Japanese companies to create new dual-mode 3G platform
The worldwide adoption of 3G networks has gone at, shall we say, a mind-numbingly slow pace (especially for those of us in the States), but in an effort to fix this problem, NTT DoCoMo, Renesas Technology, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, and Sharp have announced that they will jointly develop a new dual-mode cellphone platform, which will support both HSDPA / W-CDMA and GSM / GPRS / EDGE in a single chip. The goal, of course, is to increase features while cutting power, cost, and space, but their new platform probably won't see the light of day until the summer of 2007. But the day it's finally released, it should make a bit of improvement in the lives of many a globe-trotting playboys and international businessmen extraordinaire.
