Positive news from Japan!

The government has finally allowed three new companies to join the fracas in Japan's already highly competitive mobile phone market.

This is stellar news.

There are currently three companies that control all of the mobile phones in the country: DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodaphone, but thanks to the new access rules, Softbank, eAcces and IP Mobile will also begin (by the time I get back) selling phones (hopefully cooler than existing ones) and plans (hopefully cheaper than existing ones).

I can't wait.

But while I'm sitting here thinking about cell phones, journalist Shi Tao is sitting in a jail in China, on the Chinese "Journalists' Day."

Shi, who had worked at a business daily in China, was arrested because of an e-mail he sent to foreigners regarding--surprise, surprise--the Chinese government's instructions to the media on handling Tiananmen Square coverage on the anniversary (they are still pretty sensitive about that one, I guess).

The big thing, here, however, is that the American company, Yahoo! released all of Shi's e-mail records to Chinese authorities and linked him to the message about Tiananmen. Looks like he'll be spending the next 10-years (which, translated from Chinese means "indefinitely") in a high security prison, where he will have no access to written materials, and be unable to write himself.

Thanks, Yahoo!