Japan Patent Office Gives Up New Patent System Which Already Spent 5.5 Billion Yen

Asahi reported [J] that Japan’s Patent Office(JPO) decided to terminate their patent management system renewal project which began in 2006. They already spent 5.5 billion yen(US$70 million) and specially formed inspection committee in the organization recommended to stop the project. The project term was set from December 2006 to January 2014, development by Toshiba Solution… Continue reading Japan Patent Office Gives Up New Patent System Which Already Spent 5.5 Billion Yen

Mixi And DeNA Allies In Social Commerce

January 25, two of Japan’s largest social networking service companies, DeNA(who runs Mobage) and Mixi announced their new alliance on social commerce. On the release, it is said that “Mixi, who holds networks of close friends” and “DeNA, who has plenty of knowledge on e-commerce and has been running Bidders (mobile shopping service)” are going… Continue reading Mixi And DeNA Allies In Social Commerce

Privacy: How To Get Postal Address From Amazon Wish List

Amazon’s wish list is a list of products that you can publish on Amazon and ask people to purchase and send, a kind of donation feature. You are expected to be anonymous and still receive gifts, for example blog readers. On January 18, a Twitter user @mopetsune explained how you can extract anyone’s real address… Continue reading Privacy: How To Get Postal Address From Amazon Wish List

Goo Web Search Offers Useful Tweets On Search Results

NTT Resonant, a subsidiary of Japan’s largest telecommunication company NTT, who is running Goo, a search engine for PC, mobile (mainly for Docomo handsets) and smartphone, released [J] that Goo starts providing “Useful Tweets” on its search result page. The useful tweets showed on the search are selected by Goo’s original language analysis and scoring… Continue reading Goo Web Search Offers Useful Tweets On Search Results

Japanese Government Tries To Distribute Fake Pirated TV Drama Over P2P File Sharing Networks

Jpaan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications(MIC) on January 20 released [J] that they are running an experiment to distribute files which name look like pirated TV drama videos from January 23 to 29. The fake drama videos will be distributed at least on two popular Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing tools/networks, Winny and Share. The… Continue reading Japanese Government Tries To Distribute Fake Pirated TV Drama Over P2P File Sharing Networks

10% Of Ministry Staff Open Suspicious Mail Attachment On Surprise Security Drill In Japan

Japan’s National Information Security Center reported on January 19 that the results of its security drill with 60,000 staff in 12 government organizations around malicious mail attachment [J, pdf]. According to the report, from October to December 2011, the center held security training to the 60,000 staff, then sent two mails which you could not… Continue reading 10% Of Ministry Staff Open Suspicious Mail Attachment On Surprise Security Drill In Japan

Japan’s #2 Carrier KDDI Pushing Ads On Android Notification Bar

KDDI, Japan’s second largest cellphone carrier is being blamed by users on Twitter [J] by displaying advertising on Android “as a system notification”. Here is a sample screenshot informs from KDDI to you “Diet by an App”, on the system notification. The Android app to insert such ads on the Android system notification is an… Continue reading Japan’s #2 Carrier KDDI Pushing Ads On Android Notification Bar

Japan’s Web News Week 3

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Domino Pizza To Sell Net-Limited Heart Pizza For Valentine’s Day via MyNavi Sutelog – Judge If Given Tabelog Restaurant Reviews Are Suspicious By Stealth-Marketing – background [En] Face K-on Anime Shirts… Continue reading Japan’s Web News Week 3

The First Top-Pro-vs-Computer Shogi(Japanese Chess) Match Was Won By Computer

The first top professional player vs computer Shogi(Wikipedia) match Dennousen (Battle of Cyber-King) was held at Shogi Kaikan (Japan Shogi Association building), Tokyo January 14, 2012. Kunio Yonenaga, an ex grand-master (in 1993) and a chairman of Japan Shogi Association, who retired in 2003, played against a computer program “Bonkura-s”. Although he is a retired… Continue reading The First Top-Pro-vs-Computer Shogi(Japanese Chess) Match Was Won By Computer

Japan’s Web News Week 2

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Android App Purchasers’ Info Given To Developers Rising An Privacy Issue In Japan – Many purchasers complain why online app seller could receive buyer’s address Gundam AKB – Kotaku [en] Kamen… Continue reading Japan’s Web News Week 2