Rakuten Today: Tech & Innovation

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A former government robot policy taskforce member and robocon competitor, Hiroyuki Ushijima is now driving Rakuten’s robot delivery ambitions across Japan.

5 days ago

Hiroyuki Ushijima is driving Rakuten’s robot delivery ambitions

On the streets of Japan, autonomous delivery robots are rapidly becoming a reality. After a trial late last year, Rakuten’s Drone UGV department ran a successful month-long robot delivery service in the spring of 2021. In a first for Japan, the ambitious project saw a four-wheeled self-driving vehicle deliver groceries directly to the doors of customers in Yokosuka, south of Yokohama. This UGV aut…

Blog

Rakuten Mobile network's performance shines through in new independent research by umlaut comparing major city networks around the globe.

7 days ago

Rakuten Mobile Network Performance Shines Through in Study Comparing Major City Networks Around the Globe: umlaut report

Mobile networks are undergoing a significant transformation, with a movement away from the closed, proprietary systems of legacy networks to more open, efficient and flexible systems known in the industry as Open RAN. On overall performance, Rakuten Mobile’s Open RAN network in Tokyo scored 920 points out of 1,000 for a “very good” rating. In Open RAN, the interfaces and protocols between the diff…

Blog

Can a software-driven network work in cities? Will it slow adoption of 5G? Is it secure? Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin offers answers about open RAN.

7 days ago

Setting the record straight about Rakuten Mobile’s Open RAN Network: Tareq Amin at IIC/BEREC Forum

Success sometimes breeds skepticism. As Rakuten’s world-first revolutionary, Open RAN mobile network continues to roll out in Japan, the company’s progress has sparked interest and raised questions around the world. Does the software-driven network work in cities? Will it slow down adoption of 5G-fast service? Since it depends on multiple vendors and off-the-shelf components, does it ensure…

Blog

Rakuten Mobile partners with Queen’s University Belfast, launches Edge Computing Hub

2 weeks ago

Faster, more sustainable internet through Edge Computing: Rakuten Mobile partners with Queen’s University Belfast

Rakuten Mobile has partnered with Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland to launch a brand-new Edge Computing Hub this May. The hub represents a major step forward in a collaborative relationship that goes back to January 2020. Rakuten Mobile will be sponsoring two PhD students and a post-doctoral researcher to push forward research on edge computing at the new hub and explore what scienti…

Blog

With Kobo Elipsa’s beyond-the-page reading experience, readers can use its intuitive stylus to highlight and jot notes in eBooks, PDFs and more.

3 weeks ago

Rakuten Kobo introduces Kobo Elipsa — with a stylus for note-taking, annotating and everything in between…

Readers, when they are truly immersed in a book, can’t help but annotate what they are reading, filling in the spaces around the words with their own experiences and understandings. People also can’t help but be shaped by those same books, and jotting down notes is a great way to make sense of that writing. A recent Rakuten Kobo survey revealed that more than 80% of people said they frequently wan…

Blog

Rakuten Mobile opens a new store in Roppongi and now offers the powerful iPhone 12 lineup.

4 weeks ago

Rakuten Mobile opens new store in Roppongi and now offers the powerful iPhone 12 lineup

On April 30, Rakuten Mobile celebrated two milestones — the opening of a new store in Tokyo’s bustling Roppongi neighborhood, and the powerful iPhone 12 lineup becoming available for purchase at Rakuten Mobile stores and on Rakuten Mobile online. The newly opened Rakuten Mobile Roppongi store The new Rakuten Mobile Roppongi Store, located about one minute on foot from Ropp…

Blog

Rakuten Mobile has been recognized with two Opensignal awards: Japan's best Voice App Experience and Upload Speed Experience.

April 28, 2021

Opensignal Japan Mobile Network Experience Report: Rakuten Mobile wins in Voice App and Upload Speed Experience

This month, Rakuten Mobile celebrated its first anniversary as the newest mobile carrier in Japan. And over the past year, industry eyes from around the world have been on the operator’s fully virtualized cloud-native network to see how the revolutionary architecture actually performs. Rakuten Mobile’s winning technology In March, Opensignal, the independent global standard for analyzing con…

Rakuten Innovation

Drones are a key part of Rakuten Mobile's solution for readying a network that covers 96% of Japan's population by summer 2021.

April 27, 2021

Rakuten Mobile deploys drones to help accelerate base station rollout

Rakuten Mobile’s revolutionary cellular network just celebrated its first birthday. But that doesn’t mean work is slowing down; network coverage is expanding faster than ever. In January, Rakuten CEO Mickey Mikitani announced that by summer 2021, the Rakuten Mobile network will reach 96% of Japan’s population ― a target that was originally slated for 2026. So how is Rakuten Mobile tackling this am…

Blog

Rakuten Mobile Interoperability: How the telco is integrating technologies from different vendors, including more than 200 individual network applications.

April 20, 2021

Mobile tech explained: Interoperability

This article is part of a series breaking down the complex systems and technologies that make up the Rakuten Mobile network and Rakuten Communications Platform. In this edition, we speak with Rahul Atri, head of product and engineering, Rakuten Mobile. In the technology and telecoms sectors, there is an ongoing tug of war between innovation and interoperability. A start-up might develop…

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