Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak apparently needed little encouragement, for he too wanted to isolate Hamas, and this prevented until recently Egypt's intelligence service, which exerts a powerful influence in Gaza, from brokering a deal.

BBC: Why was Gilad Shalit not freed sooner?

But a year ago, his boss launched TraBox, a website aimed at brokering deals between drivers and cargo firms, designed for use on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Japan's Mobile-Phone Culture