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GREE Opens Global Site “Come Play GREE”


GREE’s [J] American subsidiary company GREE International has opened “Come Play GREE,” a global promotion site.

This site is open to the public for general users overseas.  Including titles planned to be offered from this point on, they are introducing Japan-American social games made by GREE and its partners such as “Zombie Jombie,” “Dino Life,” “Driland.”  They also released a promotional YouTube video which opened at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

KDDI’s Subsidiary Wire And Wireless To Offer Free WiFi At Starbucks, Starting From Tokyo


Wire and Wireless (wi2), a subsidiary of Japan’s second largest cellphone carrier KDDI, announced [J] its new free WiFi program at Starbucks Coffee chain-store in Japan.

Free WiFi at cafe? If you have ever tried to find free WiFi in Japan, you know this is a news.

The free WiFi program, “at_STARBUCKS_Wi2″, is sponsored by Starbucks Coffee Japan. What you need to provide is your mail address, when you use at registration. Although Wi2 is a KDDI company, there are no carrier restriction, which you might face at the many Japanese shops/restaurants where posting “free WiFi” stickers.

Wi2 offers English site and customer service besides Japanese, this seems reasonable as in Japan, visiting foreigners are the most likely people who need free WiFi.

They are to install the service since July 2, first from 200 stores in central Tokyo (out of 227), then by the end of this year, 850 of 955 shops nationwide will have it, according to the release. You will be able to search the free WiFi Starbucks here.

via ITMedia [J]

Anonymous Hackers Personified As A Clumsy Girl On Japanese Web


Anonymous, a hacker group known by several internet protest attacks against the recently passed Japanese anti-copyright bill which penalized music downloaders, who are being reported to be attacking Japanese government and political parties websites, gets a little troubles on its first contact with Japanese.

Until this attack began, Anonymous and its hacktivism were known as what happened oversea, nothing related to themselves by Japanese.

Their Twitter account on this time activity, @op_japan, tweeted 5 times in Japanese out of the total 100 tweets, but all of them are not natural Japanese, likely done by machine-translation. Though they are understandable enough, it seemed to make Japanese net users an impression that the person(s) inside is a bit dumb.

# like my Asiajin posts ;-)

As the account later admitted [J], on their first attack, they mistakenly attacked a local lake “Kasumigaura” management office website, instead of Japanese ministries, so-called “Kasumigaseki”.

Another one, attacking the opposition party, The Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) website first prior to the ruling party, The Democratic Party of Japan(DPJ), was not a mistake, they announced [J], which may be true as the both parties approved the bill. However, many Japanese web users thought that Anonymous chose targets without enough research.

On Twitter and 2-channel, some started saying that the Anonymous is like “Dojikko”, which is an Anime/Manga word means a clumsy girl whose mistakes are thought as attractive. Some drew personified character of Anonymous by following the line.

On the Japanese web, more people seem against the bill even before Anonymous’ attack, so this anthropomorphism may show that their positive feeling.

KDDI Releases Pilgrimage Application for Android




KDDI
’s [J] consumer Shikoku branch has released Itsu Demo O Henro [J] (Anytime Pilgrim), an Android application which allows you to experience pilgrimage in everyday life using smartphone’s GPS function.  Download is free.

“Anytime Pilgrim” is a public app in which prioritizes au Smartpass, and depending on the distance walked in everyday life, you can have a simulated experience of a pilgrimage.  It models your distance walked to the pilgrimage route, and you can get a taste of feeling like you’re actually traveling in Shikoku when you do stuff like pushing the stamp upon arriving at “Fudashoo” (temples frequented by pilgrims) or when the guide for famous products and places in Shikoku is displayed.  Furthermore, in addition to being able to enjoy collecting all the stamps which allow you to get all 20 pilgrim avatars, it also includes social functions like “Jun Tomo” (pilgrim buddies) which lets you interchange with other users, and linkage with Facebook and Twitter.

Translation authorized by VSmedia

Social Game “Majimon” Has Campaign With Energy Drinks


NHN Japan [J] is doing a tie-up campaign for their smartphone social RPG “Majimon” involving Suntory Beverage and Food Limited’s [J] “Vitamin Water Speed In” as well as “Energy Gear Water.”  The time period is from May 29th until June 18th.

In this campaign, when users input the 16 digit ID (serial number) on targeted products with a campaign seal into a special web page, they can get original monsters and recovery items in the game.  The special page can be accessed from within the game, and with each ID entered, you can get the recovery item “Vitamin drink” and a lottery ticket.  You can play the lottery one time with four tickets, and 10,000 players will receive the original monster “Biworune.”

Android version here

Translation authorized by VSmedia