Telecom Venture Presentations Held By Japan’s Governmental Incubator

On Tuesday, NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) held its annual conference providing telecom-related start-ups the opportunity to present their business plans.   An audience of more than 200 attended the event in Akihabara. NICT is a governmental venture, incubation, and research organization with a special focus on future telecommunications technology development, and is… Continue reading Telecom Venture Presentations Held By Japan’s Governmental Incubator

Akiba mobile app biz plan competition held by Mitsui VC

Mitsui Ventures, the investment arm of Mitsui & Co., Ltd., organized a business plan competition called “i*deal competition“, and the award presentation ceremony was held today in Akihabara, where new Internet subcultures and innovative services are born. The event started with a keynote speech by famous IT journalist Nobuyuki Hayashi, who is well-known as the… Continue reading Akiba mobile app biz plan competition held by Mitsui VC

Winny trial goes High Court

Winny is the most popular P2P file-sharing software in Japan. Isamu Kaneko [JP], the developer of Winny, was prosecuted by Kyoto Prosecutors Office. Kaneko was found guilty and fined 1.5 million yen ($15,000). Kaneko and the prosecuter both appealed to Osaka High Court. 4th January, 2009, Toshimitsu Dan [JP], a lawyer of the defendant, and… Continue reading Winny trial goes High Court

Bounen Kaigi 2008 report

Bounen Kaigi, annual year-end conference considering the record of the year, was held at Yahoo! Japan office again this year. This conference was sponsored by Yahoo! Japan and the event hosts were Gen Taguchi (blog: 100shiki[J]) and Daiya Hashimoto (blog: Jyoho Kogaku Passion for The Future[J]). This conference consisted of the followings. Noticeable Net Services… Continue reading Bounen Kaigi 2008 report

Ruby craze sweeps Fukuoka, Japan

Programming language Ruby was created by a Japanese programmer, Yukihiro Matsumoto. However, Ruby was a minor hobby language until the appearance of Ruby on Rails. After the Ruby on Rails fad reached Japan, the government people became interested in Ruby, because it is the first made-in-Japan programming language which is commonly used worldwide. Shimane prefecture,… Continue reading Ruby craze sweeps Fukuoka, Japan

So-net M3 – a community site for doctors

So-net M3 (TSE:2413) is a very profitable and unique company which is providing a community site ‘m3.com’ exclusively for medical doctors. Doctors are restricted by confidentiality, so they cannot use typical community sites to share information about their professional life or skills. M3 provides them with a bulletin board service. M3 has 390,000 registered medical… Continue reading So-net M3 – a community site for doctors

Jason Calacanis meets Japanese Bloggers in Tokyo

Jason Calacanis, a big name in Silicon Valley (founder of Weblogs and Mahalo, legendary blogger,VC etc.) visited Japan last week for the first time. We had dinner with him and with other famous Japanese bloggers. Japan’s best-known bloggers attended this dinner meeting, including Dan Kogai (who is also the ex-CTO of Livedoor), Masato Kogure from… Continue reading Jason Calacanis meets Japanese Bloggers in Tokyo

The Next Innovation on Web Services will be out from Asia: Open Web Asia’08 Event Report

Why it is difficult for European and U.S. companies to advance into Asia. At the event to discuss about the future potential of the Asian Web “Open Web Asia ’08” held in Seoul, a lot of hot discussions were held. George Godula who is the founder of Web2Asia – a full-service market entry partner and… Continue reading The Next Innovation on Web Services will be out from Asia: Open Web Asia’08 Event Report

Sun and Recruit’s Mashup Awards 4

On Sunday, 19th October, Mashup Awards 4 , Sun Microsystems Japan and Recruit‘s [Recruit on Asiajin] web-service mashup development contest award ceremony was held at Recruit headoffice, next to the Tokyo station. The contest, 4th this time, gathered 44 companies’ web service API from many of Japanese web companies such like Yahoo Japan, Google Japan,… Continue reading Sun and Recruit’s Mashup Awards 4

Register for the New Context Conference 2008 in Tokyo (November 5-6) [UPDATE]

Canceling this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in Tokyo was considered a mild disappointment in the Japanese web world. But now it seems Digital Garage‘s New Context Conference 2008 [J], a 2-day event full of high-profile speakers from the Japanese and international Internet industry, can more than make up for it. The event is being organized… Continue reading Register for the New Context Conference 2008 in Tokyo (November 5-6) [UPDATE]