MILAN, Italy (October 31, 2005) – Weathernews Italia S.p.A., the Italian branch of Weathernews Inc. (www.weathernews.com), in cooperation with 3 Italia, the Mobile Video Company of the Hutchison Whampoa Group – UMTS leader in Italy with over 4.5 million customers as of the 24th of August 2005 – announce the launch of the first weather service developed with a Flash-Lite application for videophones.

Starting today, 3 Italia customers with a SonyEricsson k608i can virtually surf a map of Italy using just their videophone joystick – not typing any text - and see satellite images as well as the weather conditions in the country in real-time on their phone’s display.Soon, the service will be available on additional models of 3 Italia videophones.

The application is the first of its kind to be developed in Italy and signals a new frontier in the world of mobile content, enabling a unique videophone surfing experience.

Simply by clicking on the “Weathernews” icon on the Pianeta 3 videophone portal, users can access the service: a map of Italy appears on the display, and using the joystick, a subscriber can surf through the two sections. In the “Satellite” section, a screen shows satellite images with the national weather conditions updated throughout the day. In the “Regional Weather” section, a subscriber can surf each of the 10 regions of the Italian map, seeing iconographic content that displays updates on the weather situation, including meteorological conditions, and minimum and maximum forecast temperature, every 15 minutes for all the major Italian cities.

Company Outline.
Weathernews Inc. is the world's largest private weather service company headquartered in Japan. It is the only global weather content maker that employs over 700 staff (including more than 400 meteorologists) in offices in 35 cities in 14 countries and regions, including United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Taiwan. As of 2005, Weathernews is providing high-tech weather content to more than 40 major mobile carreirs and has more than 1.5 million mobile subscribers worldwide.