Category: News

Yahoo! Box: Yahoo! Japan’s Online Storage Service Tops One Million Users

As the country’s biggest website, Yahoo Japan is constantly rolling out new products like mobile apps, social networking services or games. Some of them fail, and some of them turn out to be successful: Yahoo Box!, the online storage solution Yahoo Japan launched in October, belongs to the latter group. The company pushed out a… Continue reading Yahoo! Box: Yahoo! Japan’s Online Storage Service Tops One Million Users

C.A. Mobile Releases Smartphone Social Commerce Platform “SCP”

C.A. Mobile [J] has released the smartphone social commerce platform “SCP.”  They will proceed by the introduction of their cell phone site “ONE☆FESTA.” “SCP” is a corporate electronic commerce site geared towards establishing unique social pages.  The social commerce platform offers a system which allows you to submit impressions such as “I want it!,” “I… Continue reading C.A. Mobile Releases Smartphone Social Commerce Platform “SCP”

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

Tabelog, Japan’s Yelp Reportedly Tainted By Undercover Positive Review Agents

A popular consumer restaurant review site Tabelog [J], who has been competing the top position of restaurant listing site against Gurunavi with user-generating-contents power, admitted on January 4 that there were reviews and ranking manipulations on Tabelog, by third party agents who sell a package like planted favorable comment posting and voting for rank-up, according… Continue reading Tabelog, Japan’s Yelp Reportedly Tainted By Undercover Positive Review Agents

Nico Nico Douga Hits 1.5 Million Paid Subscribers

Japanese online video sharing service Nico Nico Douga has got 1.5 million paid subscribers on January 3, 2012. Nico Nico Douga, with its unique overlay user-generated comments, is known by users’ videos, but recently it airs programs from TV and movie as well both in free and paid channels. Nico Nico Premium Membership costs 525… Continue reading Nico Nico Douga Hits 1.5 Million Paid Subscribers

Japanese Tweets Likely Makes Another World Record On Twitter

As expected, the opening of year 2012 on Japanese Twitter was a full stream of new year’s greetings. After entering into 2012, Twitter, both site and API, went down by heavy load. According @dfnt, on unofficial Twitter traffic counting service Tweet Counter showed that the peak tweets at the midnight January 1, 2012 in Japan… Continue reading Japanese Tweets Likely Makes Another World Record On Twitter

Livestar Securities Erased All Database By Human-caused Mistake, Orders Went Away

Livestar Securities Co., Ltd., a Japanese online brokerage service issued a released to apologize its trouble started around 10 a.m., during trading time on December 27. Livestar Securities web transaction service was completely inaccessible over 4 hours from 10 a.m. to 2:05 p.m. In their announcement, the trouble was caused by an outsourced company removing… Continue reading Livestar Securities Erased All Database By Human-caused Mistake, Orders Went Away

Taito Releases Smartphone Social Spy Game Onto Chinese Market

Taito [J] has released the Android social game “特工大戦” (SPY WARS), for the smartphone “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community” through business partnership with GREE [J] and the Chinese internet portal Tencent. “特工大戦” is the first segment of a social game in China for the “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community.”  It’s a Chinese language… Continue reading Taito Releases Smartphone Social Spy Game Onto Chinese Market

Bandai Namco Games Opens Its Own Android Market, “Banadroid”

Bandai Namco [J] has opened “Banadroid” [J] specially for the Android market. “Banadroid” is an application marketplace with application distribution, billing and registered user information for Android apps managed by Bandai Namco Games.  Currently it’s still in beta service, so there are only 12 available titles, but from now the lineup is planned to increase.… Continue reading Bandai Namco Games Opens Its Own Android Market, “Banadroid”