Many web companies and individuals are now running a nation-wide, virtual and real (Kyoto, Okayama and Fukuoka in West Japan) hackathon (collaborative programming marathon, see Wikipedia) named "Hack for Japan" [J] through this three days weekend (Monday is holiday, Spring equinox day, in Japan).

Several companies are offering APIs, cloud hosting and data for the event, and new services will be expected to help suffering people from the Eastern Japan earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis.

The list includes several Japanese web companies like Rakuten, Hatena, Yahoo! Japan, Mixi, Sakura Internet, Foreign companies' Japanese branches like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Twitter, Evernote, Cloudant, and foundations like OpenStreetmap Foundation. The list may be adding more contributing companies.

Many web designers, developers and producers have been discussing on ideas on Google Wave and IRC channels. Ideas are being voted(some have English translations) and will be implemented on Monday, and they are expected to be improved even after that, as long as they are necessary.

Most talks are done in Japanese, but there is also an English wave, you might be interested in adding your ideas and advices.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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For the victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, there have been many food and water distribution supplied in all prefectures in Tohoku and Ibaraki pref.

To make suffered people know the info, volunteers are collaborating on making and maintaining database by using Google Maps. The name is Takidashi Map (Takidashi = feeding, soup run in Japanese)

http://ow.ly/4dmEm Miyagi
http://ow.ly/4dmBb Fukushima
http://ow.ly/4dmBu Ibaraki
http://ow.ly/4dmCk Tochigi
http://ow.ly/4dutZ Aomori
http://ow.ly/4duvd Iwate
http://ow.ly/4dEra Yamagata

You may browse that many shelters, shops, local centers are offering feeding, food and/or water supply, free cellphone charge, and other helps, which which day and time they are provided for how many people.

Any organizations, restaurants, supermarket and individual who can serve are recommended to add their info. Many volunteers are collecting info from Twitter timeline and register them to it. Users visiting the place are expected to confirm that the service was really provided there, as there could be fallacious or mistook info.

For many people who can not use PC, because of lack of electricity, or because their primary web environment is cellphone, there are lighter list page for mobile,
http://reader.bz/feed/87/

Cellphone search,
http://www.primedesignworks.com/earthquake/takidashi.php

You may also use Twitter, by sending your address to a Twitter bot @takidashitan. The account @takidashitan will search and reply to you the maximum five nearest locations within 30 kilometers.

# You need to give the address in Japanese, and the address has to start with any of prefecture name in the area affected by the quake.

Takidashitan is working on Google App Engine, and the API specification is publicized.

There are many cellphone usage observed in Tohoku area, even in and near the heavily damaged locations, so cellphone page and Twitter bot are really practical way to help people there.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Japan based international-business consulting company Acima is offering emergency hotline over Skype and MSN Messenger for 24 hours in 15 languages, by using its own resource and forming volunteers from around the world.

Acima has set up a hotline for non Japanese speaking Disaster Victims of Tohoku district - off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake. We are providing you the most updated earthquake information and any other related infomation of your request, and interpretation service using Skype or MSN Messenger 24/7.Over 100 volunteers from all over the world are here for you!!

English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Cantonese, Thai, Tagalog, Korean, Hindi, Marathi, Shanghainese, Indonasian +

According to ITPro [J], foreign victims in the disastrous area can chat with their staff, to ask information like near refugee center locations, soup-run info, medical info, safety information. Translation service is also provided for the victims communicating with Japanese people of local governments, refugee centers and others.

At this point (11:00 a.m. March 18, please re-check their site if you read this article later), they write that currently volunteers who can help in Chinese languages(Mandarin, Taiwanese and Cantonese).

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Mori Buildings announced [J] that Roppongi Hills, office/shopping-mall/residents complex, one of the center of Tokyo and Japan's web industry, where currently Google Japan and Gree reside, once Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten and Livedoor had their offices, is going to provide electricity from its private gas turbine generator to Tokyo Electric Power Co.(TEPCO) to make up for lost supply caused by Fukushima nuclear plant trouble.

photo © 2005 shibainu

The amount of supplied electricity will be 3-4,000kW per day, which is needed for about 1,100 houses.

See Also:

Asiajin » Google Japan Reported To Migrates To Roppongi Hills

Asiajin » Tokyo Parking Machine As Seen From Onboard Camera

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Another new Twitter account follows to the Prime Minister's Office's English version Twitter comes tonight around 9 p.m. by Tokyo Electric Power Co.(TEPCO), who has been tackling two difficult problems, Fukushima nuclear plant radiation leak and possible blackout of greater Tokyo, after the Japan's earthquake.

This Japanese Twitter account quickly got over 50,000 followers, which shows how people's interests are pointed on TEPCO now. The first two tweets are identical with 1 hour gap, said,

"It is an official TEPCO account. Thank you for your cooperation for saving energy, we could avoid planned outage though the demand for electricity today was quite high. Your contribution will be appreciated tomorrow and after that. See the detail for the rolling blackout here, http://www.tepco.co.jp/index-j.html"

There are a lot of critics on TEPCO that they did not disclose enough information, both reasonable and unreasonable, from inside Japan and overseas, from individuals and governments.

It must be very hard for TEPCO to follow the implicit rules on social media, which many Japanese Twitter users already pointed out by seeing the first two tweets. We keep watching if this will be a good new channel to connect the half-public huge enterprise and people.

via ITMedia. Thanks to confirm that this account is real.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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