Over 700 web and web-related companies from all over world handed in an application for last year’s Techcrunch 40 event, organized by the famous Tech blog of the same name.

This year, the competition is called Techcrunch 50 and it is again organized by Techcrunch USA. It will be conducted from September 8-10th in San Francisco. Following the absence of Japanese web companies in last year’s event, potential participants from this country are encouraged to take part this year.

My friend Umihiko Namekawa from Techcrunch Japan asked me to publish the announcement on Asiajin as well, on top of his article he wrote today in his blog. Asiajin thinks it is a great chance for entrepreneurs in Japan to challenge such a competition.

In the light of the tight time schedule, professional support will be provided by Techcrunch Japan for all companies interested in this initiative.

More information (in Japanese) can be found here on the official site.

Tags: Japan by Serkan Toto
6 Comments »

Japanese copyright holders in the music, TV and movie industry are known to be very protective of their contents when it comes to distribution on the web. Youtube has been “cleaned” several times in the past after complaints filed by media companies from this country.

Now, for the 1st time for a major TV network, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (aka Japan Broadcasting Corp.) started putting contents online on a NHK channel on Youtube. The channel is dubbed NHKonline.

The first video posted features Japanese super model Fujiwara Norika promoting NHK’s “Save the future” initiative. With the G8 summit in Hokkaido this year casting its shadows ahead, NHK says they would like to raise public attention on the global warming issue by bringing up environmental topics.

NHK will present a total of 20 hours of material, including dramas, music shows and documentaries focusing on the environment on its main TV channel from June 6th to June 8th. There will be some 30 clips shown on Youtube taken from those shows through late July.

This interesting move might pave the way for other Japanese TV networks to go the NHK way. The LDP, Japan’s most powerful political party, was a little faster and started a Youtube channel in December last year.

Tags: Japan by Serkan Toto
6 Comments »

We covered political initiatives in Japan to censor the web a few times on Asiajin in the past.

In a new move announced today, the Japanese government urges parents and schools to tightly control how children use their cell phones. A panel recommended a handful of concrete steps which were nodded through today by the Fukuda administration.

A government official said, cell phones became addictive toys and Japanese parents are overwhelmed by the new technologies they come equipped with, making monitoring their children’s browsing behavior too difficult. The government wants Japanese manufacturers to produce devices without Internet capability, which is a surprisingly radical request. According to the government, those devices should only feature GPS (obviously to locate a child’s position) and be restricted to calls only.

The aim here is to block access to so-called “harmful web sites” and to tackle the (existing) problem of “cyber-bullying” among Japanese school kids. Prime minister Fukuda even questioned if children should own cell phones in the first place!

According to government statistics, one third of Japanese kids aged between 7 and 12 use mobile phones. In high school, the number climbs to 96%.

I am sure doubtful developments like this will be unavoidable in other regions of the world such as the US or Europe as well, once usage of the mobile web picks up steam in those countries.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Serkan Toto
2 Comments »