Human Form 3D Input Device QUMARION Ready For Pre-Users

Celsys [J] have begun to recruit the first pre-users of “QUMARION,” [J] a 3DCG data input device. “QUMARION” is a human shaped device with joints developed from 2009 by the teamwork of  Softether, Celsys, and Pipian, a venture business company launched by The University of Electro-Communications. It can capture the doll’s poses at specific moments… Continue reading Human Form 3D Input Device QUMARION Ready For Pre-Users

Classic “Pokeberu”(Pager) Game Now On iPhone

Omoshiro Houjin Kayac [J] has released the game app “Pokebell” for iOS.  Download is free. “Pokeberu” is a fast hitting game app based on the classic gadget, pager (or beeper) which was a big hit in the time when cell phones weren’t as commonplace.  You quickly push the buttons displayed on the screen and input… Continue reading Classic “Pokeberu”(Pager) Game Now On iPhone

Coverage of Mobage Open Platform Forum 2012

Last Wednesday 25th took place the annual Mobage Open Platform Forum. A huge event, with hundreds of attendees and lots of presentations. Still, the most interesting points were related with the need of making Japanese mobile social games global. The message from DeNA to the developers was crystal clear: go abroad and go ASAP. Localize… Continue reading Coverage of Mobage Open Platform Forum 2012

Sadako The Ring Memorial Pitch

Sadako, from the popular Japanese horror movie Ring, threw the opening pitch at Tokyo Dome on Hokkaido Nippon-ham Fighters vs Chiba Lotte Marines on April 25th. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOB9kZiOD50 A photo after the ceremony, https://twitter.com/#!/hochi_baseball/status/195085224986677248 More photos on Nikkan Sports [J], Sanspo [J]

Star Wars Social Card Game Cards Offered With Dominos Pizza

Dominos Pizza Japan [J] has begun sales of “Star Wars Special Set Volume 2” from April 23rd, and in conjunction with this they’ve announced that they will distribute real cards from KONAMI’s [J] social card game “Star Wars Collection.”  This marks the first collaboration between Dominos Pizza and KONAMI. “Star Wars Special Set” is a… Continue reading Star Wars Social Card Game Cards Offered With Dominos Pizza

Event: Echelon 2012 Japan Satellite In Tokyo This Friday (April 27)

Singapore-based tech blog e27 is holding Echelon 2012 on June 11-12, a startup event the site calls the biggest of its kind in Asia. As in previous years, Echelon will take place in Singapore (the first one was organized back in 2010), and the main event is preceded by a number of lead-up events in… Continue reading Event: Echelon 2012 Japan Satellite In Tokyo This Friday (April 27)

Yahoo! Japan News Introduces Facebook Comment System

Japan’s largest news portal Yahoo! Japan’s Yahoo! News silently added Facebook comments on news pages, between Yahoo! Japan’s own comment system and Realtime-search results from Twitter. According to an article [J] on How-to Sharing site Nanapi by its CEO Kensuke Furukawa, Yahoo! Japan’s COO Kentaro Kawanabe, who were recently appointed, posted a test comment on… Continue reading Yahoo! Japan News Introduces Facebook Comment System

Three Of Japan’s Top Telcos Standardize Display Of Email Emoticons

Three of Japan’s four biggest mobile carriers, namely NTT Docomo, KDDI au, and eAccess, are about to make it easier for their combined subscriber base of roughly 90 million people to exchange emails with other. The plan is to standardize the display of emoticons, or emoji in Japanese, across handsets offered by the three networks. As… Continue reading Three Of Japan’s Top Telcos Standardize Display Of Email Emoticons

Japan’s Web News Week 16

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Tohoku Websites For Foreign Travellers Are Lots Of Machine-Translated Mistakes – There were no budget for translations so that some company voluntarily worked on it with machine translation without human check.… Continue reading Japan’s Web News Week 16

Rakuten To Dissolve Lekutian In China, Joint-Mall With Baidu

Japan’s largest e-mall company Rakuten today announced [J] that they would shut down its Chinese e-mall Lekutian(rakuten.cn) planned in May, 2012. Rakuten jointly established Lekutian with China’s search engine giant Baidu in January 2010, and began the mall in October 2010. The reason is explained as Lekutian did not show the growth they had expected,… Continue reading Rakuten To Dissolve Lekutian In China, Joint-Mall With Baidu