| Sunday, March 20, 2005 |
| JAPANESE USE CELL PHONES TO READ NOVELS ON-THE-GO |
TOKYO -- Your eyes probably hurt just thiningking about it: Tens of thousands of Japanese cell phone owners are poring over full length novels on their tiny screens.
In this technology enamored nations, the mobile phone has become so widespread as an entertainment and communication device that reading e-mail, news headlines and weather forecats -- rather advanced mobile feature by global standards-- is routine.
Now, Japan's cell phone users are turning pages.
Several mobile Web sites offer hundreds of novels -- classics, best sellers and some works written especially for the medium.
It takes some getting used to. Only a few lines pop up at a time because the phone screen is about half the size of a business card.
But improvements in the quality of liquid crystal dispalys and features such as automatic page flipping, or scrolling, make it far more enjoyable than you'd imagine.
In the latest versions, cell phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications.
"You can read wnenever you have a spare moment and you don't even need to use both hnads," says Taro Matsumura, 24, a graduate student who reads essays and serial novels on his phone.
In the United States, cell phones are increasingly being used for relaying data, including video, digital photos and music. Random House recently bought a state in VOCEL, a San Diego company that provides mobile phone products as Scholastic Aptitude Test Preparation programs.
(abstracted from CHICSUNTIMES/ Associated Press/ by: Yuri Kageyama) |
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