For those who don’t know much about the city, it’s located in the south-western island of Japan and much closer to Shanghai and Seoul than Tokyo or the country’s capital. That’s why it’s often considered as a gateway to Asian countries for Japanese, not only for its geographical reason, but also for a high reflection from Asian flavor in the city’s local foods.

The city is a little bit away from Tokyo, however, it has a good enough population of techpreneurs and engineers because not a few large IT businesses have set up their headquarters there. So is it for the volume of its local tech start-up community, too.

The event is highly inspired by SXSW (South-by-South-West), a one-week-long festival that happens in March every year in Austin, TX and focuses on making great exposure opportunities for filmmakers, music artists and web media creators. MJ is led by Masanori Hashimoto, the co-founder of Fukuoka-based tech company NuLab, also known as the developer of collaboration-based drawing tool Cacoo, and Taizo Son[J], a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and a younger brother of Softbank Mobile’s CEO, and aims at encouraging local start-ups to go more international and make their services spread out all across Asia.

Visit these webpages for a brief introduction about the event in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Also for more updates, visit the event’s main website at http://myojowaraku.net[J]. (sorry, the latter one is mainly written in Japanese).

As The First In Its Kind, Digital-Focused Event To Be Held This Weekend In Fukuoka

Here is some recommended reading, probably of value for just about everybody reading Asiajin: in 2007, Students at Singapore Management University have created a wiki called “Digital Media Across Asia”, which now covers a total of eleven countries (in English), namely:

• Australia
• China
• Hong Kong
• India
• Indonesia
• Japan
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• South Korea
• Taiwan
• Vietnam

On the site, the wiki is being called the “world’s most comprehensive wiki dedicated to digital media throughout Asia”, and I think this could well be true.

The wiki is updated 2-3 times per year (only the students themselves and faculty can edit it), and it’s a great resource for country-specific information on social networks, mobile, search engines, video sharing platforms, etc. etc.

Wiki Covering 11 Countries: Digital Media Across Asia

Studio MorikenStudio Moriken [J] has released a free iPhone application called
Konjoyaki that lets users experience a piece of Japanese Yankee culture.

“Yankee” in Japan does not mean North American – it refers to “bad boys” or “thugs”.

The name of the app (‘Konjoyaki’ – literally “Burn, with guts”) comes from a popular form of initiation among yakuza-wannabe high school students. In this game, if you can call it that, you prove your courage by burning yourself and your mates with hot cigarette butts.

Studio Moriken’s app is Konjoyaki minus the heat. You hold your fingers on the screen as long as possible on the screen, and the longer you press, the darker the ‘burn’ marks become.

via MacOtakara [J]

(proofread by Adam Walls)

Think You’ve Got What It Takes? iPhone App For Japanese Thugs’ Rite of Passage

A Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (総務省) working group recently published an opinion stating that certain network monitoring technologies (Deep Packet Inspection) can be used by Internet Service Providers to serve targeted advertising to users, but only after the user has been clearly notified of these practices. This news made the top page of Sunday’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

As all user communication with websites and other internet services travel through the user’s Internet Service Provider, these Providers theoretically can monitor or even modify these messages. ISP’s often do a simple version of this, looking only at the headers of packets (including the sender and the recipient of the information), in order to operate firewalls or to slow down certain types of traffic, such as file-sharing. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a variant of this method whereby the ISP inspects the actual messages being transmitted, including online purchases or search terms, rather than just the headers. Proponents argue that such technology can lead to better targeted and thus more effective advertising.

Naturally, such technology can also lead to privacy concerns. In the past, US Congressional concerns hampered the widespread use of similar DPI-based targeted ads by NebuAd. Such case law from the United States, as well as similar cases in Europe, were also reviewed in the Japanese Ministry report.

The report (PDF, summary PDF, both in Japanese) is the second recommendation from the Workshop on Various Issues Related to IT Services Considering the User’s Perspective (利用者視点を踏まえたICTサービスに係る諸問題に関する研究会), finalized after a public comment period. The report considers the implications of technology such as DPI-based ad targeting in light of Japanese case law on privacy and telecommunications issues (section II.6, pp. 54-59), and concludes that such technology cannot be used without constituting a breach of private communications if it does not first receive approval from the user (p. 58). However, elsewhere in the report it is stated that an opt-out mechanism must be in place (p. 59), suggesting that the system need not be opt-in.

It will be interesting to follow the public’s response to this opinion and to this type of advertising, if and when they are implemented by ISPs.

Japanese Government Allows ISPs to Target Ads by Browsing History

Online drag retailers Kenko.com in Tokyo and Wellnet[J] in Yokohama have sued Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for seeking to lift the ban on online drag sales, and Tokyo District Court[J] dismissed the suit on Tuesday.   Japan e-Business Association[J], consisting of e-commerce giants such as Rakuten and Yahoo Japan, announced a comment blaming the court for the judgment today.

Mr. Genri Goto, Kenko.com CEO made a press briefing and declared the intention that they would take the appeal to a higher court.

See also:

• Japan is going to ban online non-prescription drug sales
• Kenko.com and Wellnet Sues Japanese Government around Drug e-Commerce Ban
• Japanese Online Drug Retailer Forced To Go Abroad To Serve Japanese Customers

Japan e-Business Assc. Blames Court For Rejecting Online Drag Sales

Winny is a popular P2P file sharing software in Japan. Kaneko developed Winny and released it on notorious 2channel forum on May 6th, 2002.

In 2004, the developer was arrested for abetting copyright infringement. Prosecutor’s office said that Kaneko has created Winny to proliferate copyright infringement to overthrow copyright system in Japan.

However, Osaka High Court concluded that the accused didn’t have a clear intent to proliferate copyright violation. Also the judge decided that he can’t condemn Kaneko for just knowing that copyright piracy is rampant in Winny network.

Disclosure: Shunichi Arai is a vocal supporter of Isamu Kaneko.

News: Winny developer found not guilty

Japan’s biggest social network service Mixi added a new feature around its Mai-Miku(comes from “My Mixi”) friend system, adding “good friend”.

In addition to the existing “diary only to friends”, you can write a “good friends only” diary now.

There have been many troubles on Mixi Diary such like people boasting their petty crimes were tracked down by analysing their past diaries, friends network and community by raged net users and had to leave their schools/companies. And many of them were by people who had misunderstood that Mixi is closed (and protected) place different from the web.

It is supposed to be safer as you can restrict your readers only your friends. However, as in Japan most people are using nickname and illustration icon without showing their real name or face, having couple of hundred friends means that you have someone whom you really do not remember well. Then, even it was only for friends, your writings are copied and forwarded into the open web.

For example, just a week ago, a police woman in her twenty something by moaning tough work, cheap salary and authoritarian colleague on her Mixi diary opened only to her friends, was reported to get an admonition and resigned at her own request [J] (the form often observed when employer pressures to let him/her so, instead of firing). It is said that her Mixi friend had informed those diaries to their boss.

I am pretty unsure if this good/better/true friends setting solves such an issue, and that also may make you an embarrassed when you notice that you are not listed on your good friend’s good friend.

See Also:

Mixi’s Press Release [J]

Mixi Introduces Two Tiers Friends System

Prior to the general election scheduled at the end of this month, Rakuten publicized a letter from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan(DPJ) in response to the question by 60 Japanese business leaders including Rakuten’s CEO Hiroshi Mikitani.

The leaders asked both parties about their policies on six subjects including the ban on the e-commerce sales of OTC drugs, restricting the access by minors to harmful Internet websites, revising the legal systems of telecommunication and broadcasting, lifting the ban on the Internet election campaigning.

As for the ban on the e-commerce sales of OTC drugs, which has been effective since a month ago,  LDP says it would discuss further to study how Internet drug sales should be controlled and permitted in the future.   DPJ pointed out there are many problems caused by banning the sales, and it expects to reexamine the restriction.

Concerning about the Internet election campaigning, LDP says the government has to lift the ban on it with remaining some restriction to avoid possible slandering of candidates.   DPJ shows us its perspective that campaigning in any form of websites, blog and e-mail should be permitted.   DPJ swears it would submit a bill of the Internet campaigning to the National Diet if the party win a majority at the upcoming election.

See Also:

• Lower House Election and National Vote to Confide in the Supreme Court Judges [J]
  
• The Senkyo (Election) – The Database of Japanese Politicians [J]
• Rakuten’s Inforseek News: LDP and DPJ officialy announce their policies in response to an open letter questioning about e-business promotion[J]

Election Campaigning On The Net: When Does Law Catch Up With Social Trends?

Noriko Sakai, who used to be a popular J-pop idol in late 1980s and is now an actress starring on several TV commercial films, was arrested on a suspicion of possessing illegal stimulants last weekend.   She has an enormous number of her fans in Asian nations, especially Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and several Beijing-based news portal sites are filled with her pictures, articles on this case and comments from Internet users.

Despite the record company, which has released her songs, is now calling in her CD albums/singles from music storefronts (announcement by Victor Entertainment[J]), her best hit song titled “a blue hare (aoi usagi)” momentarily marked the 1st rank in counting of downloaded items at iTunes Store, for the first time in a long time since her previous hit.  (A few days after marking the good number, all electronic song distributors, including iTune Store and ringtone content providers, completely withdrew her all songs from their lists.)

This week, some people composed an ironical and parody song named “a white drug (shiroi kusuri)” after her best hit, and some patterns of the music videos filming a virtual singing performance by vocaloid “Miku Hatsune[J]“, a vocal synthesizer developed by Sapporo-based music/sound software company Crypton Future Media[J], were uploaded to video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J].   Totally these videos have been viewed more than 200,000 times in the last three days.

On Thursday, reportedly Nico Nico removed the videos in accordance with a request by Crypton, and Crypton said that it did so since the videos contained lyrics which might libel a specific person and a result of Crypton’s product.   (Basically Crypton permits any users of the vocaloid software to create any type of works derived from it, and you need not to worry about possible copyright conflict when you publish the works on the Internet.)

A well-known Internet tycoon and the managing director for NicoNico Douga, Hiroyuki Nishimura says on his blog[J],

I can’t find which part of Crypton’s rights have been violated by the uploaded videos.   If any items that Crypton hates had removed without sufficient reason nor the users’ understanding, they could be nastier than JASRAC (the country’s copyright administrating authority).

Author’s note: JASRAC has been often accused by Japanese UGC (user-generated content) site owners because the organization has requested the owners to remove items from their sites without presenting sufficient explanation.   This week’s video removal case could be more acceptable for Internet users if it had been executed based not on Crypton’s request but on Nico Nico’s well-considered judgment.   The video was already copied onto YouTube, and we have no idea whether YouTube has been requested to remove it by Crypton.    Because of no specific name found in the animation and the lyrics, generally speaking, no third-party will have the privilege to compel its removal.

——————————

August 18th Update:

On Monday, Nico Nico Douga set the video back on the site because Nico Nico learned Crypton’s removal request had no legal basis.   For successful compromise, NicoNico requested the removal to the person who had uploaded the video.

UGC Song Parody: Freedom Of Expression Or Libeling Her?

On Tuesday, Japanese prime minister Taro Aso[J] dissolved the lower house of parliament for the upcoming general election which is set for August 30th.   Representative candidates are forced to fight against their competitors and to appeal their policies to potential voters under the shining summer sun.

All political parties are now more aggressive than ever in using Internet to appeal their policies.   The ruling Liberal Democratic Party made an animation in which a man resembling the head of the opposition Democratic Party who seduces a woman and tries to marry her.

Man: I can make you happier than your current man.   Won’t you switch to me?   A wonderful rosy life is waiting for you.   You can depend on me for child care expenses, elderly care expenses – whatever.   No matter how many times you drive a car on any expressway at anytime, you are never requested to pay the bill.

(Author’s note: The Democratic Party sets forth reducing taxpayer’s burden for public services and welfare as one of their policies.)

Woman: Are you all right financially?

Man: I’ll consider the details once we are married.

Narration: Can you entrust your life to groundless confidence?   The Liberal Democratic Party – We give you well-grounded options.

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party introduced today a new flash-based game app for cellphone, which is for competing the time to get to the prime minister’s public residence and to take over the administration. (Go to http://mobile.dpj.or.jp from your mobile for the app)

All parties are making desperate efforts to attract swing voters – usually they’re young and relatively better at collecting information on the Internet.

Two Parties Start Cyber Negative Campaigning For Upcoming Election