Google+, Love+

We just wrote that Japanese made a Google Plus logo homages Nintendo DS virtual dating game Love Plus. Now illustration follows by Pixiv user acea4. Three girls have Google Map, Gmail and Chrome icons. The original “Love Plus” illustration,

Rakuten Switches Portal Search Backend To Google

Rakuten, Japan’s huge online mall, announced on 10th that they are to use Google search on their portal Infoseek Rakuten. Infoseek Rakuten has been using Yahoo! Japan search backend, and requested Japan Fair Trade Commission to investigate if Yahoo! Japan-Google search alliance is antitrust. Naver, Korean-originated search engine running Japanese search site, announced [J] on… Continue reading Rakuten Switches Portal Search Backend To Google

Google Opens Evacuation Info Portal For Japanese Cellphone

Google built a dedicated page which is tailored for Japanese cellphone web browsers (i.e. i-mode and others) to help people suffering Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis [J]. Compact web page for cellphone browser is in higher demand for many refugees at evacuation shelters. This is good move as well as other Google’s latest help like Person Finder,… Continue reading Google Opens Evacuation Info Portal For Japanese Cellphone

Google Japanese Input Drops Beta Tag, Does Even Fortune-Telling

If your language has much more letters, say 3,000 characters, than multiple times (shift/crtl/alt) of number of keys on keyboard, you need an input method environment(IME) to tell computers what letter you want to type. There are many IMEs exist for Traditional/Simplified Chinese and Japanese. These days operating systems have those IME bundled, on Windows,… Continue reading Google Japanese Input Drops Beta Tag, Does Even Fortune-Telling

Google Zeitgeist 2010 Japanese Ranking

Following to Yahoo! Japan 2010 ranking, Google’s Zeitgeist 2010 has been disclosed on all of their languages including Japanese. Although Yahoo! Japan Search switched its backend to Google’s one, people searching on Yahoo! japan and people searching on Google will keep using the same frontend, and will show the similar trends in 2011. The most… Continue reading Google Zeitgeist 2010 Japanese Ranking

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

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

Japan’s Top Search Keywords in 2010 By Yahoo! Japan

It is a year-end buzzword ranking season. Yahoo! Japan, Japan’s most popular search portal, though the backend search engine has been gradually switching to Google’s one (everyday more people report that their search results are the similar with the Google’s results), eventually gets the highest number of search volume in Japanese. Yahoo! Japan just released… Continue reading Japan’s Top Search Keywords in 2010 By Yahoo! Japan

Google Japan Makes Comic Of Japanese Input Method Development

Google Japan publicized their “Google Japanese Imput Method (Beta) Comic” online, following to its paper version, which was presented to their developer’s event recently. This 42 pages comic by Yutanpo Shirane features some star developers in Google Japan. There are 8 chapters and each chapter has the following topic; Why Google developed and released its… Continue reading Google Japan Makes Comic Of Japanese Input Method Development