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| PRESS CONTACT: Shigeyoshi Fujiwara Corporate Communication, Faith Inc. mail_to_ir@faith.co.jp TEL: +81-(0)3-5776-6255 |
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Faith Technologies, subsidiary of Faith Inc. Begins Mobile Electronic Book Enterprise |
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| In partnership with DARGAUD, the largest comic publisher in Europe, Faith Technologies enters the mobile comic market in Europe and the U.S. with eeKartoonf |
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| Tokyo-February 28, 2007 - Faith Technologies, a subsidiary of Faith Inc., and Sharp Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Sharp) have jointly begun mobile electronic book business in Europe and North America. As the first step, Faith Technologies will launch geKartoonh, a mobile electronic book application for the mobile comic book market, in March of this year. Faith Technologies optimizes Sharpfs eBunko Viewerf*1 (gpaperback viewerh) application for use in European and the U.S. mobile handsets. The application, named eeKartoonf, supports all handsets of Europe and North America. The contents can be distributed by complete download or by streaming on 3G handsets. By saving the contents to a SIM card*2, high quality text and graphics can be viewed on 2.5G handsets as well. With eKartoon, Faith Technologies provides high-quality, popular DARGAUD comics to mobile carriers and content providers. The mobile comic book market in Japan is currently at $100 million and further growth is expected. In Europe and North America, where the popularity of Japanese animation and manga (comic books) are already established, the mobile comic book market is also expected to grow as the mobile communication infrastructure is developed. Faith Technologies will begin their efforts in southern Europe including France, Italy and Spain, where comic book demand is high, and will later expand the business to U.K. and the U.S. Faith Technologies will further expand its presence in mobile content markets in the West through Japanese animation and manga which are already popular in these areas. |
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| Highlights of todayfs release: | ||||||
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| *1 About Bunko Viewer A mobile document viewing application which corresponds to Sharpfs XMDF (Mobile Document Format). |
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| *2 About SIM Card SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module Card) is an IC card which holds telephone number information used by mobile phones. |
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| About DARGAUD GROUP (http://www.groupe-dargaud.com/) DARGUAD GROUP is the largest comic publisher in Europe, owner of Dargaud, Dupuis, Le Lombard, Kana, and Lucky Comics. Twenty of the top 50 titles among 40 million copies of comic books published in French are published by DARGAUD. |
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| About Faith Technologies (http://www.fr-faith.com) Formed in France in 2005 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Faith Inc., Faith Technologies specializes adeveloping a mobile sound and content distribution technology. The next-generation mobile multimedia research and development centre is located in Montpellier. By working with handset makers, semiconductor manufacturers, carriers, and service providers, they aim to pioneer the digital content markets. |
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| About Faith Inc. (http://www.faith.co.jp/) Faith was the first in the world to conceive of and implement the concept of polyphonic ringtones and is active in the industry in 21 countries, including Japan as well as those in North America, Europe, East Asia, and South America. Faith is also involved in online gaming, music distribution, e-commerce, and electronic money. They are currently developing a global, cross-platform content distribution system designed to work between mobile phones, computers, and other environments which is expected to increase the companyfs value even further. For more information, visit http://www.faith.co.jp/ |
| ©2007 Faith, Inc, All Rights Reserved. |