Povie by a Japanese design unit Shikake is a movie decoration service in Japanese popular “purikura” (wikipedia) style. The service is bilingual, English and Japanese.

On regular purikura, you place letters, characters and shapes over your snapshot with buttons/tablet/touch panel. However, Povie will detect your motion and decorate it automatically with “Kawaii Engine”(kawaii = cute). The decorated short movie looks like this,

You may decorate in 6 different styles: night-club hostess, gothic and lolita, mori-girl (forest-girl), teeny, celebrity-like, current Japanese mainstream.

The service is currently available on iPhone and i-Mode/i-Appli. Facebook app is also under development. How it works on Docomo cellphone is demonstrated on YouTube,

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Nico Nico Douga, Japanese popular video sharing service, released a feature phone app Nico Nico Remocon(=remote controller) [J] for Docomo feature phone.

The app makes your cellphone be a controller of your playing movie on Nico Nico Douga on your PC. The app is available as a free option for premium member (over million users who are paying for priority bandwidth and features). You log on the Nico Nico Douga both on PC and the cellphone app, the signal of cellphone buttons pressed will be transmitted via the internet to your PC. Browse, search and comment are also available on cellphone.

Here is a demo uploaded by a Nico Nico user.

via CNET Japan[J]

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Early part of June news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 2)

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Yahoo! Loco Begins
• IIJ Starts “Amazon S3 Level” Cloud Strage Service
• Inter-Carrier SMS Announced By Docomo
• Retty – Social Restaurant Recommendation Service
• The People’s Liberation Army of China prohibits their service persons to use online dating site, Beijing News says.
• Linus Torvalds’ Keynote Report At LinuxCon Japan 2011
• NES Masster Takahashi(Takahashi Meijin) Interview. Why he left Hudson
• Oote Komachi Releases Its Official Character Komachi-san
• Hello Kitty Zombie Friends and Hello Kitty Monster. Seems official, so Sanrio approved them!
• Sony Walkman Site Makes Your CD Jacket From Twitter/Facebook. Made one with @Asiajin
• Traditional Folk Crafts Modernized To Super Slim For LCD Era
• Smartphone Data Transfer Speed Research In East Japan
• Over Million Docomo Users Facing Voice Call Disconnected by glitch
• EC Navi Founder Arrested By Running Unauthorized Kyabakura
• Japanese pop group Supercell features the world’s first virtual pop star, Hatsune Miku, as its lead singer. available exclusively on iTunes and Amazon on Tuesday, June 21st.
• Access Announces Its New Webkit-based Browser Provided On Nintendo 3DS
• Japan FTC Isses Cease And Desist Order For DeNA. Gree CEO tweets on JFTC order
• Pompare Announced Its Double-Priced-Claimed Coupon Has No Issue. They sold 3,980 yen generator with 54% discount, but many online shops selling it for 2,000-3,500 yen.
• Tokyo-based Nuggest Inc. launches a marriage hunting website especially for geeks.
• KDDI Decides A Take Over Bid For WebMoney
• Ion Starts 980 Yen / Max 100Kbps 3G Data Service Using Docomo Network
• Gree Featured On NHK English Program via CEO’s tweet

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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