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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Ulrich who wrote (11266)	1/4/1998 4:33:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Just case you haven't found yourself spending enough time on SI, here's a new way to while away the hours: Bill, Thank you for pointing out the thread. I do not play chess, however. Good luck if you find an opponent. Glenn

To: Bill Ulrich who wrote (11266)	1/4/1998 10:11:00 PM
From: Scrapps	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22053

Dick Tracy's Wristwatch Phone Becomes Reality In Japan ( 1/02/98; 2:40 p.m. EST) By Stewart Taggart, TechWeb The 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, will be a testing ground for the world's smallest phone, a wristwatch-sized device that could be on the market in as little as two years. After more than six years of research, Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) has developed a Personal Handyphone System smaller than the size of the average matchbox. The device features voice dialing and has a standby time of 100 hours and a talking time of one hour. NTT will conduct the first test of the phones, which resemble the high-tech devices used by cartoon detective Dick Tracy, at the Winter Olympics. They will be worn by 40 members of the Japanese Olympic Committee on their official duties. It will be the first of several tests in Japan prior to commercial sale of the devices, according to Akiko Kato, spokeswoman for NTT, in Tokyo. "We plan to do other tests as well in Japan, but we haven't decided where," she said. The wrist phones use standards defined for Japan's Personal Handyphone System, which relies upon a special network of transmitters that are separate from the normal mobile phone network, though calls can be exchanged through the two systems and with the fixed phone network. The low-power nature of the devices means a clear line of sight is often needed to a base station, and the phones can have trouble maintaining a connection in rapidly moving vehicles such as cars or trains. NTT was able to achieve the long-standby time for the miniature phones by developing a proprietary mullet-threshold complementary metal-oxide semiconductor. The device has two transistors with different threshold voltages fused onto a single silicon chip, thereby allowing the device to use the transistor that drains the least amount of power for each function. In addition to voice dialing, the miniature phones feature a small keypad for manual dialing, and an earphone to use in noisy places. In the past two years, Personal Handyphone System products have proved especially popular among young people in Japan, with a subscriber base of roughly 8 million. However, there have been signs of a leveling off -- even a decline -- in subscriber numbers after two years of growth. Nonetheless, the inexpensive devices have proved popular in Japan because of their low cost of roughly 10,000 yen (less than U.S. $100) on average. While no pricing has been set for the miniature phones, they would be expected to sell initially for about 20 percent more than traditional Personal Handyphone System products. As a result, NTT said it is hoping a new generation of miniature communications devices will spark a round of consumer buying, as well as drawing first-time buyers into the market, Kato said.