Asiajin

On Wednesday, Osaka-based start-up and iPhone developer Feedtailor[J] introduced a new iPhone app (clicking this link will launch iTunes), which allows you to see a map of street crimes in Osaka for the purpose of raising people’s attention and preventing further possible crimes.

Feedtailor’s partner and Osaka-based tech start-up C-LIS[J] also released on Monday its Android app[J] having the same features.

Based on information collected from the local city police, the Osaka Prefectural Police Deparment[J] transmits e-mail alerts to local citizens for crime prevention. By mashing the text alerts with Google Maps, the two cellphone app inventors have succeeded in making it possible to see crimes on the map at a glance.

Japan’s police system is operated by each prefectural government. As for regions other than Osaka, some prefectural police have a different ways to transmit alerts to the local citizens, but others have none. If the national police agency had defined a protocol to transmit alerts and brought the prefectural police nationwide online, we would be able to see crime information for all of Japan.

Osaka is known for its high crime rate, and this must be one of the triggers that the two apps were born in that region.

(Proofread by: Sean O’Hagan)

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, New Service by Masaru IKEDA
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ZENRIN DataCom’s[J] new application is a valiant push toward a genuine GPS car navigation system for the iPhone 3G. It’s currently sitting at No. 4 on the App Store’s Top Paid list and it only(!) costs 1,800 yen (at the time of writing, just under US$20). The application’s name is いつもナビ 地図＋ルート (apologies if this is unintelligible) which translates roughly to “AnyTime Navi: Maps+Routes”. (OS 2.1 or higher required.)

The maps are multi-touch and their data is optimized for the iPhone, while the route data covers almost all of Japan with 400,000 entries (map and route data are ZENRIN’s own).

Functions include route planning, toll road information (toll roads are quite common here), GPS tracking, search (using keyword and/or data types). These functions and others can be gleaned from the following screen shots.

Without voice instructions, the app can’t replace a standard navigation system, and could prove dangerous if constantly monitored by a driver. Using handheld devices while driving is against Japan’s Road Traffic Act.

The iPhone’s SDK does not allow realtime route guidance, but this app gets pretty darn close.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, New Service by Sean OHagan
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