When you find an interesting news headline on screen and click a ticker, you can see more details on it. i-Channel basically requires no data charge.
Tata DoComo is highly expected to deploy new services to Indian market, which have been developed in Japan and are popular among Japanese cellphone users.
You might have already seen photos of a "real" sized Gundam statue standing in Odaiba, Tokyo bay front. If not, you can see thousands of pictures on Flickr.
The organization behind it, Green Tokyo Gundam Project Committee, who claims that building Gundam is for ecology enlightenment and inviting the Olympics to Tokyo in 2016, holds a charity auction on Japan's biggest auction website, Yahoo! Auction. The single winning bidder will be able to stand on top of Gundam's shoulder and have a memorial photo taken by a professional photographer.
As the seller strictly prohibits secondary use of photos on the auction page, and Japan's copyright law does not support fair-use, I avoid to quote those pictures. Please go and take a look here.
For budget travellers, there is another full-sized Gundam, only bust though, at Nasu Highland Park, Tochigi prefecture [J]. There you may climb up to its shoulder and take pictures freely. There are 4 of 1/1 sized Gundams in Japan this summer.
[Update] The final bid was 2,601,000 yen (about 26,000 USD).
Won by McDonalds Japan[J] and the JV, a McDonalds' joint venture with NTT DoCoMo, with their customer relationship marketing project by using cellphone wallet and mobile apps. Every Friday they distribute virtual discount coupons for McDonald's meals to participating members' handsets, which is valid only when paid by NTT DoCoMo's cellphone wallet service.
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Best Award (Mobile Solution Category)
Won by Eole[J], a Tokyo-based web app developing venture, with a new service allowing users to set up an e-mail tree for connecting your friends and colleagues only by posting an e-mail. It's a more convenient way to schedule meet-ups and to manage RSVP from potential participants, and also you need not to worry about possible leak of the participant's private information since those are kept on server-side.
The service is named Raku-Raku Renrakumo[J] or an easy-to-use e-mail tree service. By clicking a banner seen below, you'll be able to watch a brief introduction on the service in Rakugo show style.
Avex Marketing, a Japanese music company in Avex Group, released world's first music/video package sold on microSD memory card.
"micro REBOOT Ichi(one)" by a group THE REBOOT is also on sale on their website [J] for 2,500 yen (about 25USD). It says that the music, video and lyrics PDF in the microSD can be viewed on most of recent cellphones by three major careers (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI au and Softbank Mobile) which have one-SEG TV. The list of about 140 supported cellphones is here.
THE REBOOT is explained as a 6 persons unit combining rock and old-school dance. This microSD is their début on major label.
If you order the memory card on the site, you will get it delivered only in few days. How convenient and I am almost forgetting it is 2009.
Avex is known as the first copy-controlled CD (CCCD) seller in Japan, back in 2002.
Last Friday, Mobile content forum (MCF)[J], a consortium of many Japanese mobile device developers and mobile app developers, announced this year's award[J] winning projects, which were chosen from brand-new innovative projects that were released in the last twelve months.
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Excellent Award (Mobile Content Category)
Won by Weathernews, the world's largest private meteorological company headquartered in one of Tokyo's neighboring prefectures, with the project to share participating users' reports of localized torrential downpours and to forecast its next move for them not as to be caught in possible heavy showers. The company is now inviting 1,000 participants who can put weather cameras on the balconies at their homes, which transmits live sky images to the company every minute from every corner around the country via broadband Internet.
Won by Shiseido with the project of Majolica Mirror, a promotion site of the company's brand new cosmetic lineup "Majolica Majorca[J]" for young women. By e-mailing your portrait to the service, it allows you to receive a picture of your face made up in a new style that you may have never experienced.
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Best Award (Mobile Content Category)
Won by Sammy Networks, a pachinko machine manufacturer and a sister company of well-known game publisher Sega[J], with a mobile site[J] which aims to teach elementary school students and junior high school students how to protect themselves from Internet fraud and to confront cyber bullying.
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Excellent Award (Mobile Content Category)
Won by Honda with a game website for promoting the company's hybrid car named Insight. I wrote a story about this here on Asiajin.
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Best Award (Mobile Platform Category)
Won by NTT DoComo with its i-Concier[J] menu, which shows you an avatar to serve you on the cellphone screen, and it tells you useful information in accordance with your current location and the parameters representing your lifestyle. Your cellphone will automatically collect realtime transit traffic report before your commute, and it will also get a discount coupon for your favourite supermarket before your shopping.
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Best Award (Mobile Platform Category)
Comel[J], Softbank's subsidiary in digital signage advertising business, set up more than 500 electronic billboard screens at shopping complexes, train stations and many places citywide in Fukuoka, a city on Kyushu island. By combining face recognition technology with a camera equipped on the top of each screen, it can count the number of people who views ads on the screen, with the attributes of their gender and generation.
Furthermore, in cooperation with local police authority[J], signage devices tell passers-by updates on criminal incidents that has happened nearby for the future prevention.
(To be continued to the next post for the rest of award-winning projects.)
