Asahi reported [J] that Japan's Patent Office(JPO) decided to terminate their patent management system renewal project which began in 2006. They already spent 5.5 billion yen(US$70 million) and specially formed inspection committee in the organization recommended to stop the project.

The project term was set from December 2006 to January 2014, development by Toshiba Solution Corporation(TSOL) [J] and operation by Accenture [J]. Asahi reported that the delay mostly came from development issue.

According to Fumi Yamazaki [J], a blogger who read the report [J], TSOL began the system design in 2006 with 60 staff, but saw delay already in 2007. The team expanded to 200 in March 2007, 450 in May 2007 and finally became 1,300 people in November 2008 but the produced design was not at the usable level.

Whilst the work itself stagnated, some bribery and leaks of classified information were informed and discovered with current and the former contractor companies.

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January 25, two of Japan's largest social networking service companies, DeNA(who runs Mobage) and Mixi announced their new alliance on social commerce.

On the release, it is said that "Mixi, who holds networks of close friends" and "DeNA, who has plenty of knowledge on e-commerce and has been running Bidders (mobile shopping service)" are going to construct a new social commerce service in this growing sector.

Planned in late March, a mall-type social commerce service will be opened in Mixi. There are already some major companies, including Lawson HMV Entertainment, Sanrio(=Hello Kitty) and Cecil McBee decided to have their shops. Other companies are encouraged to contact them to join.

Whilst Gree, the rest of the big three, has been competing severely against DeNA's Mobage on social game platform (1, 2), Mixi and DeNA seemed to have friendly relationship by using phrases co-existence of "social graph" and "virtual graph".

But still, they are common in having social games on their own open platforms. The release does not have single word of "Mobage".

See Also:

Mixi's release [J]

DeNA's release [J]

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"Tell Your World ", the song which is used for Google Chrome Promotional campaign of livetune feat. Hatsune Mike (初音ミク) tops at iTunes Japan among all categories.

iTunes Japan chart at 19th January was following.

The song was released in 18th January on iTunes Japan and right after the release, ranked top 10. On next day, it ranked 1st.

Google's promotional campaign video for its Chrome, "Google Chrome: Hatsune Miku" uses "Tell Your World." The video depicts how Hatsune Miku, the virtual singer, has developed online creativity and tells everyone can be creator on the web.

This video has been viewed over 1.8 million times since its release in 14th December.

Great music choice, Google Japan!

Google Chrome: Hatsune Miku (初音ミク)

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NTT Resonant, a subsidiary of Japan's largest telecommunication company NTT, who is running Goo, a search engine for PC, mobile (mainly for Docomo handsets) and smartphone, released [J] that Goo starts providing "Useful Tweets" on its search result page.

The useful tweets showed on the search are selected by Goo's original language analysis and scoring technology. The tweets are not necessarily the latest but buzzed and/or trusted, according to the release.

via Tsuuhan Tsuushin

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Jpaan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications(MIC) on January 20 released [J] that they are running an experiment to distribute files which name look like pirated TV drama videos from January 23 to 29.

The fake drama videos will be distributed at least on two popular Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing tools/networks, Winny and Share.

The contents of the drama-named file [J, pdf], if you download and open, to show caution that both upload and download pirated files are illegal.

# Download was illegalized since 2010 in Japan

The experiment traces if those people who see the caution will be enlightened and stop file sharing on Winny/Share.

The caution text is with signatures by following organizations;

- The Association of Copyright for Computer Software(ACCS)
- Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)
- Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association, Inc.(JIMCA)
- Recording Industry Association of Japan(RIAJ)
- The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan(NAB)

[Update] NHK reported this [J] on the evening news nationwide. NHK told that the total number of Winny and Share users is about 150,000 per day. Japanese torrent users are 240,000 on the peak day.

via Internet Watch [J]

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