Goodbye, Galakei feature phones: according to Tokyo-based market research firm BCN (published in The Nikkei today), smartphones accounted for 49.8% of the total number of handsets sold between December 13 and 19 in Japan. Sure, this is just a snapshot, but there is a clear tendency to be observed here, and the smartphone segment in… Continue reading Report: Smartphones Account For 50% Of Current Handset Sales in Japan
Month: December 2010
Kinect + Head Mount Display = Virtual Reality (And Hatsune Miku, As Always)
Although Xbox360 is not so popular here in Japan, some Japanese seem to love and hack Kinect. After the first interesting one to connect Kinect with virtual 3D figure dance authoring free tool Miku Miku Dance, which was originally developed by fans of Vocaloid, human voice singing synthesizer software represented by pretty popular virtual diva… Continue reading Kinect + Head Mount Display = Virtual Reality (And Hatsune Miku, As Always)
World Sound Mix – Feel The World By Sound/Noise
The World Sound Mix By 43d is “a web based sound mixing engine that generates a location based Ambient sound from varied sounds from all over the world” (from their website). The sounds are colored by categories – green for nature, blue for city/town, yellow for voice/song and red for instrument. Sounds from different part… Continue reading World Sound Mix – Feel The World By Sound/Noise
Physical iPhone/Android Test Robot From US$70,000
Quality Commander [J] from Japan novel Corporation [J] is a gadget test automation robot which combines an industrial robot with camera and software. A blog S-max reported [J] their demo at Embedded Technology 2010 conference at Yokohama. The robot touches the device’s screen, by program and/or repeating a human’s first operation. The software will capture… Continue reading Physical iPhone/Android Test Robot From US$70,000
Nanapi, User-Generated Lifehacks Sharing Service Raises $3.8 Millon
Nanapi [J], a web service to share hacks posted by users, had acquired 3.8 million US dollars from Globis Capital Partners in Tokyo. Nanapi is a service to share life hacks, called as life recipes in this service, posted by users. Users can post their own hacks easily via Nanapi works [J], and can earn… Continue reading Nanapi, User-Generated Lifehacks Sharing Service Raises $3.8 Millon
Google Translate Adds “Listen” Japanese
According to the official blog, Google Translate has added a text-to-speech functionality for three new language, Arabic, Korean and Japanese. It is helpful for you to check how Japanese brands are pronounced, though you need to put proper Japanese Katakana or Hiragana there. For people who have no idea how to pronounce Mobage Town and… Continue reading Google Translate Adds “Listen” Japanese
December 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 1)
Early part of December news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 2) We introduced Disqus commenting system on Asiajin, and hoping to have more conversations with you now. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Twitter Eating Record Service Eatwit ex-Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie’s Paid Newsletter Subscribers… Continue reading December 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 1)
Gree Opens English Corporate Site – How About Others?
Gree has launched its company site in English today. It is a recent trend for big three social networking services to show their interest in international market. All of Gree, Mobage-Town and Mixi want more third party game/app development companies, and when competition is tough in Japan, of course it is a good option to… Continue reading Gree Opens English Corporate Site – How About Others?
GTA Chinatown Wars Released On Japanese App Store As More Western Developers Use iPhone to Penetrate Insular Games Market
Yesterday, Rockstar Games released a fully localized version of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the Japanese app store as more Western game brands invest in localizing and releasing iPhone apps. This comes at an opportune time for many Western gaming brands – not only is the Japanese games market showing signs of becoming increasingly insular on… Continue reading GTA Chinatown Wars Released On Japanese App Store As More Western Developers Use iPhone to Penetrate Insular Games Market
Video: DeNA CEO Tomoko Namba’s Interview at LeWeb’10
Tomoko Namba, the CEO of Japanese mobile social gaming giant DeNA (and one of my personal heroes), gave a pretty interesting interview at web industry conference LeWeb’10 earlier this month. LeWeb organizer Loic LeMeur asked her for a full 20 minutes about her company’s history, present and future plans Namba, speaking in excellent English, doesn’t… Continue reading Video: DeNA CEO Tomoko Namba’s Interview at LeWeb’10