Japanese terrestrial TV transmitting is set to completely turn to digital on July 24th of 2011.   Here in Tokyo, all TV signals are currently being transmitted from the top of Tokyo Tower (332.5 meters or 1,090 feet high), but a new transmission facility located at a higher altitude is required to cover the Tokyo Metropolitan Area with digital terrestrial TV signals.

Tokyo Sky Tree (610 meters / 2,000 feet high), a new transmission site as well as a possible new landmark for international travelers, is currently under construction in the eastern part of the city, and its construction scene can be watched live on a website.

Live webcams installed at the site are active from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Saturday in Japan Time, meaning from 0am to 8am, Monday through Saturday in UTC.   You can pan and zoom the cameras with backlight compensation feature as though you stood at the site.

Tags: Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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A paper book named “Twitter Shousetsu – 140 ji no Monogatari”(Twitter Novels – 140 Letters Stories) is to be published at the beginning of next month, announced by one of ten professional authors, Mika Naitoh [J]. There will be over 100 very short stories in the book.

According to her blog, the first Japanese book compiling tweet novels is written by 10 professional authors, @EnJoeToh, @toiimasunomo, @SinjowKazma, @Talkingdogdays, @kaworu963, @adachib, @watanabeyayoi, @izutada, @harukiyoshii, and herself, @micanaitoh.

It was born by part of tweet-novel writing movement around the hashtag #twnovel (statistics), which Mika Naitoh suggested in July [J]. There are over 5,000 stories posted both by those professionals and amateurs.

Translation of the first one of Mika Naitoh’s, taking twitter on it:

On twitter, I noticed you the first time in years. Followed the name in secrecy. You do not know it is me. Reading his familiar style with sentiment, will I tell it someday? Days later, you tweeted “Today is my third wedding anniversary”.

As I recently wrote on another article, Japanese can convey roughly doubled information in the same 140 letters limit to English. I cannot translate it within 140 in English.

The publisher, Discover Twenty-One, is planning another tweet novel book with non professional twitter users.

See Also:

#vss English counterpart. VSS stands for Very Short Story.

@140story English short story author on twitter

One Sentence blog – not twitter(140) but in one sentence

Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine – limit by number of words, instead of letters. a compilation book published.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Amazon Japan announced their new premium delivery option “Toujitsu Oisogi Bin”, which is not offered by US Amazon, the same day delivery.

Of course, some restrictions are applied. To get the product in the same day, you need to see that the shipment option is selectable on the product page.

Firstly, not all products are possible for this shipment option, they say.

Secondly, ordering time seems be at the early part of the day. It may depend on products. When I order some popular books just after midnight, it is said to be ordered within about 12 hours for today’s delivery.

Then, your home should be located in Kanto Area (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, Tochigi and Ibaraki – red area on the map above) or Kansai Area (Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Nara, Wakayama and Shiga – blue area).

The number of those prefectures is 13 our of all 47, however, half of population are living in those two area.

The second biggest area Kansai, is covered by their newly opened distribution centre “Amazon Sakai FC”.

The same day delivery option costs 500 yen (5.5 USD).

via BBWatch [J]

See Also:

Amazon Japan’s help page about “Toujitsu Oisogi Bin” [J]

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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