Mixi Nengajou (new year greeting card) is not the only emerging service tries to turn online friendship into real items delivery.

This is too much of a coincidence that Mixi, Softbank (owns 40% of Yahoo! Japan) and au(KDDI)-DeNA(runs Mobage Town) launched virtual to real shipping services in last 2 months.

Softbank Puchi Gift

November 4th, Softbank enhanced their "Softbank Gift" service with its mobile variation "Softbank Puchi (pettit) Gift".

Softbank Gift has been letting you to purchase and send flowers/gifts/foods by giving your friends e-mail address on PC/mobile. Softbank Gift asks the receiver's address so recipients do not have to tell their home address to presenters.

On new Puchi Gift, presenters can send 7 items (initially. Coca-Cola, Hagen Daz, canned iced coffee, blotting paper, etc.) at a nation-wide convenience store chain Seven-Eleven Japan. Then recipient got an e-mail with bar-code, and the code is a coupon for the item at any branch of 12,000 Seven Eleven shop.

Mixi Nengajou

We already covered Mixi's New Year Greeting Card service. This is a combined service with the No.1 Social Network service Mixi and the semi-national (recently privatized) gigantic company Japan Post.

This service was announced in Nov 2008, released in the same month, sold 700,000 cards by January 5th [J].

MobaDepa/au Shopping Mall

Dec 19th 2008, DeNA, the largest mobile social network "Mobage Town" provider also runs several shopping/auction sites, adds a new feature by which users can send a present to receivers whose real address is unknown.

DeNA introduced the same function to the online shopping mall au Shopping Mall, which is co-operated by KDDI and DeNA. KDDI's au is the No.2 cellphone carieer in Japan.

DeNA's online mall is integrated with Mobage Town. At the beginning, 1500 items including Isetan, Senbikiya and Godiva Japan are listed.

See Also:

DeNA and KDDI let users to send a gift via e-mail - Nikkei NetMarketing [J]

Softbank Gift starts - MyCom Journal [J]

DeNA and KDDI co-operate E-commerce site on which you can send gifts to person whose address is unknown - nikkei BPnet [J]

Tags: Japan, New Service, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Seal Cutting(篆刻) is a Chinese traditional art. You cut a stone block to make a stamp with, usually, Chinese letters like name, poet, etc.

Blogger Masayuki GT tried to combine this Song Dynasty originated stone art with the latest technology, QR Code, Japanese 2D barcode now widely used with cellphone camera to guide mobile website URL-s.

I am sure that cutting stone consumes much time.

Soak with ink.

Then stamp it.

Of course, it is readable from your cellphone.

You can read whole process of seal cutting with different size of QR Codes on Masayuki GT's blog. [J]

Tags: Japan, Joke by Akky Akimoto
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As we reported on October, Softbank, No.3 cellphone carrier sells iPhone in Japan, start selling a specially designed iPhone peripheral for Japanese customers who think cellphone must have TV tuner.

This tuner and external battery combo is sold at 7 Softbank shops since the end of 2008. It will be officially available nationwide on January 9th.

iPhone App Store now provides a TV software for it.

The tuner is connected with iPhone via WiFi, however, iPhone Touch, which should be able to work with WiFi, does not support this gear.

The maker of the tuner is reported a iCube corporation, Korea.

Most of recent cellphone sold in Japan has embedded one-seg (one segment of digital TV broadcast) tuner. Some of them have recorder, too. This iPhone TV Tuner does not record programme now, but it should be doable by software update in future.

Now iPhone overcame one disadvantage with 9,840 yen (about US $100) and can get external battery as an extra.

via emotionally
(all photos are also from emotionally)

See Also:

Softbank Release on Jan. 5th

Weekly Ascii Blog report

Coming Soon From Sling Media: Watch Cable TV From Your iPhone

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Japan's most popular SNS "Mixi" introduced new two feature deployments today, especially on so-called "footprint" feature.

You may have your own site on Mixi, and Mixi's footprint feature allows to show you on the list when and which other Mixi users have visited your site.   With today's system renewal, new icons are prepared for "My Mixi of My Mixi" etc., that means your friend's friend on Mixi.   Previously the system had only an icon of "My Mixi" meaning your friend on Mixi, there was nothing marked for the visitors other than your "My Mixi".

Mixi says, the brandnew icons make you easier to find how the relationship between you and every visitor to your site is.

Additionally, newly introduced "Footprint of My Own" shows you the nickname list of Mixi users whose sites you've visited.    Just in case for unintentionally you've visited a stranger's site, you may remove your record from the stranger's footprint log.

Legend of Icons prepared for Mixi's Footprint Feature

Sample Image of "Footprint of My Own" containing  Brandnew Icons on the Nickname List

Tags: Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Winny is the most popular P2P file-sharing software in Japan.

Isamu Kaneko [JP], the developer of Winny, was prosecuted by Kyoto Prosecutors Office. Kaneko was found guilty and fined 1.5 million yen ($15,000). Kaneko and the prosecuter both appealed to Osaka High Court.

4th January, 2009, Toshimitsu Dan [JP], a lawyer of the defendant, and supporters of the defendant had a meeting to share latest information about the trial. [1]

Brief summary of Winny trial:

5th June, 2002, the beta version of Winny was released in a 2channel forum. Winny gained much popularity in Japan as a file sharing software.

27th November, 2003, two Winny users were arrested by a high-tech crime squad of Kyoto Prefectural Police. They were prosecuted for an illegal uploading of copyrighted contents. They were found guilty and got a suspended jail sentence.

9th May 2004, Isamu Kaneko was arrested, and was prosecuted for abetment of copyright violation on 31th May. Kaneko was released on bail on June 1.

Right after the arrest, supporters of Isamu Kaneko formed a website 'freekaneko.com' and a defense fund for him. The fund has been received 16 million yen ($160,000) donations from many anonymous people.

13th December, 2006, Kyoto district court convicted Kaneko and fined 1.5 million yen ($15,000).

October 2005, Kaneko published a book called 'The Technology of Winny'. It describes a P2P file sharing technology which is used in Winny. [2]

[Disclosure] I am taking a leading role in supporting Isamu Kaneko. I am a creator of FreeKaneko.com and a chair of the League for Software Engineers.

1. 無印吉澤 - Winny裁判報告会に行ってきました [JP]
2. Winnyの技術, Isamu Kaneko, ASCII Publishing, 6th October, 2005 - amazon.co.jp [JP] ascii.co.jp [JP]

Tags: Community, Event Report, Japan, Software by Shunichi Arai
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