Japan exempts programmers’ jury duty because they are “too busy”

According to Mainichi, for new citizen judge system planning to be introduced in May 2009, Japanese supreme court developed guidance that what kind of jobs are excusable to decline jury duty summons. The jobs list, having over 10 jobs and situations as initial draft, includes System Engineer (often said “SE”, a bit different from the… Continue reading Japan exempts programmers’ jury duty because they are “too busy”

Report: Mobile Monday Tokyo Peer Awards Event

This month’s Mobile Monday Tokyo event (held on March 24th near Hibiya park in central Tokyo) was actually an awards show. The so-called “MoMo Tokyo Peer Awards” event featured a total of 12 companies aiming to go to Malaysia in May to represent Japan in the Mobile Monday Global Summit. Speaking time was limited to… Continue reading Report: Mobile Monday Tokyo Peer Awards Event

“www” has another meaning in Japanese Web

When browsing Japanese websites, especially user-generated ones like BBS, you may see a lot of “w” letter at the end of lines on Japanese text. Such like, “Blablabla www” Do you know what they are? Those “w”, “ww”, “www” or longer consective “w”s mean laugh, laugh out loud in Japan. i share Inc. recently researched… Continue reading “www” has another meaning in Japanese Web

Report: Asiajin Meeting #1 (part two)

This is the second part of our coverage of the Asiajin meeting #1 which took part this Tuesday. Presentation No. 4 “The 4th presenter abused the meeting by violating its regulation of not speaking in one’s mother tongue against agreement. Thus we do not cover the presentation. You may find the information somewhere else. (Akky… Continue reading Report: Asiajin Meeting #1 (part two)

Report: Asiajin Meeting #1 (part one)

The Asiajin Meeting #1 took place this Tuesday in Akasaka/Tokyo. Courtesy of Cybozu Labs, the event was free of charge. About 30 people participated while the number of people viewing the live broadcasting (done by Andrew Shuttleworth) peaked at 25. We will see to it that we announce the livecast earlier next time, especially for… Continue reading Report: Asiajin Meeting #1 (part one)

SonyEricsson and Nokia integrate Mixi Mobile access into cell phones

Japan’s largest social network Mixi announced that a total of three mobile phones made by Sony Ericsson and Softbank/Nokia have integrated direct access to its mobile version. These are the Cybershot SO905iCS, the Cybershot W61s and the Nokia N95. The Nokia model is delivered in Japan as the SoftBank X02NK. It was announced that users… Continue reading SonyEricsson and Nokia integrate Mixi Mobile access into cell phones

Mixi will set up China subsidiary

Japanese Social Network Giant, Mixi Inc. announced that they will establish a 100% subsidiary in Shanghai, China, to enter the Chinese market this April or May 2008. Most of Mixi’s revenues now come from its social network service for the PC and cellular phones. Mixi says they think China is promising because of the increase… Continue reading Mixi will set up China subsidiary

Some Niconico-douga videos available without registration

Niconico douga, the 2007 biggest hit in Japanese web, is a video sharing community service with enhanced overlay comments feature. Although it is popular among Japanese users, there are not many non-Japanese videos and comments, mainly because it requires user registration and it does not offer English menu. If you want to try it by… Continue reading Some Niconico-douga videos available without registration

Japan’s Internet filtering initiatives

Can you regulate the Cyberspace? Should you? It seems some forces in Japan think it’s possible and you should. There has been a lot of efforts by the Japanese government in the last few weeks to regulate and censor the Internet in various ways. 2 weeks ago, Japan’s National Police Agency hinted it may soon… Continue reading Japan’s Internet filtering initiatives

Twitter Japan dev team showed some plans

On the twitter Japanese localization news, newly-opened Twitter Japan development blog explains what items are on their task list on localization process. In their current plan, They are making Japanese version on top of current (running) system. Japanese users and world users belong to the same account space. They do NOT make another Japanese version… Continue reading Twitter Japan dev team showed some plans