Hot o­n the heels of DoCoMo's announcement of 50 million subscribers, au has announced their number of contracts has crossed the 20 million mark.

Here is their official press release.

Say Hello to the latest mobile phones!

Anyone who has been reading TechJapan for a while now knows I'm a big fan of the au design project. We've previously covered the INFOBAR, the Talby, and the PENCK.

Good news for me, then, to report that there will be three new handsets introduced o­n November 2nd:

-"MEDIA SKIN" by Toku Yoshioka
-"MACHINA" by Naoki Sakai and Nao Tamura
-"HEXAGON" by Naoki Sakai and Nao Tamura

There aren't any details about the phones yet, but judging by the names alone and the history of the au design project, I'd say we're in for a treat. Expect to see coverage of the new phones here at TechJapan.

http://www.kddi.com/topics/design/

To finish things off, here's a handset for you au people called the "W33SA." It's by Sanyo, and features compatibility with single-segment digital broadcasts we just got through talking about.

KDDI has announced they will be absorbing Tu-ka. Tu-ka was already completely owned by KDDI (in the business sense, not in the "pwned" sense), and KDDI said they'll be continuing the brand... so this announcement really means nothing from a consumer standpoint (for the time being). For this reason, I won't bother translating the article. Here's the press release in PDF.

KDDI is introducing a new service for AU handsets called "EZ Memory Pocket," which essentially takes the entire contents of your phone's phone book and automatically backs it up o­n their server. If you've ever lost your mobile, the importance of this service should be obvious. Moreover, you can use your PC to access this information and even edit its contents.

No one to talk to?
Lost in the woods?
Lost in the city?
Just plain lost?

Despite the funny title, the G'zOne TYPE-R, Casio's next generation of G-Shock phones is awesome.

"EZ Book Land!" is yet another interesting looking service from Japanese mobile provider AU. The service revolves around the purchase of real books based o­n "sample contents" from electronic books, where all purchases and viewing of electronic books is conducted by mobile phone. Inside we have the low-down o­n this new service, set to launch o­n April 21st in Japan.

The new W31S is a sort of cross between audio player and mobile phone, yet it still manages to pack a lot of punch in the design department.

I think this is the new flagship phone for au's "Chaku Uta Full" service.

au introduced their "PENCK" designer phone yesterday, but I'm reporting o­n it today. Too bad.

The PENCK was designed by "Makoto Saito," though the name "PENCK" is actually from some German guy.

Interestingly enough, the design is strikingly similar to that of the A1403K, introduced by au in September. But frankly, I think the PENCK looks cooler. Plenty more details and enough pictures to shake a stick at inside.