Asiajin

In commemorating the 40th anniversary of the first human landing to the moon, on Tuesday, Google introduced a 3D map showing you the entire surface of the moon, named “Moon in Google Earth”, which is available on version 5.0 or later of Google Earth. Besides moon surface photos supplied by NASA, Japanese astronomical laboratories such as JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and NAOJ (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) also provide Google with terrain data collected by a Japanese moon observing satellite, in order to reproduce more accurate altitudes in the images.

Author’s note: Tomorrow’s solar eclipse is now causing an explosive access levels to NAOJ’s website, you may have difficulty in reaching the destination of the above link.

“Moon in Google Earth” has several optional menus including Appolo mission, guide tour, and the satellite’s aerial pictures presented by Arizona State University, etc.

“Moon in Google Earth”: SELENE Impact Point

3D video(HD) reproduced from terrain data collected by SELENE, which was making a final approach to the expected impact point on the moon. Quoted from JAXA Channel [E/J] on YouTube.

Tags: Company, Japan, New Service, News, Technology, USA, Video by Masaru IKEDA
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Tokyo-based animation studio FanWorks[J], which is well known for a famous title “Yawaraka Sensha ” or “Soft Wartank”, tied up with animators and TV broadcasters in Toyama (a Honshu island’s prefecture facing the Sea of Japan), and launched a project to promote the prefecture’s sightseeing business by creating original animation titles[J/E/F/C/K] which are intended for potential tourists living abroad, in association with Toyama-based animation studios, Berich[J] and P.A. Works[J].

The project is a part of the business boost plans which have been arranged by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and are aiming at cheering local economies.   The production partnership authored several animation titles featuring famous sightseeing spots in the prefecture.

The titles will be broadcast on LNTV[C], a public satellite TV broadcaster in Mainland China’s sister city for Toyama, as well as Toyama TV[J].   Furthermore, the title’s Internet distribution is also available at YouTube[J], NicoNico Douga[J] and Crunchyroll.   (Crunchyroll videos are accessible only outside Japan due to international licensing limitations.)

All the titles are available with subtitles in English, French, Mandarin Chinese and Korean.

Via Business Makoto[J] and IT Media News[J]

Tags: Company, Japan, News, Society, Trend, Video by Masaru IKEDA
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Mozilla Foundation is now working on the final phase for FireFox 3.5 official release which has a development codename of Shiretoko.   The codename was named after a popular forest area and a national park located in the north-eastern end of Hokkaido island, also registered as a World Heritage.

In connection with the meet of the modern convenience and the nature under the same name, Mozilla Japan and an NPO focusing on nature preservation in that area jointly launched a canpaign website called “Discover Shiretoko” on Thursday.   The website has a variety of pictures shooting local ecosystems such as brown bear, Ezo sika deer, Ezo red fox, earless seal and dolphin living in the area.

The two bodies are also running a campaign of distributing banner ads to bloggers for appealing the importance of natural preservation.   These banners shows you a tree, and if you put that on your blog site, the tree will be growing up as your every website visitor goes to the Shiretoko website via the banner.   Campaign participating bloggers can share real-time tree growth state with the others by checking out luxuriance of the virtual forest landscape on the website.  The virtual landscape is always changing in accordance with real weather and sunlight conditions in the area.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Community, Japan, News, Trend, Video by Masaru IKEDA
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At a flagship shop of Softbank Mobile, Japanese reseller of iPhone, there are people began lining up for tomorrow morning, new iPhone 3GS.

Ketsudan Potaufe, a web unit sends a live reporter girl to there and let her broadcast live report from there on ustream.

The livestream quickly got an attention from Japanese net users. At 8 p.m. (Japan Standard Time, JST), over 1500 viewers was recorded. Searching @PTFLive tag on twitter shows people’s chatting on her programme.

It seems that they use a note PC Let’s Note with 3G mobile connection service e-mobile.

[Update 1 a.m. (JST)]

There is an overnight iPhone event running in the building for waiting purchasers. But this girl @ksorano seems to be unabled to get power supply from official, Softbank Mobile and chose to broadcast in front of the Softbank Omotesando shop. The viewers is now 1574.

The event ustream can be watched here. Now it shows iPhone app contest but the number of viewers is 346.

Tags: Japan, Video by Akky Akimoto
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Currently, there’s a boom that many geeks install wireless-enabled video cameras on their cars, and that they publish captured on-board video movies on video sharing sites such as Nico Nico Douga[J] (link to videos tagged with on-board camera view, requiring username and password) and Ustream. The videos can make you feel as though you were driving on Japanese expressways.

The geeks are called “Shasai Cluster” meaning the group of driving video shooting hobbyists, form networking communities and have offline parties here and there. Some of them contributed to launch a website[J] which shows you real-time locations of the members of the “Cluster” who have GPS-enabled devices and Internet-enabled wireless video cameras online. By clicking each of red arrow signs seen on Google Maps mash-up on the website, any viewers are allowed to watch live streaming videos as though you were sitting on a driver’s seat.

The geeks are competing in shooting many chokepoints and in improving video quality for viewers as to watch with comfortability and not as to get carsick that may be caused by gazing at wobbling video images.

Via: IT Media News[J]

Tags: Cellular Phone, Community, Japan, Trend, Video by Masaru IKEDA
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