Put Live TV support in phones and they’ll sell like hot cakes. At least this is the case in some Asian countries and who knows better than Samsung and LG who have the largest portfolio of phones integrated with DMB.
Well, now Japan’s SoftBank, the official carrier of iPhone 3G have also come up with a similar solution to please the locals. They have introduced a 1-Seg Tuner for the iPhone 3G. 1-Seg is the Japanese equivalent to DMB in Korea or DVB in Europe. The tuner uses a Wi-Fi link and a compatible iPhone app to stream live television on the iPhone. It is small enough to carry in a pocket and has its own battery that gives playback of around 3 hours so the users need not worry about iPhone’s battery sucking up.
One more thing why a Japanese user might want to pick this up is that it also doubles up as an extended battery pack for the iPhone. It will go on sale from mid-December in Japan for around $102 while the iPhone application will be made available from the App Store without any charge.
Press Release [Japanese]
[Via Electronista]
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