Hokuriku Unconference

Hokuriku Unconference, probably the first unconference style geek event in Hokuriku area, north-central part of Japan, will be held at Ishikawa National College of Technology, Tsubata, Ishikawa prefecture near Kanazawa-city on this Sunday November 1st. I am travelling to attend it. The conference is all in Japanese. Application form [J].

KDDI Commits To Invest On IVP Fund

On Wednesday, Tokyo-based independent venture capital Infinity Venture Partners (IVP) LLP announced that Japan’s second largest telecommunication company KDDI has committed to invest on IVP Fund B, L.P.   The fund has fundraised from Japanese tech ventures, and is investing in mobile start-up companies in Japan and Mainland China.  (Refer to these Asiajin article [1][2] for… Continue reading KDDI Commits To Invest On IVP Fund

Mixi Launches Social App Service For Cellphone Users

Japan’s largest social networking website Mixi[J] launched a social app service for cellphone users called “Mixi Appli Mobile” on Tuesday. The app service’s PC edition called “Mixi Appli” was introduced last August, which allows any Mixi users to choose their favorites from a showcase of the apps and to enjoy playing with their social friends… Continue reading Mixi Launches Social App Service For Cellphone Users

Shoryuken! Livedoor Introduces World First Joystick Notation For Wiki

Livedoor Wiki has added a new notation [J] for gamers who want to share the game’s tips and tricks. If you write like this, &pad(ps3){6,2,3,plus,shikaku} then it will be displayed as this, For convenience, a game command editor is provided so you may press those buttons to generate notations like above. (all screenshots are from… Continue reading Shoryuken! Livedoor Introduces World First Joystick Notation For Wiki

KDDI To Increase Tribrid Powered Cellphone Base Stations To Reduce CO2 Emissions

Japan’s no.2 cellphone carrier KDDI au announced to start the deployment of a new power control system to their cellphone base stations as to switch the power sources to three ways of solar power, battery and midnight power service. Solar-powered stations used to be deployed only in the areas which have no access to commercial… Continue reading KDDI To Increase Tribrid Powered Cellphone Base Stations To Reduce CO2 Emissions

Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

Mobile social gaming platform GREE‘s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka repeatedly said in the last weeks he wants every Japanese to use GREE eventually (yeah, right). He also said he wants to beat direct rival Mobage-town in terms of user base in six months, and Mixi in twelve months. That was in September. And today, at the… Continue reading Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

IBM Research Lab in Tokyo Develops Technology to Control Reading Flow

Researchers at IBM Research – Tokyo is working on a way to easily arrange the reading flow of screen readers and mobile devices. With the visual editor technology they are developing, webmasters can drag-and-drop the connected arrows that will lead the screen reader in an arbrary order. You can even adjust the granularity of the… Continue reading IBM Research Lab in Tokyo Develops Technology to Control Reading Flow

Yahoo! Japan To Shut Down Email Newsletter Service

Whilst US Yahoo! dumps their free web hosting service Geocities with huge number of pages painfully, semi-independent and more successful sibling Yahoo! Japan also decides and announces their a bit old-fashioned service, Yahoo! Merumaga next April. Merumaga is abbreviation of “Mail Magazine”, which means email newsletter in Japan (the word “Nyu-su Reta-“=”newsletter” is also understandable… Continue reading Yahoo! Japan To Shut Down Email Newsletter Service

Buddhist Sutra Chanting Distribution On Cellphone

Ryoho-ji Temple [J], located at west suburb of Tokyo, is known on the web as its “Moe“-based proselytization. This time the chief priest Nakazato, a person of ideas, introduced new mobile movie service. After purchasing a pre-paid card, user can read QR-code on its back and access to the movie on which Nakazato chanting Buddhist… Continue reading Buddhist Sutra Chanting Distribution On Cellphone

Mobile Giant Gree Remodelled Its Unpopular PC Site With Twitter Clone

Following to one of the Big 3 social networking service Mixi’s clone Mixi Voice, which made Evan Williams “unpleasant”, another successful, probably now most vital among three, social networking Gree enters into microblog service (registration required for all Gree pages besides the top login page). As once defeated a battle against Mixi on PC web,… Continue reading Mobile Giant Gree Remodelled Its Unpopular PC Site With Twitter Clone