TOKYO -- With the New Year comes a lot of buzz from the phone industry. Regular cell phones are getting smaller, smarter, and lighter, and a host of new network services, like higher-speed data transmission, are making them more useful. There's also a new breed of handsets packing digital TV reception--examples are in this month's roundup of hot gadgets. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we're sure to see, as well, phones with advanced features like VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony.

Like 2006, the coming year will also be marked by fierce competition among vendors. In some cases that means the products you want will be cheaper, while in other cases, price will remain unchanged but the number of features will increase. Those trends have been happening for the last few years, and to the dismay of gadget makers, they look set to continue as vendors battle to become king of the digital age.

Samsung TPEG Cell Phone

Samsung Electronics has developed a cell phone capable of receiving real-time traffic information using a new system called TPEG. The SPH-B5800 phone can receive and decode the information broadcast using the Transport Protocol Experts Group format, which was developed in Europe in the late 1990s and is already in use in South Korea. The phone updates travel information every 5 minutes and can also display TV broadcasts from stations using the country's Satellite DMB system. It went on sale in South Korea in December for around $600 and includes a 2-megapixel camera, a 330,000-word dictionary, and a 2-inch color TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD screen. It measures 96 millimeters by 46 mm by 16 mm and weighs 96 grams. There are no current plans to offer it overseas.

Toshiba Gigabeat V-Series

Toshiba's out to impress with the new Gigabeat V-series models. Available in both 30GB (V30E) and 60GB (V60E) versions, the hard-drive media players have a 3.5-inch QVGA display (320 pixels by 240 pixels) that occupies most of the front panel. The devices will play a host of music and video formats--Windows Media, WMA9 Lossless, MP3, and WAV audio files including those encoded with Windows Media DRM10--and they can also show JPEG images. The video playback is a little disappointing in that it's limited to Windows Media video files. Also included is a tuner for Japan's mobile digital TV service, called "OneSeg"--the Gigabeat can even record television shows off-air for later viewing. The on-screen interface can be in either Japanese or English. The Gigabeat has been on sale in Japan since late November for $419 (V30E) and $503 (V60E). There's no word on international launch plans.

Panasonic ToughBook Laptop PC

Drop it, bang it, crash it, do just about anything you like with the latest ToughBook laptop computers from Panasonic. Two models are available--the 19- and the 30-series--and each is based around an Intel Centrino Duo processor. Both can withstand a drop of 90 centimeters (just about 3 feet) and are resistant to shock, vibration, water, and dust. The 19-series model is a convertible with a touch screen, while the 30-series model includes a superbright (1000 nits) LCD panel that should make it easy to use outdoors. They'll be on sale in Japan in February and will cost around $3796 for the 30-series computer and $2531 for the 19-series. They are available now in the United States.

Samsung Yepp T9 Music Player

The latest addition to Samsung Electronics's Yepp T9 line of digital music players is a model with 8GB of memory. That's double the capacity of the previous top-of-the-line version. Like the earlier models, it has a 1.8-inch LCD, is 11 millimeters thick, and has a Bluetooth wireless link to headphones. It costs $408 in South Korea. There's no word on when it will be available internationally, but since lower capacity models are already out, such a rollout shouldn't be far off.

Canon Network Camera

If you need to monitor a spot that's handy to an ethernet connection, then network cameras like Canon's new VB-C300 are great. They plug into an ethernet connection and stream video to a computer at the other end. Features include a 2.4X optical zoom and autofocus. Canon has added a day-and-night mode that switches automatically to provide a better picture at the respective time. The camera is mounted on a bracket that provides for 170 degrees of pan in each direction, plus a tilt of 25 degrees in one direction and 90 degrees in the other. Security sensors can also be connected, as can a speaker, so a real-time audio feed can be broadcast by the camera to the area under surveillance. It will be on sale in Japan in March and will cost around $1221.

NEC HSDPA Cell Phone

Japan's NTT DoCoMo mobile communications company has just launched its HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) network that provides downloads of up to 1.8 mbps (megabits per second) and uploads of 384 kbps. To coincide with the start of this service, NEC has released its chunky-looking N902iX cell phone. The handset also supports the DCMX service, which means it can be used to make credit payments in some shops. The device is available now and costs around $168, although the price depends on carrier incentives and discounts. It won't work outside of Japan.

Sharp Aquos Cell Phone

Sharp's latest cell phone for Japanese carrier Softbank Mobile proudly carries the Aquos badge that the company uses on its LCD TVs. The phone packs a 3-inch wide-screen display panel based on the same technology used in the TV sets and includes a tuner for the mobile digital TV service, so it's almost like having an Aquos TV in your pocket. Other features of the handset include dual-mode WCDMA/GSM (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access/Global System for Mobile Communications), Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, and a browser for conventional Web sites. The price hasn't been announced yet.

R&D Corner: Hitachi Color E-paper

In December, commuters in Tokyo got a chance to experience some cutting-edge display technology--but they had to look hard to see it. Three commuter trains each carried one advertisement panel in which the traditional paper was replaced by a 13.1-inch e-paper panel made by Hitachi and Bridgestone. But these displays, while technologically advanced, proved difficult to read during a demonstration. Inside each display is an 8MB memory cache that can hold 37 advertisements, which cycle. With a little more work, these e-paper displays could reach the point where they start replacing traditional ads, and that could save some big money for the railway company. Each train carries 1414 advertisements, and, with the exception of 96 that are on LCD displays, the rest are all paper and need to be changed by hand.