Sharp’s first dual-mode transmitter, the VA3B5EZ915, is capable of tuning in on both T-DMB and DVB-H terrestrial digital broadcasts. Sharp claims this device to be the first of its kind. With the launch of One-Seg in Japan, other similar services have started popping up in other areas in the Eastern Hemisphere, including DVB-H for some areas of Europe, and T-DMB for Korea.

The device is made to be implanted in mobile devices, and as can be seen from the image, its size (8 x 8 x 1.25 mm) is definitely compact enough to please many manufacturers, as the demand for smaller tuners continues to grow. — Andrew Dobrow

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We in Asia have to wait till 2007 for the iPhone to arrive, the recent report from FCC has shattered dreams of millions since the widgets were to be substituted by Cingular’s monopolistic services for the mean time, the sole support for 850 and 1900Mhz would make parallel import (or roaming) to most parts of the world impossible.

The Japanese aren’t waiting, so they wrote an iPhone theme for their super high-end Toshiba 911T phone… and unfortunately the whole package does look a lot more attractive than the iPhone itself. Think about it, a 3″ W-VGA screen (800×480 pixels), One-Seg DMB tuner, HSDPA support, a microSD slot with support up to 2GB (plus 1GB internal memory you get 3GB), a battery that lasts more than 40 minutes, an anti-shake 3.2MP camera with autofocus, removable battery (thank god), Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF document reader, bluetooth A2DP supporting streaming to HiFis, a slider with a real keypad, 3 shiny color variations… we can also pick up the Oakley A2DP sunglasses with headphones. If you live in Japan, forget about the darn iPhone. –Sam Chan

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Korean company SNT presents IOPS. An on-board PC designed to manage all of your electronic needs while driving. Being shown at CEBIT in Germany, the IOPS runs Windows XP through its main output 7″ touchscreen. In addition to the obvious features of a GPS, the IOPS also has T-DMB channels, which is not even available in the U.S. yet. IOPS also comes with a hard disk in which you can record live TV and then burn it on to a disk all while doing 95 on the freeway. What a rush!

And since IOPS can interface with HSDPA networks, you can also receive an Internet connection for on-the-go shopping, RSS feed reading, or anything your heart desires. All of this is done as its linking with your Bluetooth device and displaying a video feed from your back bumper. Very impressive. Also, very cool. — Andrew Dobrow

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Ok, we admit it. We are saps for pretty-looking gadgets. No matter how mediocre the actual gadget might be. Call us crazy, but this Celrun FDN-2700 GPS device is one slick looking piece of gear. Even though the 2700 will most likely never make it out of South Korea, we admire the 7″ LCD wide screen with sleek black framing. Along with its good looks, it comes equipped with a DMB receiver, TPEG traffic receiver, and a multimedia player.

The 2700 also comes with SD reading capabilities, as well as PIP (picture in picture) support, and a USB port. It will also run off of a 400MHz processor for quick reaction times. Coming soon to South Korea customers. — Andrew Dobrow

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Samsung presents its newest card phone, the SPH-B6700 to the Korean mobile market. The B6700 comes with many features of the previous card phone, such as mobile printing, mp3 playback, and a camcorder, but adds some multimedia functionality with some added features.

T-DMB access, a 2 MP camera, and Bluetooth connectivity are among the new media features of the B6700, along with a 330,000 word dictionary and “my pet” file viewer. It’s dimensions measure a tiny 8.7 (w) x 5.4 (h)cm at a weight of 79g.

The B6700 comes encased in a strong aluminum body so the little fellow won’t get crushed in the folds of your pocket. We’d still recommend to use a belt clip though. For now its only available in Korea. (more…)

Taiwanese cellphone company GIGABYTE has unveiled the world’s first cellphone that supports both DVB-T and DVB-H digital broadcasting standards. The t600 is also a smartphone that runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the CPU is an Intel PXA270 520Mhz which is reasonably powerful. The t600 has 256MB ROM and 96MB RAM, external memory used here is microSD. In terms of connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi WLAN 802.11b/g and USB2.0 are all supported. The antenna actually also works as a stylus, it can even extend to be longer than the device itself (pics after the jump), making the pen a lot easier to use. The t600 is able to record programs broadcasted digitally with the CyberLink Mobile TV program pre-installed, it also has a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. The device itself fairly small measuring 110.5 x 55.5 x 18.5 mm, keep in mind that the main display is a 2.6″ VGA screen (lovely). GIGABYTE claimed that the 1000mAh battery is good for 5 hours of TV on DVB-H and 3 hours on DVB-T. Talk time goes up to 3 hours and the standby time can be as long as 150 hours. So the t600 is one of the most pocketable and powerful WM6 devices around, it will go on sales in Taiwan this April. No news on price yet, but expect this to be cheaper than most HTC devices. More pictures after the jump.

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Samsung’s announcement for this new addition to the Korean market in the Spring, the SCH-B680, looks pretty slick. It’s available in both black and white and has a checkered style number pad which is a pretty nice looking design feature.

The SCH-B680 comes with DMB, an integrated MP3 player, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and M-Bank. M-bank is some sort of Korean money transfer thing or something.

The pretty design looks pointed towards woman, with it’s elegant vine-like etching on front. Though we are sure there are certain men who would dig this type of thing. Being that manliest men on the planet, we have no attraction to this phone. Absolutely, ahem, none. (more…)

Softbank announces today their strongest ever multimedia phone, the 911T manufactured by Toshiba. This slider houses a 3″ W-VGA screen (480×800 pixels) in its 17.9mm thin sliding body (4mm thinner than the Toshiba W52T slider, 51×112x17.9mm 142g). The phone runs on Softbank’s 3.6Mbps HSDPA network, receives One-Seg digital TV service, comes with Bluetooth A2DP profile so you can connect your stereo headphones wirelessly, you can also stream music to supported bluetooth HiFi’s. Toshiba has partnered Oakley to design a pair of sunglasses with stereo bluetooth headphones on it, these cool looking glasses will come with the phone as you buy it, so be prepared to pay for quite a bit. The camera is a 3.2 megapixel CMOS with autofocus and anti-handshake functions; internal memory is 1GB and you con expand it with microSD up to 2GB (that’s 3GB altogether). The standard highend features such as MS Office document reader, full HTML browser and Felica electronic money chip are all built in. This mad phone will go on sale in March, expect it to be a hit. Jump for more pics.

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You know how sometimes you need to have the gadget grow on you after the purchase before you start to get comfortable with using it? Well, Japanese toys manufacturer Takara-TOMY has brought this to a completely different level with the new kind of One-Seg DMB toy TV they showed us at Toy Forum 2007 this morning. This portable TV itself certainly reminds us of the iRiver Clix, it carries a 3″ QVGA TFT screen which is not bad, and it runs on alkaline batteries you buy supermarkets (61×99x20mm). The TV can last up to 4 hours each time and you can record your programs to microSD. What’s so special about it is that there is actually a character built in- a female voice that will respond every time you press the a button: changing channels, adjusting brightness and volume, turning it on or off.

The voice will start off as being unfriendly, but as time goes by, when you use the buttons more it’ll become more and more friendly. And this change of attitude will be reflected by her reaction when you press your buttons. So on the first week she’ll say things like “Don’t you think it’s a bit too bright?” or “Are you just changing channels for fun because it’s annoying…”, but if you get acquainted with the TV over time, she’ll start saying nicer things like “Oh, you’re back!” or “Yep, turning up the brightness for you now”. (We’re serious, these quotes are translated carefully) The company is going to release a whole series of these TVs with different characters and different personalities. We think it’s a bit kinky, but in case you are interested, you can pick them up in Japan for 200USD autumn this year. — Sam Chan

Takara-TOMY toy TV [Impress]

Here are pictures of the 2 upcoming phones from SonyEricsson. One with a swivel screen, the first Bravia phone that supports DMB (One-Seg) the SO903iTV. The second one is the SO703i, looking like the Z610 outside Japan. Enjoy.

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