New Japanese phones offer Earthquake early warning alerts

The latest Japanese phones from NTT DoCoMo (905i/705i) offer earthquake warnings and automatic translation.

-- A novel feature that could be life-saving, Area Mail, provides quick emergency reports delivered to mobile phones in a specific area, with dedicated ringtones and messages used to alert the user to an impending emergency.

-- Shabette Hon-yaku, is a Japanese-English (and vice versa) voice translation service. Simply speak into the phone in Japanese, and the phone will speak back in English - or vice versa, if preferred.

The interesting thing about this service is that the translation occurs on the server, not the mobile phone, meaning that the service is free to improve in time without the need to upgrade the handsets.

[via Mobile Mentalism]

emily | 8:27 AM | Technology |
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