Mixi, a Japanese local social networking service competing against Facebook, announced today [J] that the founder, president and the largest stockholder Kenji Kasahara is to hand over the presidency to Yusuke Asakura. Asakura, born in 1982, 30 years old, who joined Mixi in October 2011 when Mixi purchased his founding company Naked Technology. According to… Continue reading Mixi Appoints A New President. CEO Kasahara To Be A Chairman
“What the … ?” Remodeling TV Show Released As iOS Game App
Asahi Broadcasting Company [J] and Smikie Inc. [J] have released an iOS game application themed on the popular TV series “Dai Kaizou!! Gekiteki Before After” (Great Remodeling!! Dramatic Before and After). Download is free. In this construction and management simulation game, the player becomes an artisan builder and craftsman by making home improvements and spicing… Continue reading “What the … ?” Remodeling TV Show Released As iOS Game App
The 5 Japanese Cellphones That Changed Mobile World Forever
I’ve read recent article on Wired titled The 12 Cellphones That Changed Our World Forever. To be honest when I’ve checked those phones I felt this article has too narrow view of things. There are many other cellphones contributed to change the world. I picked up 5 Japanse cellphones influenced not only Japanese market but the… Continue reading The 5 Japanese Cellphones That Changed Mobile World Forever
Japanese Government Give Up Original Copyright License, To Support Creative Commons
According to IT Media [J], Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs(ACA, Bunka-chou) reportedly expressed at a symposium that they had given up their original public copyright license CLIP, which they researched from 2007 to 2010, and changed to support existing licenses, especially Creative Commons Licenses(CC). Although that some criticizes ACA spent tax for such a project… Continue reading Japanese Government Give Up Original Copyright License, To Support Creative Commons
Cookpad Switches To Ruby Version 2.0
Cookpad Engineers’ Blog announced [J] today that their web-service has migrated to Ruby 2.0.0-p0, the latest version of Ruby. That Japan’s (and probably the world’s) largest recipe web-service is one of the largest Ruby-based consumer web services. There are some incompatibilities from former versions of Ruby and 2.* series.
Nisshin Cup Noodle’s New TVCM Cynical About (Presumably) Rakuten
Rakuten’s Englishnization has been causing wide repercussions among Japanese business people. Nisshin’s new commercial film “Survive! Globalization” depicts a Japanese company whose head forces his guys to work in English in cynic tone. # Nisshin’s special site seems to have its own video player and no official uploaded video are on YouTube. There are some… Continue reading Nisshin Cup Noodle’s New TVCM Cynical About (Presumably) Rakuten
LINE Stamp Characters Appear In New Animated TV Series
NHN Japan, Inc. [J] has announced the broadcast of the animated TV series “LINE TOWN,” featuring popular characters from their free smartphone calling and mail application “LINE,” on Tokyo TV Channel 6, starting from Wednesday April 3rd at 6:30 PM. This is the second time that LINE characters have been animated. “LINE TOWN” [J] is… Continue reading LINE Stamp Characters Appear In New Animated TV Series
Japanese Restaurant Review Service Tabelog Opens English/New York Version
Popular restaurant review site Tabelog by Kakaku.com launched English site for New York City on March 28. US version tabelog has en accent mark on ‘e’, under .us domain. Its design is totally different and in Western-way design. We’re incredibly excited to announce the official launch of the Tabélog New York website! The new site… Continue reading Japanese Restaurant Review Service Tabelog Opens English/New York Version
Mixi Adds Facebook-like Poke With Comic Fonts Messages
Mixi added a new feature “Mixi Hello!” on March 25. With it, users can send pre-set messages in comic style to your friends, by 1-click without writing any letter. The pre-set messages are, “Oh Yeah!”, “Hello!”, “Long time no see”, “Hi”, “How are you?” and “Take care”. Mixi said [J] that the function was introduced… Continue reading Mixi Adds Facebook-like Poke With Comic Fonts Messages
Takafumi Horie, ex-Livedoor CEO Released On Parole
Horie himself announced on his Twitter account on 10:08 a.m. today March 27 (Japan Standard Time). 今日午前7:40くらいに仮釈放になりました！皆様いろいろ収監中はお世話になりました。ありがとうございました。無事仮釈放(刑期の74%)を貰う事ができました。 — 堀江貴文(Takafumi Horie) (@takapon_jp) March 27, 2013 According to the tweet, he was release around 7:40 a.m. The tweet has been retweeted over 5,000 times in 2 hours. After the Livedoor gate, he totally left Livedoor and had… Continue reading Takafumi Horie, ex-Livedoor CEO Released On Parole