As we reported here on Asiajin, Japan’s largest mobile gaming company Gree[J] partnered with mig33, a Singapore-born and currently US-based social network which has become the most popular in South East Asia.

Mig33 recently launched a developer program, which allows mobile game developers to make revenue by developing games on a platform which is compatible with Gree’s one[J]. Attending the program could be a chance to give their apps reach more than 50 million users in the region, and the most popular sets of the apps published on the platform may be migrated for GREE’s Japanese mobile users too.

As of this writing, 12 developers from 7 countries has been participating in the program, which may cause keener competition in developing mobile gaming apps because more developers not only in Japan but also those from foreign countries will be forced to sharpen swords on the common international arena, in publishing best-selling apps.

Meanwhile, in terms of global expansion by big name gaming platform operators, DeNA recently announced they would launch their Mobage service in English-speaking countries and Mainland China.

See Also:

• Gree To Take Several Percent Stake In Singapore’s SMS/IM-based Social Network Mig33
• Gree acquires OpenFeint for $104 million as part of global expansion
• Japan’s Mobile Social Gaming Giant GREE Partners With China’s Tencent (QQ)

Tags: Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of July news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3)

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Asahi Shimbun’s continuing special coverage on the diasaster relief and recovery.
• CyberAgent Launches Ameba Studio – 9000 Celebs Livestream via Cnet Japan
• The iPhone app that notifies you when your follower stops following you on Twitter. by Adways, an affiliate rep. – there are many of such web services so not really new, but covered well in Japanese. Maybe because being an iPhone app
• Google+ Icon Generator on Twibbon
• Glory Developing e-Book Vendor Machine From Which You Buy Anonymously – digital but not-traceable
• Facebook Japan Offered Coupon Who Visits Their Office 3 Times. The planned gift all seemed gone. Facebook Japan did not disclose its office address publicly, so this might be limited test within their collaborators.
• Weekly Photo Magazine Flash Features Hatsune Miku On Cover, First Virtual Person In 25 Years
  
• Street Ad Boasting “No Power Consumed” – paper ad is a great energy-saver in this after-disaster era.
  
• Gaga Tetsuko Facebook Profile Generator – from this boom
• EMO Open Source Game Engine Lets You Make iOS/Android Game In Single Source Code. [En] author’s explanation [J]
• Klab unveils Cheerz (Japanese edition), which allows users to chat with others browsing the same website as you. Its English version was introduced last April.
• Nico Nico Douga Disco Nicofarre Sets Movie Specification For Wallscreens
• Nicofarre Opening Event To Feature AKB48 And Tohoshinki
• NHK Aiming All PC Users As Its Forced Subscribers
• Ruby Creator Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto Takes Chief Ruby Architect Of Heroku [En]
• Photo-album manufacturer Nakabayashi introduces water-powerd rechargeable battery NoPoPo.
• Zynga Japan Shuts Down Their 1st And 2nd Apps On Mixi
• El Shaddai Character Tops On Boys Contest On Taiwanese Department Store via ITMedia
• iPad App To Tweet By Breathing Out – could help challenged people
• Sony and Adobe Systems jointly announce to hold an Android app contest.
• Inago, a Tokyo-based system developer specializing in human-computer interaction technology, introduces a personal digital assistant app for Android. Available at Samsung apps for free.
• Sony opened up their Japanese Facebook page
• Gallaxy S Space Ballon Project – Live streaming from the handset flying in the stratosphere. (Samsung’s 3-day promotion campaign) via RBB Today
• YouTube Adds Japanese Transcription Support
• Akihabara Curry Shop Presents Free Drink For A Human And A Figure Couple
• Japanese Government Seeking A Company To Watch “False” Tweets Around Nuclear Power
• Japanese Universities With High Ratio Of Facebook Users – most are the universities known by more exchange students, English classes
• Skype Japan explains what Dentsu exclusively gets from them
• Two Dommune Books Published Soon
• Humanoid Serves In Osaka Cafe via Slashdot Japan
• A campaign site called World Game Project was opened by Sony to promote Western games in Japan.
• AllAbout Japan Testing Real-Name Q and A Service GoodAnswers via CNET Japan

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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[Update 2011-08-01] Some emoji-s may cause troubles by bugs. NAOI reported [J] folder with emoji-s categorized in specific section could disappear.

Japanese blogger NAOI pointed out how Lion, the new version of Mac OS X, added more support of color emoji on its system level.

Gmail has been known its emoji support, but that support was done by displaying those emoji characters with converted images. On Lion, the color emoji-s are available as regular letters on operating system level, which means you can create color-emoji folders,

and files,

Some applications can not show them in color. Your sending those strangely named files to older Mac OS, Windows or other OS may cause issues.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Nyotai-Goyomi (=girl’s body calendar. The word nyotai is the same one in notorious nyotai mori) is a set of girls’ photos who has date drawn somewhere on her skin.

The date drawn on girls seem to be in various formats including Japanese digits. If you don’t understand Japanese date notations, these apps may be not so useful. Well, your smartphone can easily show current date for free so people who purchase this may not care the information itself.

Bijin Dokei(Tokei) achieved huge success in Japan with “Time” and girls so this one may be welcomed, too.

Every month, new Nyotai Goyomi application are published on iPhone and Android under different themes.

• March (Maid)
• April (Schoolgirls)
• May (Kimono, traditional Japanese cloth)
• June (Nurse)
• July (Working girls)

Photos of some date are on the developer’s blog [J].

via GirlsNews [J]

Nyotaigoyomi Book

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Opt has begun to implement the social recommendation application market “myappee,” which knows which Android apps are popular based on “Like this” and user tweets. New applications are also open for registration [J].

Myappee is a service which introduces popular applications for Android. It combines “ranking.” “recommended,” and “points” to introduce the truly most popular applications to the user. It aggregates users’ word of mouth (tweets, Facebook “Like,” etc.) with download count using and original algorithm, in cooperation with Twitter and Facebook, and is also able to introduce applications recommended by friends.

It is also linked with T point, a service by Culture Convenience Club (CCC). It grants users one point for every 100 yen (US$1.2) spent on applications, and likewise points can be used to purchase applications. From now, during the campaign period, points will also be granted for free application downloads, and the service will be offered to T members for a special price.

original article on VSMedia

Tags: Japan by Chiho Komoriya
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