Public-interest Foundation East Japan Railroad Culture Foundation Railroad Museum [J] and the Tokyo University graduate school information technology graduate course are organizing the “Digital Railway Museum,” aligning with the specially planned “Time Travel Exhibit” on display at the railroad museum.  They will use new exhibition techniques as a result of both parties’ collaborative research.

The main features of the exhibit are as such:  When you point the portable display towards the exhibit railcars, the “Train memory peep window” allows you to see the appearance of railcars active these days superimposed over the exhibit railcars; make the pushcar of the train that appeared in the display case via LCD become transparent or make it run; observe from various angles with “Digital display case ~ Pushcar GO! ~;”  “Take time seat” makes your self from several seconds in the past coexist with your current self as a 3D space that appears before your eyes when you sit down in the train seat; The “Navilog” guide system uses the application in the portable display and concerns the history zone’s exhibit railcars; “Digital memory notes” use digital technology to reproduce “Memory notes” placed in unmanned stations and so on.  It is an exhibit tying together the present and the past using plenty of AR (Augmented Reality) technology.  Also the same exhibition’s “Hayabusa Board” (falcon board) is digitally archived and appears on the internet.  The Post-Visit HAYABUSA Board [J], where Hayabusa Board Messages written by the spectators themselves can be seen by other eyes and at home, is also open to the public.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Railroad Museum And Tokyo University Open “Digital Railway Museum”

Last Friday, I was invited to Jakarta to give a keynote presentation at the Sparxup Awards 2011 event for Indonesian startups.

The presentation's topic was "Innovation, Imitation & Hyper-Localization In Asia", and assuming some readers might be interested, I embedded it below.

Here are the slides (direct link):

Presentation: Innovation, Imitation & Hyper-Localization (Sparxup 2011, Indonesia)

Almost a month ago, there was an international technology and start-up showcase event, which is called Echelon, at the National University of Singapore. Because of many things to do remaining after the event, I delayed making a write-up on it.

I think this year's Echelon was its second edition, and that took place on June 16 and 17. Here's a brief wrap-up.

Startup Launchpad (Part 1)

•  Cardinal Blue (a photo collage app for iPhone/iPad) - Taiwan
• WorkCrowd (a free social network for your workspace) - Malaysia
• SixReps (a social network for fitness and sportenthusiasts) - Indonesia
• JellyBus (a developer of Android-based funny apps) - Korea
• Fetch Fans (A web-based assistant to help your Facebook/Twitter designs) - Singapore
• Bouncity (A location-based gaming platform where users can hunt for bounty from participating brands and get rewards)

Startup Launchpad (Part 2)

• Moglue (A desktop platform that allows publishers, amateur authors to create interactive stories for iOS and Android devices) - Korea <See this story for more>
• Second CRM (A web-based CRM software especially for SMEs in Asia) - Malaysia
• Price Area (A shopping search engine to help you find the best deals) - Indonesia
• LocoBuzz by Spatial Ideas (an analytics, query and communications platform which integrates news and tweets onto a geographical map) - India

• [The Launchpad Winner] PlayMoolah (a web service for kids to master their money) - Singapore

Exhibitors' Booths...

Garbs, a Tokyo-based start-up that helps you recruit potential colleagues using their Facebook app.

Compath.me, a location-based smartphone app that allows you to find discoveries near-by that the other users have posted and you may be interested in.

Makible, a Hongkong-based start-up for making niche products.  They connect with online communities to pre-order-crowd sourced products they make and distribute.  Founded by Jonathan Buford and Nicholas Wang.

Panel...

I was invited to Lisa Katayama's panel featuring Japanese tech scene, and we talked about the latest developments on the Japanese web industry.  Also I gave some words to Asian start-ups who eagerly go into Japanese market.  From left to right, Lisa Katayama (Tokyo Mango), Ian McFarland (Digital Garage), me, Jon Yonghook Cockle (CookPad) and Brian Ritchie (Mind Valley, Malaysia).  Photo courtesy: e27.

After the event...

Penn Olson, a Singapore-based tech blog which I've been contributing for, had a party in the central Singapore, where four Japanese start-ups including Cacoo, Fashion Style Japan, Compath.me and Moso had an opportunity to present. You can find videos shooting it here[J].

Just heard Asiajin co-founder Akky is planning to stay in Singapore for several weeks next month. If you're interested in meeting him and making friendship, I recommend you to drop him a line.

Event Wrap-up: Echelon 2011 And More, A Visit To Singapore In June

The Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC), one of the world's largest annual conference featuring mobile and social app trends, took place at China's national convention center, which is located the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, Chinese capital.  The two-day event celebrated its fourth edition this time, and it has been solely organized by Great Wall Club, a team of CEOs and executives of telcos, social network service providers and mobile app developers in Japan and Mainland China.   I had another assignment in Tokyo, and I could make it only on Day 2.

Just in front of the venue, China Telecom's base station van was standing by for burst mobile traffic which might be generated by an enormous number of the event attendees.

The Day 2 started with a keynote speech by Charles Zhang(张朝阳), CEO of Sohu.com(搜狐), where he reviewed what he had done during the last ten years and poured out his regrets including the acquisition of Chinaren[C] or the largest online alumni club in China with over 80 million registered users. (video by Tech163 [C])

G-Startups Competition

Between panels and speeches by Internet business tycoon and celebrities from China, Japan and the rest of the world, there were on-stage live demos by the G-startup competition winners who had been chosen from 20 start-up finalists.  The both winners will won the prizes including participating incubation programs by Innovation Works (Beijing-based incubator founded by Kai-Fu Lee, the ex-president of Google China), China Accelerator (Dalian-based incubator founded by angel investor Cyril Ebersweiler), and Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley.

The 1st place winner of the seed/early-stage category:

SmarTots (Beijing, China)

SmarTots is a mobile education platform for children aged 2-7. It brings together educators, parents, and developers to create an interactive, fun, and manageable learning experience for kids through mobile apps. The company strives to unlock the true educational value of mobile devices by providing parents with reports, parental tools and personalized recommendations across many hardware and software ecosystems.

The 1st place winner of the growth-stage category:

Word Engine (Tokyo, Japan)

Word Engine is the fastest way to permanently memorize up to 99% of all the vocabulary required for important subjects. Word Engine is fast, inexpensive and mobile. They offer vocabulary courses for test preparation and special business needs.  The app is a proven scientific solution already in use at hundreds of universities and multinational corporations around the world. They very much look forward to entering the China market.

After those demos, Takeshi Natsuno(@tnatsu[J]),  the inventor of Japan's mobile web standard for feature phone i-Mode and the president of GWC (Great Wall Club) Japan, was interviewed on the stage by Plus8Star's Benjamin Joffe(@benjaminjoffe) who is very familiar with the Asian tech scenes.  Mr. Natsuno explained what has been happening on the Japanese mobile industry during the last few years, saying Japanese manufacturers once quit the development of feature phone handsets requiring a bunch of costs, but got back to develop additional features for the global cost-free mobile platforms such as Android.

He emphasized it is very important to have this kind of event in China, furthermore, organized by Chinese and Japanese industry players.   (YouTube Video by Asiajin)

Peter Vesterbacka, Marketing Manager of Rovio Mobile (Maker of Angry Birds) interviewed on stage.

In association with the event organizers, Chinese mobile game portal d.cn[C] presented the Global Mobile Game Awards. The following ten games won the awards. (YouTube Video by Asiajin)   Angry Birds captured an audience's extra attention because they reportedly had earned USD2M in their 1Q.  Beijing's Global Times reported they would partner with a certain local game platform operator to launch their business in Mainland China.

The awards went to:

• Angry Birds
• Assassin’s Creed
• Plants vs Zombies
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
• 3KTD
• GunBros
• Gun’n'Glory
• Doodle Jump
• Kingdom Conquest
• The Whole River Red4

DeNA makes a big announcement at GMIC

Isao Moriyasu, the COO of Japan's leading social app platform operator DeNA, unveiled they would partner with Fujian-headquartered Net Dragon (listed on the HK Stock Exchange), running mobile app store 91.com in China, and start co-developing social apps in the both countries. Furthermore, he announced the company would launch a CNY10M (USD15.4M)-worth foundation to encourage Chinese app developers to bring out more social apps to their platform.

After the Event

After the event, Asiajin contributor Hiroumi Mitani and I had a chance to join a dinner party with Japanese businessmen who are actively working with the Chinese mobile industry in Beijing. (Thanks to Jin Uehara(@ueharajin[J]) of MyNet Japan[J])   They insisted that we put our eyes on two emerging Chinese companies - Dianping.com(大众点评网)[C] and Vancl(凡客诚品)[C].  Dianping.com is an Yelp-like local search and reviews online service.   Vancl is China's largest e-commerce retailer that delivers fast fashion clothing to online consumers nationwide, and a noteworthy fact is that they have a distribution network of their own for a better user experience such as the rapid delivery of merchandise.   A number of great internet entrepreneurs were seated around the party table, but I won't tell you who they were because it was a private opportunity for all of them.

In The End

Smartphone handsets are not inexpensive for average Chinese people, I couldn't see a lot of people carrying the iPhone or the Android phone on streets in Beijing where workers get comparatively higher income.   (Regardless to say, everyone at the event had s smartphone of some kind.  That circumstance did not reflect the average of what's going on in the country.)   That's why Chinese and foreign handset manufacturers are competing one another to introduce inexpensive range line-ups of smartphones which can be easily accepted by Chinese consumers.  (But I know "average" makes no sense in the country.)   It's volume zone business that intends to earn the market shares of the average-income workers.

For social app and mobile app developers, to achieve a great success in the country having the world's largest mobile population, their products should fit not only the user interface of typical smartphone handsets but also that of China-made simple but intelligent handsets that are ranged between smartphone and featurephone.

Daily deal site ads at Beijing Subway: Groupon.cn[C] (upper-left), Lashou.com[C] (upper-right), 24quan.com (lower-left) and Nuomi.com(lower-right)

During my stay in Beijing, I often used the subway to go somewhere, and I found a great number of the daily deal site ads at stations and on trains.   Reportedly there are more than 4,000 Groupon-like daily deal sites in the country.   In addition, it is surprising that a company running "Groupon.cn" site has nothing to do with US-based Groupon.     4,000 deal sites and 800 million mobile users - these numbers have the power to change the global standard, which sometimes badly affects our business and scares us, but they mean the country has a great potential.

Author's note: The event's official media sponsor Tech163 has a great special coverage[C] which are filled with transcripts of keynote speakers and a bunch of interviews with celebrities in the industry.

See Also:

• Chinamode 2010: 45 Finalists Nominated For China’s Best Web Service Awards (1/3)
• Chinamode 2010: 45 Finalists Nominated For China’s Best Web Service Awards (2/3)
• Chinamode 2010: 45 Finalists Nominated For China’s Best Web Service Awards (3/3)

GMIC 2011 Beijing: Where Are Social Media Going In The World’s Largest Mobile Population?

Digital Garage, Japan's Internet conglomerate known for operating price comparison portal Kakaku.com and helping Twitter's business operation, held a semiyearly conference event last week, which is called the New Context Conference 2011 Spring, where Japanese well-known tech investor Joi Ito and the world's Internet authorities came together, most of whom have expertise in social media, radiation measurement and disaster prevention.

Dr. Chowdhury of Twitter started his speech with the first slide of Namazu, a giant catfish which causes earthquakes in Japanese mythology.

Starting with a keynote speech by Abdur Chowdhury (@abdur), the chief scientist of Twitter Inc., he explained how Twitter work had worked efficiently to communicate among people when the massive earthquake had hit the Tohoku Region on March 11, by showing us some animated infographics of how many tweets being exchanged across the globe during the time.

In the first session, five panelists from Japanese and foreign media discussed how mass media should tell the society what happened in the disaster while Twitter and other social media succeeded to deliver up-to-the-minute voices from the devastated areas. Hiroyuki Tsuruta[J], a student entrepreneur who had developed a website collecting tweets supporting our relief efforts, Pray for Japan[J], also joined the panel.

From left to right: Joi Ito (Digital Garage), Abdur Chowdhury (Twitter), Hiroyuki Tsuruta (Pray for Japan), Hiroko Tabuchi (New York Times Tokyo Correspondent), Tomoya Sasaki (Digital Garage) and Tatehiko Koyanagi (Nikkei Inc.)

In the second session, which was titled hardware and sensor network, four experts from radiation measurement device development and crisis response, they talked about how we can obtain parameters to protect ourselves from the invisible enemy when the government and a power company don't disclose everything on the nuclear powerhouse accident. They introduced RDTN as a web mash-up that helps us learn a lot about what's happening.

From left to right: Joi Ito (Digital Garage), Jun Murai (Keio Univ.), Ray Ozzie (ex-Chief Software Architect, Microsoft), Aaron Huslage (Crisis Response ICT Specialist) and Dan Sythe (CEO, Iospectra)

The third session, which is about speed and agile software development. In the crisis time of disaster, web apps helping people are needed to developed as rapidly as possible. Joi concluded that a variety of open source resources and cloud services made it easier to launch a web service very quickly, which contributed a lot to providing disaster-related information to the people having no chance to check out news updates on TV.

From left to right: Joi Ito (Digital Garage), Paul Campbell (HyperTiny), Michelle Levesque (ex-Social Product Manager, Google), Phil Libin (Evernote CEO)

Following more than a dozen of unconferences arranged by the attendees, there was an opportunity for four start-ups being incubated at Open Network Lab[J] to present what they had made for the last several months. Open Network Lab is a seed acceleration program by Digital Garage and intends to be Tokyo's version of Y-Combinator. All services introduced are currently under development, and I will try to let you figure out what they are, but no details are available at the moment.

GroupeLago by Yuta Okazaki (@kenzan100)

Groupelago is a web service that allows you to aggregate social feeds of people you are interested in. Two guys developing the service graduated from Keio University, and they believe it can be used to encourage freshers to join a school club, because it can show them what kind of people the club consists of prior to joining it. The service is currently running in beta and available only among Keio students.

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Frenzee by Masaru Murata (@m_murata[J])

Frenzee is a social web app that allows you to discover new digital content. It helps you connect to someone having the same interest with you by choosing pictures that have been posted on the service. The following video helps you learn how it will work.

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Compath.me by Hiromichi Ando[J] (@hirorimet[J])

Compath.me is a location-based smartphone app that allows you to find discoveries near-by that the other users have posted and you may be interested in.

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Wondershake by Satoshi Suzuki (@Doubles9124)

Satoshi has grown up in Nigeria and London and is currently attending the International Christian University in Tokyo. His app Wondershake is a location-based smartphone app that visualizes your inner taste and connect you with like-minded people around you in the real world. He plans to launch the service at the end of this month, not in Japan but in the US. A judge asked him why he would launch it in the US before Japan, and he answered he believed this app would fit the US market despite average Japanese are considered to be shy and it's hard for them to make friends with someone else. His answer called a big laugh from an audience.

Finally, Joi proposed a toast to the successful event and expecting more entrepreneurial challenges to come. DJ Amiga started playing music to entertain the gathering crowd.

See Also:

• iPhone radiation dock aims to help Japan cope with nuclear crisis (DVICE)

NCC 2011 Spring: How The Net Behaves When The Earthquake Hit Japan?

Design IT[J], a Tokyo-based UI-focused media consultancy also known for previously maintaining TechCrunch's Japanese edition (its management was switched to AOL earlier this month[J]), held the first conference in Akihabara on Friday, for discussing the future of Japan tech industry and introducing great start-up stuffs.

In the morning session, CEOs from Mixi, GMO Internet Group, NHN Japan and Evernote made their keynote speeches.   After a lunch, Four venture capitalists, including Taiga Matsuyama (East Ventures, Kronos Fund - known as a seed investor for Zynga Japan) and Masashi Kobayashi (IVP or Infinity Venture Partners known as a seed investor for Groupon Japan) , had a panel discussion to look around Japanese start-up trends and its future.

In the final session, there was a presentation competition titled Startup Battle, where 15 start-ups presented their brand new web services to win the Grand Prix prize.   Let's see each of them.

Appict.me by Nobot

Nobot is a smartphone ad optimizer and also work with several major foreign ad networks.   Appict.me is a program for developers to promote their smartphone apps by using social media.   It allows users of a smartphone app participating the program to recommend the app to their friends via social media. (see these Asiajin articles for more about Nobot.)

i.ntere.st by tattva

Tokyo-based Tattva just introduced an object-based check-in service called in.ter.est.   I wrote about it here on the Startup Dating website.

zaim by Takako Kansai (The Excellent Award Winner)

Takako is a well-known female system developer working with a Tokyo-based tech start-up UserLocal[J].   Apart from her job at the company, she individually developed this social app that helps you keep household accounting on the iPhone.   She introduces it can be also considered as a money stuff version of popular document sharing app Evernote.

Musavy by Musavy, Inc.

The company is named after Mutual Savvy.   This web app helps you to learn more about a topic by having a debate on the topic online.   It has a feature to recommend users to take another topics that they may be interested in.   They intend to launch the service in North America prior to Japan.

forkN by Seesaa[J]

Seesaa is a blog platform company, and they developed a e-publication platform called forkN that allows users to convert documents to ePub/PDF formats and publish them online for PC, smartphone and tablet users.    You can share several experiences with other users on the service, such as writing, reading, commenting and purchasing the publications.

(The Excellent Award Winner)

MoSo by MoSo

MoSo is a desktop app for Macintosh that helps you create your videos instantly.   It allows you to publish the videos on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube without any additional procedure.   The app ranked in the first place in the free app section at most AppStores within just three days after the release.

(The Excellent Award Winner)

Midonet by Midokura

Earlier this week, the company fundraised JPY100M (USD125M) in its seed round from some VC firms including NTT Investment Partners[J], 1st Holding[J] and datacenter company Bit Isle[J].  They are a cloud enabling tech company, and currently planning to introduce the alpha version app very soon.

shopping+ by Insight Plus

Shopping+ is a smartphone app-based object check-in service that helps you learn realtime quotes and check inventories for what you are about to purchase by sharing them with the other users.   Users can communicate with the others who have the same interest in buying something.   Insight Plus was founded by Takeo Yagi, he previously co-founded TrafficGate[J], a Rakuten-backed affiliate provider and now LinkShare Japan.

4-Treasure by Alpha Do

4 Treasure is a location-based service that allows you to check in restaurants, diners, cofee shops etc.   Unlike other location-based services such as Foursquare, users can gain experience points corresponding to how much you have paid at a specific location.  For shop owners, it allows them to collect information on what kind of customers visit, and to issue discount coupons to potential customers that they wish to invite.

tabeni.co by MyNet Japan

Tabeni.co is a social app for smartphone and helps you find companions who can hang out and dine with you.   MyNet Japan is known for having developed a variety of restaurant supporting services, and the app is expected to integrate with them.

kizna by Kizna

Kizna is a social CRM (customer relationship management) app that Hitoshi Nakamura has developed.   He is currently running several restaurants in Tokyo, and he has developed it to interact with his customers more often more easily via social media.   The app includes a key feature that shows you a list of interactions with your customers via Twitter and Facebook.

(The Excellent Award Winner)

Livlis by kamado

Our buddy Serkan wrote this story about Livlis.

fmob

fmob is a fashion-focused social app that allows you to shoot pieces of clothing when you find them while walking on shopping streets, and share them with your friends online.   They intend to extend their global reach through the mobile app.

(The Grand Prix Winner)

Wondershake

Wondershake is a social app that allows you to learn what the people around you are interested in, and helps you start talking with them very easily.   They plan to launch the service in the US.   Wondershake was founded by Satoshi Suzuki who previously worked with Tonchidot, the inventor of Sekai Camera.

Caffein / Nota Inc.

Nota Inc., a Silicon Valley-headquareted Japanese tech start-up known for its library book search service Calil[J], has developed a video communication service called Caffein, which allows you to communicate with multiple users in a virtual room.

Finally, on behalf of all judges who have chosen the award winners at the event, Mr. Allen Miner from Sun Bridge Partners commented on what 15 finalists had delivered.  He pointed out all they have potentials to achieve their success not only in Japan but also in the world, encouraged them to develop more new services from a global point of view.

Teclosion 2011 Spring: Wondershake Wins The Grand Prix Among 15 Finalists

As noticed on this story, Japanese four tech start-ups and Korean two start-ups five Japanese tech start-ups and six Korean tech start-ups had jointly a presentation event in Seoul on Wednesday.  I just wanted to join them for covering what happened onsite, however, I couldn't make it because of my another assignment in Malaysia.   Alternatively, I tried my best for making a wrap-up of the event by checking out a Ustream video and a series of tweets by those who were attending.

The event took place at a hotel near Teheranno St., known as the epicenter of many tech start-up movements in the city.   Presentations were made in English, Japanese and Korean with simultaneous interpretation.   Let's start with a presentation made by Korea's start-up Mindsquare.

Presenter: Park Hongwon (박홍원), Mind Square[K]

Mindsqaure provides a variety of foreign language learning apps.  They employs app developers in Korea and are doing business in Korea, Japan and the US.   Most of their revenues came from Japan, and intends to the US market.  Mr. Park says,

• Shares of the iPhone apps by category: entertainment 47% and education 35%.   No iPhone game app is unavailable because of restriction by the Korean government.  In Japan, entertainment shares 9%, education 9% and game 68%.
• An average price for the iPhone apps on the Korean AppStore is USD1.96.
• The most popular paid iPhone app records 1000 downloads a day, which is one-third of that of Japan.   There are more free apps than paid apps in Korea.
• A series of their iPhone apps is available here.

Revolutionizing Digital Entertainment by advanced video search technology
Presenter: Jonnpyo Lee (이준표), Enswers Inc.

• The Company has developed a video search technology that allows users to find an expecting result from YouTube and other video sharing services.
• They have head-hunted many talented engineers from all across the country.

Big trends in Japan – Optimization and Personalization Technology
Presenter: Takashi Uemura(上村崇), ALBERT Inc.

He explains Japanese ad industry.

Information to collective intelligence LastSupper – spot to intelligent map / mironi – listen, share, enjoy
Presenter: Jongil Yoon (윤정일), Revlix[K]

• Revlix is an app developer in Korea. They have introduced a smartphone app called Mironi[K] (coming soon), which is called a social music player, allowing you to share your music listening experience with other users.
• Mostly 50% of all businessmen and students have smartphone handsets.
• The company has also introduced a social app called Last Supper[K], which allows you to share your dining experience with other users.

Japanese mobile market and Global mobile ads
Presenter: Kiyotaka Kobayashi(小林清剛), Nobot Inc. (see these Asiajin stories for more details)

• They earned 1.1billion monthly impressions last month, and are planning to partner with major ad networks in Korea.

Evolution of ebook – interactive ebook
Presenter: TaeWoo Kim(김태우), Moglue[K]

• Moglue is developing a desktop platform that allows publishers, amateur authors and artists a way to create interactive stories and release them as apps for iOS and Android operating systems with one-click publishing.
• Their apps for iOS and Android are currently available only in closed beta.

Social Monitoring "@hentaiAlert"
Presenter: Yusuke Takahashi(高橋雄介), Individual Company

• The company is currently developing a social monitoring service called Hentai Alert.
• The service, literally alerting against suspicious people, helps you find suspicious people around you by analyzing accumulated knowledge about them on social media.   As more vicious crimes happen in these years, the service helps you keep away from possible dangerous people.

Social network meets advertising
Presenter: Josh Jaehong Kim(김재홍), AdbyMe[K]

• Korea has USD 7billion-worth ad market, however smartphone in-app advertising is not so acknowledged  in Korea.
• Adby.Me allows you to use Twitter and measure advertising effectiveness on a ad placement basis.

Social translation "Conyac"
Presenter: Naoki Yamada(山田尚貴), Anydoor

Refer to this Asiajin story for more about Conyac services

How to Build a Clean Web
Presenter: Benjamin Beomjin Kim(김범진), CIZION inc.[K]

• Cizon develops a social comment service called LiveRe[K].Live Re, that allows you to leave a comment with your account of Twitter, Facebook and Korean social networks such as Me2Day[K] and Daum's Yozm[K].  It's Korean version of Disqus.
• Live Re is now adopted by 200 companies for their websites, it shares 80% in this entire web service category.

In app purchaise iOS/Android/Japanese Style
Presenter: Kentaro Hashimoto(橋本謙太郎), Conit

He introduces the in-app purchase system for multiple smartphone platforms that Conit has developed.  Refer to this Asiajin story for more about the system.

Japanese And Korean Start-ups Hold Presentation Event In Seoul For Potential Partnerships

Digital Hollywood was founded in 1994 by Dr. Tomoyuki Sugiyama[J] who had worked as a visiting researcher at MIT Media Lab, and later then it became a university that has grown out of a vocational school.   The university holds an annual conference, which is named DigiColle[J] after Digital Hollywood Collection, to show up research results chosen from many applications by their students.   This year's one was held in early March.   I'm afraid I've been concentrating on catching up the quake-related updates and missed to write about it for almost a month.

At the conference, I could see ten interesting ideas that future techpreneurs were presenting.   Let me expose them to the eyes of the international tech community.   The conference was recorded by the university's professor and ad planner Takuya Kawai a.k.a. Himanainu[J] (meaning a boring dog) and is available on Ustream.

DigiColle 2010: Akiba’s Univ Students Present Their Research Results & Works

Japan Android Group[J], a Google Groups-originated tech community of Android developers and users in Japan, held their semiyearly general assembly called Android Bazaar and Conference(ABC) 2011 Winter[J] on Sunday at the University of Tokyo.

Starting with a keynote speech by Dr. Fujio Maruyama(@maruyama097), the chairman of the group and visiting professor at Waseda University, a number of the great names from Android-related industries presented what they are working on and foresaw the next step.  The group announced more than 3,500 persons had signed up for attending, and more than 2,500 persons had actually attended.

Dr. Maruyama at the conference (Source: Ustream Live by Japan Android Group)

Dr. Maruyama pointed out the recent rapid growth of Android handsets in use because Japan is currently ranked in the 2nd place in the number of uploading apps, and in the 5th place in the number of downloading apps.

At the venue for "Bazaar", Android developers had opportunities to exhibit their Android products and services.   Let's see some of them.

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RIC Android

RIC Android[J] welcomed all visitors coming to the exhibition venue.   The robot is working with a built-in battery and fully controlled by an Android terminal which is located within the mouth.

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Koto Free (named after "Kotoba (language)" free, intended for making the environment of language-barrier free)

Koto Free[J] is an app for making a map multi-lingual and intended to be adopted for the "Visit Japan" campaign being run by Japan Tourism Agency. It allows you to add description on maps or images, translate them and show them to foreign tourists in their languages.

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Social Audiobook

Para.tv[J], a Tokyo-based developer of the video distribution platform for cellphone, introduced a story teller app called Social Audiobook. By storing the elements of your voice in advance, the app can have your friends or children hear fairy tales as if you were telling.

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Dorokuri

Tokyo-based software developer Tao Software[J] introduced Dorokuri, a template-based Android app development environment requiring no programming skills.   You can try it here.

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Cyclocomputer

(Video source: Diginfo.TV)

Japan's leading consumer electronics manufacturer Pioneer is currently developing a cyclocomputer running on Android. Cyclocomputers are attached to bicycles to calculate their speed and distance traveled.   Because it has GPS, the company think navigation will be a key feature. They are expecting to add applications that include navigation technology.

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Domo

Tonchidot, well-known for its multiple-award winning AR (augmented reality) app Sekai Camera, unveiled they are currently developing a new service called Domo that helps you meet someone of the same interest at real events or places.  The company calls such an environment a "Transparent Society".  Domo is a Japanese casual greeting word for "nice to see you" or "thanks".

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Machipittan

Machipittan is an Android app that makes more fun when you wait someone at a meeting point.  Developed by Tokyo-based web system developer Analog Twelve[J].  Last year it won the Android Application Award ("A3" for short) which is annually presented by Japan's leading IT publisher Nikkei BP.  By entering e-mail addresses of you and someone you've appointed, the realtime locations of both are plotted on a map, and it also helps you find a good meeting point in conjunction with restaurant guides provided by the third party information providers.

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Such a large number of attendees to the conference meant Japan's android community has been heating up.  I look forward to the next conference which will be happening in June for experiencing much bigger things.

Android Bazaar & Conference: No Doubt The Community To Heat Up In 2011

Samurai Incubate, a Tokyo-based seed accelerator aiming to bring up many tech start-ups, had the second edition[J] of their annual showcase event in late November, which is called Samurai Venture Summit (for short, SVS) and showed us their investing portfolios and pitch presentations by CEOs of tech start-ups.   It was an one-day event using a several-story office building located in the heart of Shibuya, Tokyo, a number of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, media reporters and more came together to see the team's presentations and discuss the future of Japanese start-up scenes.

Picture: Taizo Son(left) (@taizoson[J]), a serial entrepreneur and the chairman of GungHo Online Entertainment[J], making a keynote speech and Kentaro Sakakibara(right), the founder/CEO of Samurai Incubate.

Their pitch presentations, each of which is ruled to be completed in a few minutes, are called "shout", and start-up executives literally present very loudly what they are doing on their businesses and services.   It's a funny experience and might look so strange for Westerners, but shouting something in front of a large audience means the expression of presenter's hell-bent determination to make things happen.   35 start-ups pitched their presentations, I cannot cover them all but just pick up three excellent award winners in this story.

For those who are interested in watching the 35 presentations, check out our YouTube channel via this link.

3rd award winner: Granma

Tokyo-based start-up Granma, named after the yacht that was used to transport the fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in 1956, develops a business for resolving poverty-related issues (causes) in South Asian countries and the rest of the world.   They recently launched a lodging facility called "Cause Village[J]" in Tokyo's suburb, where start-up companies can have their brainstorming camps for developing future business plans.

2nd award winner: Sassor[E/J]

"Sassor" is a Tokyo-based group specializing in interactive and service design.   They are working on developing the Energy Literacy Program, ELP for short, that can help control daily electric power consumption of each home appliances.  The service consists of modules, receiver and website, and it can visualize the electric power consumption of each home appliances for grasping data easily.

(Sassor also presented at Infinity Venture Summit 2010 Fall in Kyoto as Serkan Toto reported here on Asiajin.)

Energy Literacy Platform from sassor on Vimeo.

1st award winner: Aiia Corporation[J]

Aiia is a Tokyo-based company publishing puzzle magazines and managing apparel brands.  They introduced their brand new magazine "Chakra[J]", that earns more than USD100,000 ad revenue for an edition and brings readers their peace of mind, dream and happiness.   They've got a number of complaints from the readers that it has not helped to be happier. Aiia is currently seeking someone who is good at handling complainers. (Kidding us?)

Samurai Incubate was founded in 2008 by Kentaro Sakakibara (@samurai_ken[J]) who has previously worked with Shibuya-based web service conglomerate EC Navi (previously known as Axiv.com).

Samurai Incubate Holds Annual 1-Day Camp For Young CEOs