are offering Roombas more or less at US pricing (say Y18,000 for a Red). Caveat emptor, and all that.

TakaraTomy have come up with another great, wacky product in the Life Bank (Jinsei Ginkou), the riff on the coin bank that the 21st century has been waiting for. The Bank's screen shows you the life of a stick man who starts out as a poor pleb in a cupboard-sized apartment and develops into a rich bastard lounging under a chandelier on the 500 yen coins you feed him, all the while counting you down to your up-to-Y100,000 savings target. Then you open up the box and find he actually has spent all your money on 8-bit hos and lo-rez champagne.

Out mid-November in Japan for around Y4,000-Y5,000.

[Read: Product page (Japanese)]

[Via Tokyo Mango]

The SWIMO, to get its misleadingly amphibious-sounding monicker out of the way, is apparently named for the fact that it is a MOver that WIns the ability to Smoothly run in areas with no electrical power and lets you get on and off equally Smoothly. (Apologies for the reverse order, but it would've gotten even more complex had we tried to reproduce the Japanese syntax). Someone fire the KHI acronym department already.

The 10km test appears to have been run with a 1950s-desgined two-carriage train provided by minuscule Kyushu-based Chikaho Electric Railroad, so once the SWIMO prototype (which presumably will be a lot lighter) appears in 2007 KHI expects the range to go up quite a bit. Japan could certainly use a few less cars, and our completely arbitrary opinion is that trams are cooler than buses. Obviously, though, what we really want is the space-age version rather than the dowdy artist's impression shown here.

[Via Slashdot Japan (Japanese)]

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]

One gratifying feature of many pedestrian crossings at large intersections in Japan is that they feature a segmented LED "hourglass" LED next to the lights themselves, with red-lit segments disappearing to indicate the time until you can cross. Now Nagoya is trialling the next-gen of the same approach, with a numeric display above/below the obligatory standing/walking pedestrians. The benefit versus the old version (apart from the fact that we think they look cool) is the fact that you can now tell how long it'll be until the lights change in either direction, rather than simply from red to green as in the past. Presto--relief for impatient people everywhere, provided those numbers count down pretty fast; we'd go spare waiting 50 seconds to cross the road.

[Via Slashdot Japan (Japanese); photo from Yahoo Japan]

[Via Impress PC Watch (Japanese)]

Weight and pricing are both hefty; the 500SE clocks in at 482g with battery on board, and will cost you Y115,500 ($990) for the Bluetooth model and Y130,200 ($1,100) for the WiFi unit.

[Via Ascii24 (Japanese)]