NTT West is coming out with a new phone called the "Hikari Personal Phone" that uses 802.11b to provide IP telephony functions. Sounds fancy. Now if only Sony would introduce something similar for the PSP...

Though somewhat out of the question for us Americans, European readers will likely be excited to see that three companies are getting dangerously close to unveiling WiFi connections in trains traveling at 130kph (80mph). Those three companies are Shutoken Shintoshi Tetsudou (translates as "Greater Tokyo Railroad," I guess), Intel, and NTT Broadband Platform (NTTBP). How close? Well, they're testing the system in a real train o­n August 24th.

Every so often, NTT comes up with a bizarre new communication standard that likely won't materialize for another 10 years. Lo and behold, this happened today.

It's called "RedTacton," and NTT has defined it as a "Human Area Network."

Those clowns down at NTT Communications have successfully transmitted three uncompressed HDTV movies simultaneously, using a 10Gb ethernet connection.

You may remember our report of JVC's "4K2K D-LIA Projector," and there's a demonstration of it in action.

JVC provided the projector, and NTT provided the 8MP video. 4K has a resolution of 4096 x 2180; at 24fps and RGB10bit, the uncompressed 2 hour video weighed in at 6.5TB. NTT's compression format of choice was JPEG200, for some reason.

It has been quite difficult coming up with things to post today, but I discovered there were some rather interesting 3D display technologies that slipped through my fingers in the CEATEC coverage.

I think "3D" isn't an annoying buzzword quite yet, though it certainly used to be. I'm expecting a lot of these technologies I keep reporting o­n to be formally introduced to the American market some time next year. Then I'll hear "3D" so many times it will make me want to stick a screwdriver in my ear. But it hasn't happened yet, so I'll keep reporting.

Bring out the environmentalist side in you by purchasing o­ne of NTT's new solar powered phone rechargers. In just 4-5 hours, you can recharge two phones.
Though a lot of people conventionally think of solar powered things to be o­nly those in remote places (like mountain top vending machines), solar power has plenty of uses beyond that. I'm sure I could recharge something while my car is sitting in the hot South Carolina sun.

Every time I think of fingerprint recognition, though, I recall that part in...that o­ne movie, where the bad guy cuts off some dude's finger to use it o­n the fingerprint recognition gate.

But guess what? Apparently certain fingerprint recognition devices have protection against this sort of thing.

NTT and NTT Electronics have developed a small USB device that can store up to 120 passwords, 63 characters long - and will output them to a PC when o­ne uses its fingerprint recognition function.

Just thought I'd drop this link here, because AsiaBizTech already has the entire article in English.
NTT East has technology that interprets watermarks o­n images when taken with a camera o­n a cellular phone. For example, if you were to see an image of a product you want, just take a picture (of the picture...) and the software would read the watermark, and forward you to a website or some such.
Click here for the AsiaBizTech article.

It's plastic. It holds 1GB. It's about the size of a stamp. It's clear. It costs about $1-$2 to produce.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) unveiled Info-MICA today.
Now the media market will get very, very interesting.

Digital Garage will begin the experimental service in cooperation with NTT East Japan's "B Flet's" DSL.