Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported (Dec.26/2005) that Singapore home appliances distributor/manufacturer, TT International Ltd., would headfirst dive into the Japanese slaughterhouse of consumer electric market. TT International's Japanese subsidiary, TT Co., will start distributing digital cameras, DVD players, educational audio/visual gears and the likes to mega retailers and mail-order/TV/web retailers.

Well, well, welcome to the arena. If they can survive here, nothing can beat them any more.

I guess TT International has to offer the best cost/benefit ratio for their goods to survive in Japan. The cheap price tag itself does not mean anything here. Americans buy even the garbages if it's cheap. Japanese don't.
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K-tai rules are ever changing in Japan. Presently, they are getting pretty lax and tolerant. Almost any K-tai activities are being allowed. With your K-tai of the newest model, you can drive a nail, spank kids, check the gravity by dropping it from a reclining tower, and even use as an adult toy.

The only K-tai function generally frowned upon is, yes, you guessed correctly, talking to its microphone. This is considered as the most pervert activity that only a hopeless country bumpkin or a wet-back immigrant worker dares to commit openly.

"Why do you have to shout like an Austraropithecus while you have all those civilized things .. e-mail, photo-mail .. and everything!"

When a novice Japanese tourist goes to abroad, the first great shock is unanimously like this, "There, people were talking shamelessly with their mobile phones, I couldn't believe my eyes!"

This cultural shock, sometimes, hits so severe and deep that some returning tourists fail to recover from total nervous breakdown.
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The number one enemy of your mobile phone is, as you might suspect, gravity. Even the O-saifu K-tai, "wallet phone", doesn't make an exception.

This criminal delinquent usually attacks you while you are in the most vulnerable and defenceless situation... I mean, in the toilet. It steals your precious mobile terminal from hip pocket or tote bag, and throws it down. That is the evil nature of gravity.

Around 95 percent of the time, the terminal ends up at the bottom of toilet stool full of organic liquid. The remaining 5 percent makes a hard landing on the tiled floor. A total write-off follows.

A crime victim: Culprit was notorious gravity. Another total write-off.

But, this is rather a simple case. If your terminal falls into the hand of malicious third party? Phone bill of 36 hours of non-stop overseas calls to the farthest corners of this world, surely, gives you a massive heart attack. Also, a bill from the phone sex site can ruin the cohesion of peace of family.

Besides, these days in Japan, many an O-saifu K-tai terminal have got a ton of e-money loaded in it. Even credit card function. So how can you protect your precious possession?
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K-tai (mobile phone) tentacles have bored down into Japanese life so deep and so long-time that there is persistent rumor of a new subspecies of human baby, homo mobilis, with a noticeable mutation: A huge agile thumb.

That's why almost all the important (some say silly or outright harmful) money-spinners of mobile world have jumped out from Japanese market, then into the world arena. Packet transfer, i-mode, ringtones/-melodies/-songs, mobile games, mobile camera, photo mail, etc., etc. Also, negative ones like K-tai spams/scams to my regret. Only SMS service failed to take root here. But who needs short messages while everybody can handle a full Internet email on his K-tai?

Now the next wild thing bound to shove into the world mobile scene, O-saifu K-tai, "wallet phone".
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Every single LCD manufacturer has tried and succeeded in making up a variety of flexible display or two. Even the Koreans have jumped onto the bandwagon.

The only problem: There is no marketable products. Everybody is loudly talking about the bright future of flexible LCD display. But, so far, absolutely no commercial products have popped up on Akihabara back alleys.

Well, at the long last, one has come to the market. Strictly speaking, this is not a flexible LCD, but very close to it.

Seiko Watch Co, Tokyo, released a bracelet watch called Spectrum. As you can see, display surface of the watch is curved to accommodate the contour of your arm. The technology is E-ink (Please see how it works). Yes, exactly the same technique used by Sony's LIBRIe eBook reader. LIBRIe has been remembered in digital history as the tremendous flop. Another Sony roadside monument of beautiful hardware spoilt by lousy software.

Seiko Spectrum, you don't want to see its price tag!

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