Japan's Bleeding-Edge Cell Phones

South Korea has been a hotbed of cell phone innovation recently, but the Japanese are also making their presence felt. The NEC N902i videophone, for example, boasts advanced features such as an anti-shake camera, a text scanner, and speech output of text that "speaks" e-mails. Perhaps most significantly, the phone also includes a digital wallet for making contactless micropayments, and a bar-code reader that can read bar codes placed on ads to provide the user with more information through the cell phone.

The N902i is a strong seller in Japan, and users there are reportedly making use of the advanced features, particularly the bar-code reader.

Source: Martin's Mobile Technology Page

Tags: Japan, cell phones, micropayments