Ohma Inc., a Tokyo-based tech start-up known for semantic web-based who’s-who app Spysee[J], released a Kickstarter-like crowd fundraising service called “ReadyFor?[J]” this week.

The service intends to giving fundraising opportunities to amateur filmmakers, musicians and artists who would like to publish their works. If you invest in someone’s plan to develop his/her work, in return, you can get benefits like putting your names on it and seeing him/her face-to-face.

The company is currently running a campaign for helping the earthquake victims in the Tohoku area, for the time being, all the revenues earned from their services will be donated for the disaster relief efforts.

The following is a video clip shooting Miss Mera from Ohma has presented the app at Startup Dating‘s lightening talk session.

See Also:

• Japan’s Kickstarter-like Online Patronage Platform Campfire To Be Launched
  
• Spysee’s web campaign: Collect 1 million Yen for Japan’s Paralympics ski team

Tags: Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Tokyo-based tech start-up Pido[J] unveiled the company’s first iPhone app today, which is called TwitVoice[J] and allows you to leave your voice messages via Twitter.   It’s a free app, and you can tweet with your real voice recorded within fifteen seconds.   The company expects to add some features in the future to attract the users more.

Pido was a tech start-up specializing in mobile business and co-founded in 2010 by Yusuke Tanaka, previously serving as the managing director for Fractalist[J], and Ryo Umezawa, the managing director of J-Seed Ventures.

The following is a video clip shooting Mr. Umezawa has presented the app at TechWave‘s 1000 English Speakers.

See Also:

• JIMS On The Plane: What They Learn From SV Tech Start-ups

Tags: Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Japan has quite a few “social drawing services” that let users upload self-drawn images and connect with each other. But Pixiv is the biggest of them all.

The eponymous company behind the service has announced that Pixiv hit 3 million members on March 29. The number of users doubled since January last year, when we reported that Pixiv counted 1.5 million members. All in all, it took 1,296 days to hit the 3 million mark.

The page views even more than doubled in that time frame, growing from 1 billion per month to a staggering 2.3 billion (including mobile Pixiv). This is not too surprising, as members post 22,000 drawings daily (there are now a total of 17.7 million drawings on the site).

If you want to give Pixiv a spin, you can sign up in English here (even though the service shows a weird mix of both languages on some pages).

I can also recommend the great entry on Pixiv on Wikipedia, which highlights the background and history of the service in English.

Tags: Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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Kamakura based web/app company Kayac reproduced a cyber space in a popular anime series “Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex(S.A.C.)” at Parco Part 1 department store, Shibuya, Tokyo.

By using kinect input device with big screens, visitors can experience to chase and catch out Tachikoma, an AI tank (Wikipedia) in the virtual space.

A new age in interactive technology takes you directly into the world of anime.

Celebrating the 3D re-release of “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society” (ph9.jp/​) from March 26, Kayac Inc. has created a special promotional booth that places you right inside cyberspace.

Using Microsoft’s Kinect Sensor visitors can interact with the virtual anime landscape in the Cyberspace System using just body gestures and movement. Your mission: Locate and capture the Tachikoma character in the cyberspace. Be warned, you only have a limited time!

No joysticks, no controllers, no buttons…Float freely through cyberspace just by twisting your body to turn, leaning forward or back to shift perspective, and placing one step in front or behind to move. You can finally “capture” the Tachikoma by sweeping down with one arm.

Try the experience for yourself at the S.A.C. Premium Shop inside monozoku, on the fifth floor of Parco department store in Shibuya, from March 24th to April 19th. It’s harder than it looks!

Hat tip to our reader Jake.

Amazon.com

Tags: Japan, Video by Akky Akimoto
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Shoeisha made a 2011′s 15th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, the most popular Japanese manga(comic) magazine which is sold 3 million copies every week, online for free on Yahoo! Japan [J] and Nico Nico Seiga [J]. “Seiga” means static image, opposite to “douga”(movie). Nico Nico Seiga is a service to share images run by Nico Nico Douga company Dwango.

The 15th issue was sold on March 14th, 3 days after the Eastern Japan earthquake/tsunami. The editorial team announced, “The earthquake affected delivery of the issue, and some people still could not get and read. As an emergency plan, we decide to publish it online”.

21 comics including “Naruto”, “Bleach” and “One Peace” on the issue will be available online until April 27th.

The rival comic magazine company Kodansha also announced [J] that they will release some issues of 6 manga magazines(Weekly Shonen Magazine, Weekly Young Magazine, Comic Morning, Comic Evening, Kiss, Be-Love) on their website.

Despite huge success on cellphone comic, paper comic and magazines are still huge in Japan culture. Those publishers have been always sensitive on manga digitization, by fearing piracy. The disaster urged them to take this experiment, which may make another move in near future.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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