KDDI R&D Labs announced today that they developed a new system which can generate naturally arranged photo album in comic-style sequence of frames from video and photos.

Here is an example of the generated album from an wedding photos.

According to the release [J, pdf], it is humdrum to line up the same shaped photos.

It looks better if you put photos into the pre-defined variable frames, but only doing so may place a vertically long photo into a landscape box, may make a main person put out of the frame.

This technology will recognize portrait/landscape and persons, automatically curve them out and fit them in balanced frames.

They are planning to popularize the technology into a service to create comic-style photo album as a visible label of home-made videos and recorded TV programs.

via Nikkei ITPro [J]

Tags: Japan, Technology by Akky Akimoto
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Nico Nico Douga, Japanese online movie sharing service which differentiates itself against YouTube with comments overlay-display, announced some news [J] at its first user conference in oversea, Taipei, Taiwan [zh].

One of the news is that Nico Nico Douga is planning to open a nightclub with 5 huge LED wallscreens with projecting its movies and user comments, named "Nicofarre" at Roppogi in July.

The name "Nicofarre" easily reminds Japanese people a nightclub "Velfarre", which was the Asian largest when opened in 1994, closed at the end of 2006. The new Nicofarre will use the exact same building where Velfarre was.

The teaser site has a movie. Someone copied onto YouTube,

Nicofarre might be a new tourist place where you can experience latest culture on Japanese web from this summer.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of May news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3)

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• KDDI introduces the Android app on which a nice-looking guy tells you what the date it is.
• All About Japan launches a fashion and trend portal for Chinese womens.
• NTT DoCoMo and Mizuho Bank introduce the Android AR app to navigate you to the nearest branch or teller machine.
• Pioneer's New AR Car Navigation System
• The Ultimate Machine Upgraded by creator. copied to YouTube
• NetMile And Modiphi To Provide Like-For-Virtual-Points Program For Enterprise Facebook Users
• Batara Eto's Photo Sharing Service Ficia To Cease At The End Of June
• Japanese Samurai Doll Vendor Releases Darth Vader Doll On Its 300th Anniversary. (English)
• Japan's First Arrest On YouTube Upload - Boys Group Arashi Concert Movie
• Mobage for Smartphone App Version Begins On Android
• KDDI au To Provide Simplified Menu For Android. ref. How today's tech alienates the elderly | PC Pro
• Japan Represents For World Cosplay Summit Will Be Chosen By Using Facebook Like
• NTT Communication's Cloud Service Cloud9 Stops For Over A Week
• Facebook's Javier Olivan Told Nikkei That Facebook Japan Increased Half A Million Every Month. - Well, it increased half a million once.
• Twitter-Docomo Strategic Alliance
• Triump's This Year Bra Is "Support Japan Bra" With Messages From The World
• (4chan's Origin)Futaba-channel iPhone Viewer
• Twitter Japan Is Hiring Customer Support/Localization Staff (one person who can do both)
• Chorori, a funny web service that helps you anonymously notify someone that his/her nose hair shows
• Docomo's 2011 Summer Model Catalog Leaked. on the morning of the press conference
• Docomo's summer model press conference on Ustream
• Hatena Releases Hatena Bookmark Chrome App
• Google Japan Opens Pre-Earthquake Tohoku Commemoration Service
• Google Japan Announces 12 Japanese Web Apps On Chrome Web Store
• Popular Facebook Places in Japan Are Full Of Int'l Airports, Tokyo And Shinkansen Stations
• KDDI au's Official Facebook Page
• Naked Technology launches Potofo.to, a web service that allows you to share pics only w/ private contacts of ur FB conection.
• Trippiece launches a social network that allows users to share travel experience about the cities they've been to.
• Fujitsu and Arkray jointly intros consulting service for diabetics, using a set of cellphone and blood glucose checker.
• @rarejob_jp, a start-up providing on-Skype Eng teaching by native speakers, partners w/ KDDI and intros the Android app.
• UEC Tokyo Researches Touch Panel Giving Feedbacks On Your Other Palm
• Koozyt And NHN Japan Releases AR Idol Camera App On Android. release by NHN Japan
• Roudoku Shoujyo's Male Version Roudoku Shitsuji(Butler)
• Pompare Selling Over 500,000 McDonalds Coupon(500yen) For 100yen. It's not McDonald's promotion but Recruit itself's. they seem to want more registered members. They did it before with Haagen-Dazs.
• Yahoo! Japan ID Rumored To Be Hacked And Leaked. Yahoo! Japan Officially Denied There Were No Such Incident. Some say that it might be caused by people complaining who gave their Yahoo! Japan Mail password to Facebook's friend search.
• Yahoo! Loco's Postponed Release(from April 1st by earthquake) Set On June 1st (from newsletter)
• 48yo Japanese male cosplayer wearing girl's clothes
• Adidas Japan Apologizes Their Rookie Employee Leaked A Soccer Player Info Over Twitter. Later she was reported to leave the company only after one month work, likely because of this.
• Natalie Launches A News Site For Afternoon Snack
• Docomo Enhances Pay-Over-Cellphone service. Raised Limit To 200,000 Yen
• Super Mario x Converse Collaboration Model To Be Released In July [En]

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

Tags: Japan IT Links by Akky Akimoto
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DeNA has just announced [J] that the board had decided to replace the head of the company after planned ordinary general meeting of shareholders on June 25th.

[Update] DeNA issued English release, too. I did not need to translate them. Thank you for a comment, Tomo.

Tomoko Namba, who founded DeNA in March 1999 and led the company for over decade, is going to leave the president/CEO because of taking care of family member, but stays on the board.

COO Isao Moriyasu, who drove the DeNA's primary business Mobage since its early stage, will be the president and social media division director. No "CEO" title is used on the release.

Namba owns 14.84% of the company stocks, the head of shareholders. Moriyasu owns 347,739 stocks according to the release, which is about 0.2%.

They are also to change some executive titles, like moving up CFO to chairman, renaming CTO with the matched Japanese words(Saikoh Gijyutsu Sekininsha). As a result of them, all CXO titles will disappear from their executives.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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A Japanese blogger ndruger made a single-page browser action game only using the latest CSS. You need to catch 101 cows by clicking.

Only the latest versions of Chrome/Safari can run this game. Firefox/IE are not supported.

Tags: Technology by Akky Akimoto
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