In a press conference yesterday, DeNA announced [J] the formation of the “Super Creators” initiative, an all-star team of five veteran game designers from the traditional Japanese games industry who will create social smartphone games for Mobage. All games will be published by AQ Interactive. The veteran game designers include: Keiji Inafune: Legendary game designer formerly employed… Continue reading DeNA Recruits Legendary Japanese Game Designers Into “Super Creators” Initiative
Month: July 2011
Colish Gives Roommate-Matching A Different Spin
You may have heard of the launch of a roommate matching service Colish yesterday. It’s a project born out of Startup Weekend Tokyo in May, that provides a meeting point for like-minded people to share a house with. I talked with Kentaro Ohara, who is one of the team members, and asked some questions about… Continue reading Colish Gives Roommate-Matching A Different Spin
Japanese Twitter Users Play On New Japanese Hashtags
Official Twitter blog announced [J] that Twitter is capable of Japanese character hashtags. (our post reported it) Then, a lot of Japanese Twitter users started strange wordplay. This is a trend hashtags of yesterday’s Tokyo. What are these long hashtags? They are themes of wordplay. # like a game in “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” (Akky) For… Continue reading Japanese Twitter Users Play On New Japanese Hashtags
Web Reactions – Japan Analog TV Ends Its 58 Years History
All Japanese analog terrestrial television broadcasting were terminated today at 12:00 p.m. July 24 (Japan Standard Time) as planned, aiming more effective radio wave usage by re-assigning their bands from analog TV to newly introduced digital TV. They have been simultaneously broadcast until today. All channels stopped in 44 prefectures, besides three prefectures, which suffered… Continue reading Web Reactions – Japan Analog TV Ends Its 58 Years History
July 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 1)
Early part of July news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 2) Asiajin’s WordPress was upgraded to version 3.2. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Yahoo! Omiai – Yahoo!’s Renovated Matchmaking Service Launches July 1 Taiwan AMD Website Features Schoolgirls Ifengine – Multi-platform Novel Game Engine… Continue reading July 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 1)
Microsoft Japan Introduces Another Anime Girl For Small And Medium Business
Following to the cloud girl Claudia, Microsoft’s Japan local branch tries to appeal their target by using a new character. The Microsoft Virtualization campaign page suggests three Hyper-V solutions to Small and Med sized enterprise. The character name and other information are not disclosed but some anime fans already pointed out that it must be… Continue reading Microsoft Japan Introduces Another Anime Girl For Small And Medium Business
Japanese Entrepreneurs: Get The Last Spot In The “Tofu Project” To Go To America
Are you a Japan-based entrepreneur interested in taking part in a 7-day design thinking and innovation boot camp that will take place in October in California? Then you should head over to the website of the so-called Tofu Project. What is the Tofu Project about? Founded by Tokyo Mango blogger, tech writer and book author… Continue reading Japanese Entrepreneurs: Get The Last Spot In The “Tofu Project” To Go To America
iPhone App Helps You Predict Next Vacant Seat On Commuting Train
This app can be used everywhere, but probably it is only needed in Tokyo. Densha de Suwaru (sitting down on train) by Velc is a newly released free iPhone application to make your own database of passengers whom you commute with every morning and night. On the app, for each other passenger you will make… Continue reading iPhone App Helps You Predict Next Vacant Seat On Commuting Train
Zaim: The Socialized Cashbook App Helps You Find Better Ways To Save Daily Expenses
Takako Kansai[J] (@kansai_takako), a full-time engineer at Tokyo’s web service start-up and also the best known tech geek girl in this country, just released her first iPhone app called Zaim on Tuesday. Zaim, meaning “financial affairs” in the Japanese pronunciation, makes you possible to easily note where you have bought something, what you have bought,… Continue reading Zaim: The Socialized Cashbook App Helps You Find Better Ways To Save Daily Expenses
Japan’s Biggest Location-Based Game Colopl Hits 2 Million Users
In 2005, long before Foursquare and other LBS became available in the US and elsewhere, cell phone users in Japan were able to play a GPS game called “Coloni-na Seikatsu Plus” (Colony life☆PLUS” or Colopl) on their cell phones. In the game, players build up a colony, which requires a virtual currency called Pura to… Continue reading Japan’s Biggest Location-Based Game Colopl Hits 2 Million Users