Girl's Kaomoji Jiten 5000 (Facial-expression Words Dictionary 5000) by Pedigree(Android)/ADandD(iOS) is a free smartphone application from which you can copy over 5,000 Japanese-style text drawings Kaomoji to decorate your message.

Those 5,000 facial expressions are categorized into 10;

• Greetings
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Action
• Talk
• Anger/Argument
• Love/Friendship
• Life
• Special occasion/Weather
• Animals/Characters

Each category has many sub-categories. Here is the greetings sub-categories which have "Good morning", "Hello", "Good evening", etc.

Hitting one will show you several different expressions. Here are "Sadness"-"Weeping" ones,

You may copy and paste it, or on Android call it from Japanese(or other) Input Method.

Android version is downloaded over 500,000 times, and the average of over 1,500 application reviews is pretty high, 4.4.

There are iPhone version and Android version. There are also localized versions for Chinese, Korean and English. Some variants are not free.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Decopic, a "kawaii" photo editing and sharing app Tokyo-based startup Community Factory developed for iOS and Android, has hit the 500,000 user milestone - in just 2 weeks. According to the company, the app was released on October 19 and reached that user base on November 2.

Community Factory says they followed a multi-platform, multi-language strategy: Decopic is connected to Facebook, Twitter, Mixi, and Sina Weibo and Ren Ren in China. It's currently available in English, Chinese, French, Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean.

Here's the geographic user break down:

Decopic is very similar to Snapeee, another kawaii mobile photo service from Japanese company Mind Palette: users can "decorate" pictures with over 300 so-called stamps, frames, text, etc.

It's available for free:
iOS
Android

Here's a Decopic promo video:

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Serkan Toto
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Mitsubishi Electric has developed a prototype app for iPhone and Android phones that could make life for the millions of commuters living in Tokyo a bit easier. The so-called "Yamanote Train Net" [JP] app is currently being tested in one train on the famous Yamanote line that circles the center of Tokyo.

Users can expect to get various information (and ads) delivered to their smartphone when they enter the train.

Mitsubishi explains what's needed for the app to work:

"This is a completely closed Wi-Fi environment in a train. Content from a server on the train is basically provided via Wi-Fi, so the service isn't directly connected to the outside world."

The app tells users how crowded the train in question is (in real-time), what the temperature is like, when and where it's best to change trains, which trains are delayed, etc.

There is also a "channel" for advertisements (videos), but it will be also possible to download coupons or "entertainment" content on your iPhone or Android phone.

Downloads (Japanese only, free):
iOS
Android

This video, shot by Diginfo TV, provides more insight (Japanese/English subbed):

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, New Service, Video by Serkan Toto
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BCN Ranking announced the statistics of the first week sales of iPhone 4S in Japan. At this new version, the nation's 3rd carrier Softbank Mobile's exclusive distribution since iPhone 3G ends, the 2nd largest carrier KDDI au enters to sell iPhone.

The ranking shows the two carriers' iPhone 4S with three variations of memory-size, 64M/32M/16M, total 6 variations occupied the top 6.

BCN Ranking counted the carriers share only within iPhone 4S [J], Softbank took 51.7%, whilst KDDI au gained 48.3%.

BCN Ranking collected the number of sold units from shops, which it claims to cover 40% of Japanese retails. The retail shops do not include Apple Stores and carriers stores.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Akky Akimoto
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The iPhone 4S is coming to Japan: both SoftBank Mobile and new provider KDDI au, the No. 3 and 2 mobile carriers in this country, will start accepting pre-orders from Friday October 7, as shown on Apple Japan's website.

The iPhone 4S will then become available exactly one week later, on October 14 (as in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK).

According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, KDDI will offer the phone in 1,200 locations all over the country, including electronics retailers. The company plans to boost this number to 5,000 as early as at the end of next month.

Just like SoftBank, KDDI will offer the iPhone 4S only in brick-and-mortar stores, not online.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Serkan Toto
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