Mangajet [J] is a new Japanese service which let you make a Japanese manga-comic style illustration with provided characters, background images, baloons with your text.

The generated comic strip can be saved and shared on Twitter.

Following to the Japanese manga standard, text will be written in top-to-bottom direction so Western languages won't fit well, unfortunately.

The service was released as a promotion of a free digital manga material directory Manga Sozai Jiten, which is run by Datacraft.

There is Feel on!, a web service to comicalize your Twitter timeline as well (and that one now supports English).

via INTERNET Watch

Mangajet Makes Your Tweet Into A Comic-style Illustration

Hulu Japan, actvila, and other existing video content providers are getting competition soon: a total of seven Japanese companies are currently preparing a video-on-demand service for connected TVs that's scheduled to launch on April 2 this year.

Dubbed "Motto TV" [JP, PDF], the service is backed by:

• advertising agency Dentsu
• Nippon Television Network
• TV Asahi
• Tokyo Broadcasting System Television
• TV Tokyo
• Fuji Television Network
• NHK

What's especially interesting here is that not only five commercial TV networks are taking part, but also NHK, Japan's national public broadcasting organization.

NHK alone is ready to contribute a total of about 4,000 shows to the 10,500 programs Motto TV will start off with. Users will need to own compatible TV sets that are expected to go on sale from April.

Motto TV programs can be selected via the remote control, for example anime shows, TV series, or comedy programs. Fees vary, depending on the program itself and the station that's broadcasting it.

Users can browse through the content by selecting different genres, entering key words, or accessing rankings from the menu.

Motto TV: Japan Gets New Video-On-Demand Service

If you're an Android user, consider yourself a geek, understand Japanese, and need an appropriate home replacement screen on your handset, consider downloading Himasere. The app was released on the Android Market earlier this week by Tokyo-based tech company Ubiquitous Entertainment.

The idea here is to make it as easy as possible to access technology-related news and information (plus a game portal), just by flicking through the following sites from a single app:

• Weekly ASCII - PLUS (tech news)
• Yahoo Japan News - Topics
• Hatena Bookmarks (background on Hatena in English)
• Togetter (the English version of this Twitter curation service is called Chirpstory)
• TechCrunch Japan
• Engadget Japanese
• wise9 (blog specifically aimed at young game devs)
• Gizmodo Japan

If you had enough of reading news, you can flick through to 9leap (background in English), a game portal that lets you choose between 500+ games, which can all be played right from within the app:

Himasere supports Android 2.2 and up and is available for free on the Android Market.

Here is Ubiquitous Entertainment's official promo video for the app:

Himasere: Geeky Home Screen Replacement App For Android

Two popular Japanese bloggers, @taguchi[J] and @fkoji[J], launched new video tutorial site called dotinstall[J], which is aimed at ultra-beginner of programming.

The site currently provides about 300 video tutorials, ranging from HTML basics to Creating Concentration game using Javascript, all of which last just about 3 minutes long.  All the videos are recorded in Japanese (by @taguchi[J]), so it is helpful not only for Japanese who want to study programming but also for non-Japanese programmers who want to study Japanese language as well.

Unlike ShowMeDo, another video tutorial site for programming learners, dotinstall is focused on delivering video tutorials for beginners only.  As myself being a learner of programming as a hobby, dotinstall[J] seems to be very helpful because I can use my spare time, sometime just a few minutes, to watch a video or two.

Current line-ups of videos are HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP/MySQL/jQuery/Twitter Bootstrap, more in variety and number are expected to come. The site is in closed beta but you can apply for invitation.

See Also:

dotinstall Official site[J]

@taguchi's entry about dotinstall[J]

@fkoji's entry about dotinstall[J]

3-Minutes Video Tutorial Site For Programming Learners "Dotinstall" Launches

So far, only YouTube users from Canada, the US and (since October) the UK were able to rent movies, but yesterday, Japan has finally been added to the list, too (the country is the second biggest market for movies in the world).

Youtube users in Japan can initially stream content from a total of five American and local studios onto their PCs and Android phones, namely

• Toei
• Sony Pictures
• Universal
• Warner Bros.
• Bandai Channel (for anime)

On its official blog, YouTube Japan says that the initial line-up consists of a mix between paid and free movies (200 in total), for example Unknown, Red Riding Hood, Take Me Home Tonight, or Sucker Punch.

Paid titles cost either 300 or 400 Yen, depending on how new they are. Movies can be rented from 24 to 72 hours.

The online movie rental space in Japan has seen some movement recently. Apart from established players like Gyao, YouTube Japan's new service competes with newcomer Hulu (which started streaming movies and other content in Japan in September this year) or Nico Nico Douga (which started doing the same in cooperation with Warner Bros. a few days ago).

Japan Gets Its Own YouTube Movie Rental Service

Japan's largest online mall company Rakuten started promoting its unknown service Rakuten Profile [J] since around October 10 to its 62 million members.

The service comes with Twitter-like "tweet", following/followers, Facebook-like "share", your profile badge on Rakuten blog,

Rakuten Profile seemed to launch without any release around August 9, 2011 [J]. There were no no news coverages recorded on Google News of August. Official Staff blog did not mention it [J], too, though the staff blog is inactive and there were only three posts in August.

Then, 11th of this month, some of Rakuten pages started showing ads linked to a promotion page of Rakuten Profile [J]. There, you can earn 5 Rakuten point by registering the profile service and connect it with your Rakuten blog. Everyone can receive the 5 point, which you may use for 5 Japanese yen (US￠4) discount.

The service logo says it is still in Beta stage.

This service introduction page [J] covers what Rakuten Profile is.

From it, Rakuten Profile is a place,

• "to create": your profile with your hobbies, what you like, short daily messages(="tsubuyaki" = tweet)
• "to connect": search your friends' ID then follow, or send an invitation mail
• "to find": news as your friends interests are shown up on your timeline
• "to share": your blog posts and news to your friends, followers

My profile page is here [J],

It also has an RSS Reader feature with "Share" button.

All entries of Rakuten blog now has "Share on Rakuten Profile" button, with other sharing buttons for Twitter, Mixi and Facebook.

Rakuten has been running another profile service Zenryaku Profile [J] since Rakuten bought it in 2002. That service has over 6 million users but majority of users are students, which can not be a main customers of online shopping stores and Rakuten did not give its "Rakuten" brand to it like it did to other services they bought.

According to the staff blog, Rakuten Profile will replace with the current profile functionality on Rakuten Blog in January 2012.

Rakuten does not look like putting much resources into this new social networking service if you compare with Facebook/Google/Twitter, but it might be necessary to have those social features integrated with its blogs and community sites to keep its users inside Rakuten services.

Japan’s No.1 e-Mall Rakuten Trying To Be Like Twitter/Facebook By Rakuten Profile

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):

Video: Mobile Train Information Service “Yamanote Train Net”

Metabirds Co. [J] has begun an alias based SNS on “metabirds,” [J] a portal for internet denizens.

“Metabirds” is a social network for using an “alter ego,” not just a real name or anonymity.  The concept is to express your alias identity “nicknames,” and “screen names,” as your own personal “sub character,” and this social network is for those who want to intermingle with “sub character” comrades.  On this service, continuing from the predecessor virtual society oriented portal “metabirds,” will be the following features:

- Blog function
- Miniblog (tweet) function
- Love (for websites and favorite digital contents, other places on top of the net, registering people, “Like,” “Check in” etc. synthesis) function
- Follow function
- Timeline indication as well as Twitter/Facebook integration function
- Level up in response to activity, badge allowance function
- Smartphone optimization function
- English user interface offered

As for the business model, in addition to establishing a developer-user paid plan and a free plan, they will strengthen notice functions, and continue to offer various revenue oriented activities.  From here on, their plan is to open up badge functions for developers and offer application programming interfaces.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

“Metabirds,” An Alter-Ego SNS Service For Internet Residents Begins

If you live outside Japan and were ever interested in getting handmade goods from this country, here's your chance: a service called iichi, which launched in Japanese in July this year, just opened a site in English.

The idea is similar to Etsy's : all products offered on the marketplace must be handmade. iichi is starting with 11 different categories (jewelry, toys, furniture, art, fashion, etc.).

There are currently a few hundred items available, covering everything from art objects that sell for over a thousand USD to handmade fashion items down to handmade glasses offered for a few dollars.

Here are some examples:

Every Japan-based "craft maker" can set up their own page on iichi and then let overseas users (from around 40 countries at present) buy directly through the website (via PayPal, which is the only payment option currently available).

Etsy is offering an "Etsy Japan" group, which also aims at connecting sellers of handmade goods in Japan with international buyers.

iichi: Marketplace For Handmade Goods From Japan (In English)

Yahoo Japan, the country's biggest website, has launched a new service dubbed Yahoo Box today. Yahoo Box is an online storage service with three plans:

• 5GB are given for free to any user with a Yahoo Japan ID
• 50GB is the maximum space premium members get for free (a Yahoo Japan premium membership costs US$4.50 monthly)
• 1,000GB are priced at 300 Yen (US$3.90) per month for premium members and at 1,000 Yen (US13) for regular Yahoo Japan users

Yahoo Japan says Yahoo Box users can share and access files through PCs (app and browser), smartphone (browser only), and feature phones (browser only). A special app for Android is already out, a Yahoo Box iOS app is in the works.

Yahoo Box competes with Naver N Drive, Dropbox (which is quite popular in Japan), and other online storage systems.

At the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Yahoo Japan boasted 25.72 milion active user IDs (7.22 million premium members).

Yahoo Box: Yahoo Japan Starts Online Storage Service