Earn Points In Mobile Game, Plant Trees In Chinese Desert

On Wednesday, Two Tokyo-based mobile tech start-ups Ceres[J] and Orso[J] jointly launched a forest growing mobile game called “Morippy”.   In the game a user can virtually grow a forest by getting along with three characters representing animal, plant and fungi on behalf of all ecosystem factors. You can earn reward points on the game in… Continue reading Earn Points In Mobile Game, Plant Trees In Chinese Desert

NTT DoCoMo To Start Cellphone Banking Service, While KDDI Runs A Year Ahead

NTT DoCoMo and Mizuho Bank are reportedly planning to launch a micro payment banking service using cellphone handsets. By using the bank agent system that permits non-financial companies to deal with financial services, the cellphone giant will launch the service in this summer as soon as Japan’s monetary authority approves it. The new service allows… Continue reading NTT DoCoMo To Start Cellphone Banking Service, While KDDI Runs A Year Ahead

Make Tokyo Meeting 03: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

Last weekend at Hachioji Campus of Digital Hollywood University in Tokyo’s surburb, “Make” magazine’s readers and gadget inventors came together and held an annual meeting titled “Make: Tokyo Meeting 03[J]“.   For readers who have never heard about Make:, the magazine is a quarterly magazine published by O’reilly Media and it contains articles on hardware hacking… Continue reading Make Tokyo Meeting 03: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

Make Your Blog Catchier With Yellow Paper’s Know-How

Kayac[J], a funny web app developer based in Tokyo’s suburb, and Tokyo Sports[J] (a.k.a. Toh-spo), a daily sports newspaper company,  jointly introduced a blodget[J] on Wednesday, which may make your blog much catchier. Toh-spo covers sports and show biz news everyday, and it is an yellow paper having a large circulation.   Tokyo businessmen love… Continue reading Make Your Blog Catchier With Yellow Paper’s Know-How

This Weekend’s Three Tech Events You Must See

On this weekend, here we can get a chance to witness three great tech events in a row. As first of all, a Tokyo-based social entrepreneur Todd Porter, the co-founder of Tokyo International School Patrick Newell and their companions will have the first event of TedxTokyo on this coming Friday at the National Museum of… Continue reading This Weekend’s Three Tech Events You Must See

Softbank Mobile Gives Away iPhone 3G To Univ. Students

Softbank Mobile, Japan’s only cellphone operator dealing with iPhone 3G,  and Aoyama Gakuin University announced on Friday that they would distribute the handset to all students studying at the university’s school of social informatics[J].    The students are allowed to use it for attendance reporting, lecture podcasting and having online examination. When a student submits his/her… Continue reading Softbank Mobile Gives Away iPhone 3G To Univ. Students

Video Rental Store Chain To Be Lead Shareholder Of Kakaku.com

A Shibuya-based Internet conglomerate Digital Garage (DG) announced on Thursday that it would sell a half of all the shares of Kakaku.com[J], a B2C price comparison site and a subsidiary of DG, to Culture Convenience Club (CCC) owning Japan’s largest nationwide store chain providing video rental service called Tsutaya[J].   CCC plans to purchase 58,360 shares… Continue reading Video Rental Store Chain To Be Lead Shareholder Of Kakaku.com

Does Marriage-Hunting SNS Treat Men As Women’s Livestock?

On Wednesday, A Shibuya-based dot-com venture CyberAgent launched a free mobile SNS, named “Otokonoko Bokujo (a.k.a. Otoboku)” meaning boys pasture, targeting marriage-hunting females. After a female user signs up for an account of the service, she will be allowed to upload portraits and profiles of her male friends to her own “virtual pasture” set up… Continue reading Does Marriage-Hunting SNS Treat Men As Women’s Livestock?

Google StreetView Considers Local Charcteristics And Deploys New Measures

For refraining from shooting objects put inside private premises over the walls located along public roads, Google Japan announced on Wednesday it would deploy new measures not as to violate resident’s privacy after considering Japan’s local characteristics including its housing styles, tightly crammed rows of houses and high population density. The new measures are: An… Continue reading Google StreetView Considers Local Charcteristics And Deploys New Measures

White Elephant From The Internet Bubble? Seven-yo Avatar SNS Is Shut Down

A Tokyo-based conglomerate of PC manufacturing and e-commerce retailing, MCJ(Mouse Computer Japan) announced it would shut down the company’s avatar SNS service Cafesta[J] at the end of this month. The service earns 600,000 unique users and 80 million pageviews in a month. Cafesta was launched by Powered.com (merged to KDDI in 2006), an ISP and… Continue reading White Elephant From The Internet Bubble? Seven-yo Avatar SNS Is Shut Down