Tokyo Taxis Become WiFi-Enabled

In association with NTT DoCoMo, Tokyo Musen[J], an alliance of taxi operators in Tokyo, started today providing in-car WiFi Internet access for free for taxi users on 820 cars travelling within Tokyo Prefecture.   100 of the 820 cars carry PSP Go (PlayStation Portable) as well, taxi users are allowed to playing games with it,… Continue reading Tokyo Taxis Become WiFi-Enabled

Yahoo! Japan’s Search Engine All Switched To Google’s Confirmed By Y!J President Inoue

According to Jiji, Yahoo! Japan president Masahiro Inoue confirmed that their backend search engine switch had finished on December 1st. Japan Fair Trade Commission yesterday declared that the coalition between Yahoo! Japan and Google around search technology is not an unfair monopoly. He also said that another big switch to Google’s technology, ads network system… Continue reading Yahoo! Japan’s Search Engine All Switched To Google’s Confirmed By Y!J President Inoue

Make Tokyo Meeting 06: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

Picture above: “Hyper knit creator” Saki Chikaraishi[J] (@hypersaku) wearing the iPhone-like sweater she has knit. Last weekend, at Ookayama Campus, Tokyo Institute of Technology, O’reilly Media‘s mechatronics magazine “Make” held the 6th meeting[J] and a bunch of unique gadgets were presented.  Let’s have a look at some of remarkable items. – – – – – – – –… Continue reading Make Tokyo Meeting 06: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

Startups 2010: CyberAgent Ventures Announces To Invest In Five Tech Start-ups

CyberAgent Ventures[J], an invest arm of Tokyo’s web business conglomerate CyberAgent, previously known as CyberAgent Investment, announced today the result of Startups 2010[J] or their program digging up hidden tech start-ups from Japanese market.  Five teams were chosen to be financially and physically supported by CyberVentures in the program. Totally 108 teams have submitted their… Continue reading Startups 2010: CyberAgent Ventures Announces To Invest In Five Tech Start-ups

More Employees, More Games: CyberAgent To Expand US Presence

Japanese Internet behemoth CyberAgent (listed with a $1.2 billion market cap) is ready to expand its activities in the US. The company today announced it will establish a development base in San Francisco this Wednesday (December 1) with the goal of creating smartphone apps for international markets. CyberAgent has been active in the US since… Continue reading More Employees, More Games: CyberAgent To Expand US Presence

Conit Launches Easy-to-manage In-app Purchase Platform For Android App Developers

Tokyo-based tech start-up Conit launched an in-app purchase platform for the Android apps as well as the iPhone/iPad apps on Friday, in association with Japan’s largest ad agency Dentsu. The platform is named as Samurai Purchase[J], and allows smartphone app developer to manage all their in-app purchases that are made by users via the Android… Continue reading Conit Launches Easy-to-manage In-app Purchase Platform For Android App Developers

KDDI And Weathernews Introduce New Style Of Weather Updates For Cellphone

Japan’s second largest cellphone operator KDDI and the world’s largest meteorological company Weathernews jointly announced that they had launched a new weather update service by using Stevenson screens built on about 100 cellphone base stations in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, which is named Soratena after sora (meaning ‘sky’) and antenna.   The service is available… Continue reading KDDI And Weathernews Introduce New Style Of Weather Updates For Cellphone

Tweeted Wishes Are Projected On Public Bath Chimney And Deliver Hopes

Sony has been running an ad campaign to promote their computer product brand Vaio since the beginning of this month, which is titled Vaio Assist Torch Project[J].   In the campaign, the company started to project words of people’s thankfulness and encouragement to a chimney of a public bath in Tokyo.   After the sun sets,… Continue reading Tweeted Wishes Are Projected On Public Bath Chimney And Deliver Hopes

Play Tag, Sharing Tweets Among Train Passengers – Keio Students Unveil Unique Social Apps At Their Showcase Event

Keio University SFC (Shonan Fujisawa Campus), known as a technology hub for Japan’s Internet community in academic field, had a two-day event called Open Research Forum 2010[J] last week, where 142 research teams showcased their development results and works. As one of them, “Densha Now” is a third-party Twitter app that shows you tweets by… Continue reading Play Tag, Sharing Tweets Among Train Passengers – Keio Students Unveil Unique Social Apps At Their Showcase Event

ex-Google Japan President Starts A New Company Alex

Koichiro Tsujino, who served as Google Japan’s president, which was an exceptional position in Google, resigned this April, has just begun his new venture, Alex [J]. On the Alex’s board member, there is an interesting name, ex-Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei (cf. Forbes). Tsujino led VAIO and other products in Sony before Google. On the new… Continue reading ex-Google Japan President Starts A New Company Alex