i-mode cellphone shipment announced to cease by end of this year

NTT Docomo announced today November 2, 2016 that they will end the sales of i-mode cellphones between this month November and December. No new i-mode supported featurephone is announced so that P-01H, which was released November in 2015, would be the last i-mode cellphone for regular users. The announcement tells that their i-mode capable Rakuraku-phone(easy… Continue reading i-mode cellphone shipment announced to cease by end of this year

Povie – Purikura For Movie, Knows Your “Kawaii” Points To Decorate

Povie by a Japanese design unit Shikake is a movie decoration service in Japanese popular “purikura” (wikipedia) style. The service is bilingual, English and Japanese. On regular purikura, you place letters, characters and shapes over your snapshot with buttons/tablet/touch panel. However, Povie will detect your motion and decorate it automatically with “Kawaii Engine”(kawaii = cute).… Continue reading Povie – Purikura For Movie, Knows Your “Kawaii” Points To Decorate

Evernote for i-mode Released For Docomo Feature Phone

Evernote, a popular note-taking service, who has achieved a big, maybe bigger success in Japan than elsewhere, launched a new app to cover majority of Japanese cellphone users on Docomo i-mode, which is a mobile internet service subscribed by over 48 million people. “Evernote for i-mode” [J, Docomo Market] is an i-mode Appli version of… Continue reading Evernote for i-mode Released For Docomo Feature Phone

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

Docomo Merges i-Mode And Smartphone Businesses

There is no reason for i-mode provider NTT Docomo to give up on its highly profitable mobile Internet service for feature phones as long as it makes money, but Japan’s biggest mobile carrier is starting to change things. According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Docomo is moving to combine its i-mode and smartphone businesses… Continue reading Docomo Merges i-Mode And Smartphone Businesses

Finally Google Out, Goo In On Half Of Japanese Cellphone

As I reported on Monday, NTT comrades – #1 cellphone carrier NTT Docomo and Japanese portal Goo owner NTT Resonant – tried to get back search initiative in Japanese mobile web by switching their i-mode iMenu mobile web search from Google on April 30th, but failed with (I guess by too much traffic) trouble and… Continue reading Finally Google Out, Goo In On Half Of Japanese Cellphone

Google Losing Default Mobile Search Engine Position On Docomo i-mode Portal, A Gate To Half Of Japanese Mobile Web

Japan’s largest cellphone carrier NTT Docomo, which boasts 50% market share on cellphone users, also keeps over 50% share of cellphone web connection services i-mode, announced that they switch their default mobile internet search service from Google mobile search to Goo’s one since April 30th [J]. Until last week, your searching on i-mode portal, iMenu… Continue reading Google Losing Default Mobile Search Engine Position On Docomo i-mode Portal, A Gate To Half Of Japanese Mobile Web

January 2010 Japan-IT Links (part 1)

Last week our RSS subscribers passed over 5,000, which is a good milestone. Twitter followers also increased to 400. Following @asiajin also will notify our latest articles. Thank you so much. Here is the first half of January Japanese IT/Web interesting news links we did not take as a dedicated article. (part 2 is here)… Continue reading January 2010 Japan-IT Links (part 1)