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Japanese tower defense hit ‘Battle Cats’ marches on, now with 4 million downloads

Rick Martin 2013.03.27

The Japanese tower defense game Battle Cats from Kyoto-based developer Ponos has just surpassed 4 million downloads, this according to Gamebiz.jp. This comes shortly after the title passed the 2 million downloads milestone just last month. The game was initially released for iOS back in November, with the Android version following at the end of December.

The title has been a top 50 iOS app in Japan for the majority of 2013, and a top 5 stallworth in the strategy category. The Android version has done even better, starting out a little slow, but staying in the top 25 of all Android apps for Japan since early January, with the exception of a few days.

Personally I’m a huge fan of this game, and I’m really glad to see it doing well. I confess, that Puzzle & Dragon’s has displaced Battle Cats somewhat in my gaming time, but if I can ever get past chapter 3, round 48, then I expect my addiction will re-kindle pretty quickly.

While I haven’t yet cracked the problem of beating chapter 3, some readers have inquired about beating chapter 2. So here’s a short video (above) which gives an overview of that round. I hope it helps!

If you’re a fan of Battle Cats, feel free to share your tips or invite codes in the comment section below.

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Subscription-based Japanese sake service? Yes please!

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.26

Hanami season is not only a wonderful time to check out cherry blossoms, but it also gives us a great excuse to drink sake in broad daylight guilt-free. But most of us are not sake experts, and it can often be difficult to choose one given the variety of choices out there. But Sakelife can be a solution for many facing this dilemma. The service is a monthly subscription commerce for Japanese sake. It began back in Feburary of 2012 by collecting its initial funding on the crowdfunding website, Campfire. The project succeeded in just three hours and gained four times the amount of funding they had asked for. Sakelife curates quality bottles of sake for its users every two months, including a sake glass as well. The subscription also comes with an informative weekly newsletter about sake. The curation is the responsibility of Masanori Takahashi, the 25th representative of a long-established sake maker whose roots go all the way back to the Muromachi period (1336). Sake subscription is available in two types of plans starting at 3150 yen (about $33) including the shipping fee. We’ve heard rumors that the startup is planning to launch outside of Japan, so we…

It began back in Feburary of 2012 by collecting its initial funding on the crowdfunding website, Campfire. The project succeeded in just three hours and gained four times the amount of funding they had asked for.

Sakelife curates quality bottles of sake for its users every two months, including a sake glass as well. The subscription also comes with an informative weekly newsletter about sake. The curation is the responsibility of Masanori Takahashi, the 25th representative of a long-established sake maker whose roots go all the way back to the Muromachi period (1336).

Sake subscription is available in two types of plans starting at 3150 yen (about $33) including the shipping fee. We’ve heard rumors that the startup is planning to launch outside of Japan, so we will let you know if and when it’s available to overseas users.

Speaking of sake, we recently came across a project called Shuzo-Meigara Note (which translates as ‘sake brewer notebook’) that aims to promote sake culture. Shuzo-Meigara uses unused sake brewer’s cardboard and makes it into a sleek hand-made design notebook.

There are fourteen kinds of notebooks availabe on an ecommerce website, but shipment is limited to Japan for now. Shuzo-Meigara note can be a nice gift for friends who enjoy sake, and and it also helps promote the sake brewery. The traditional and powerful font of sake labels makes the notebook very unique and original.

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Tokyo’s iPad-powered bars remember your favorite drinks

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.26

A new bar just opened yesterday in Tokyo’s busy Shibuya district, bringing with it a new digital solution that could disrupt the bar industry. It’s called LogBar, and was founded by entrepreneurial programmers Takuro Yoshida and Takayuki Yamazaki. When you step inside the bar, you receive an iPad upon which you should sign in with a username and password. Every order of beverages, alcohol, and appetizers is to be made on the iPad. You can also interact with bartenders and other customers on the app, which have been specifically designed for the bar. The app allows you to check what the other customers have ordered and to throw them a ‘like’ as well. The two founders are not satisfied with developing digital-centric solutions, but wanted to explore digital solution opportunities by connecting online to offline. By accumulating your orders on the app, your drink preference will be stored on the system, so you might see a suggested drink that suits your tastes at a participating bar in the network, even if it’s your first time there. Their bars are located at two locations in Shibuya, but are open only on Monday evenings. Traditionally, the best bars are the ones where…

When you step inside the bar, you receive an iPad upon which you should sign in with a username and password. Every order of beverages, alcohol, and appetizers is to be made on the iPad. You can also interact with bartenders and other customers on the app, which have been specifically designed for the bar. The app allows you to check what the other customers have ordered and to throw them a ‘like’ as well.

The two founders are not satisfied with developing digital-centric solutions, but wanted to explore digital solution opportunities by connecting online to offline. By accumulating your orders on the app, your drink preference will be stored on the system, so you might see a suggested drink that suits your tastes at a participating bar in the network, even if it’s your first time there. Their bars are located at two locations in Shibuya, but are open only on Monday evenings.

Traditionally, the best bars are the ones where bartenders remember customers’ preferences, and customers might often frequent establishments where they enjoy chatting with the bar staff. This is why many consider the bar industry to be one of the most difficult sectors in which to develop a franchise business. But with this new technology, you might find that a bar you’ve never been inside before could know your name and favorite drink in advance!

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Animation effects startup Cybernoids raises $557K for global expansion

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.26

Cybernoids, a Tokyo-based startup developing two-dimensional animation technology, announced on Monday it has raised 52.4 million yen (approximately $557,000) from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Seibu Shinkin Capital, and visual-effects developer Qtec. The funds are to be used to intensifying the company’s business expansion overseas. The startup has developed a new image rendering technology called Live 2D, which makes it easier to add motions or expression changes to characters animated in 2D. The company’s CEO Tetsuya Nakajo explains the global market potential of their flagship technology: The overseas animation industry has no similar technology because they’ve been developing only 3-dimensional animation titles. Cybernoids was founded in July of 2006, and the Live 2D technology was chosen as one of the year’s finalists for Mitou, a bi-annual software engineering promotion program run by a governmental IT promotional agency of Japan. The company’s Flash-based technology helps smartphone game developers easily create animated character motion, and it has been deployed to more than 40 game titles including Konami’s virtual dating game for females, Tokimeki Restaurant. The company is exhibiting the latest version of its Live 2D technology at the Game Developers Conference 2013, which is currently underway in San Francisco. Check out the following video from…

cybernoids_logo Cybernoids, a Tokyo-based startup developing two-dimensional animation technology, announced on Monday it has raised 52.4 million yen (approximately $557,000) from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Seibu Shinkin Capital, and visual-effects developer Qtec. The funds are to be used to intensifying the company’s business expansion overseas.

The startup has developed a new image rendering technology called Live 2D, which makes it easier to add motions or expression changes to characters animated in 2D. The company’s CEO Tetsuya Nakajo explains the global market potential of their flagship technology:

The overseas animation industry has no similar technology because they’ve been developing only 3-dimensional animation titles.

Cybernoids was founded in July of 2006, and the Live 2D technology was chosen as one of the year’s finalists for Mitou, a bi-annual software engineering promotion program run by a governmental IT promotional agency of Japan. The company’s Flash-based technology helps smartphone game developers easily create animated character motion, and it has been deployed to more than 40 game titles including Konami’s virtual dating game for females, Tokimeki Restaurant.

The company is exhibiting the latest version of its Live 2D technology at the Game Developers Conference 2013, which is currently underway in San Francisco. Check out the following video from the folks at Diginfo News for more information on how the technology works.

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Fujitsu can take your pulse with nothing more than a camera

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.25

Photo by ITpro Fujitsu Laboratories has announced that it has developed technology to measure a person’s pulse from video taken by the camera in a smartphone, tablet, or PC webcam — and it can do so in as fast as five seconds! If you want to monitor your health, it’s obviously a good idea to keep track of your pulse. But putting the usual monitoring equipment on your arms and wrists can be a pain. Fujitsu’s technology improves this process significantly through the use of video. The technology also can estimate hemoglobin levels in the blood by calculating RGB color components from a person’s face, measuring the approximate ‘brightness’ of their skin. The margin of error for this new pulse-measuring technology is only about ±3 beats. Currently, Fujitsu is working to support Windows operating systems, with plans to commercialize the technlogy sometime this year. Support for Android and iOS is in the works as well. While it would certainly be a useful consumer technology, it might also be used in the medical industry to monitor patients, or it could be used at security gates in corporate buildings or airports. We may even see it used for ad targeting in the…

Photo by ITpro

Fujitsu Laboratories has announced that it has developed technology to measure a person’s pulse from video taken by the camera in a smartphone, tablet, or PC webcam — and it can do so in as fast as five seconds!

If you want to monitor your health, it’s obviously a good idea to keep track of your pulse. But putting the usual monitoring equipment on your arms and wrists can be a pain. Fujitsu’s technology improves this process significantly through the use of video. The technology also can estimate hemoglobin levels in the blood by calculating RGB color components from a person’s face, measuring the approximate ‘brightness’ of their skin.

The margin of error for this new pulse-measuring technology is only about ±3 beats. Currently, Fujitsu is working to support Windows operating systems, with plans to commercialize the technlogy sometime this year. Support for Android and iOS is in the works as well.

While it would certainly be a useful consumer technology, it might also be used in the medical industry to monitor patients, or it could be used at security gates in corporate buildings or airports. We may even see it used for ad targeting in the future — for example — recognizing a person with a high pulse rate, identify them as a likely runner, and then display ads for sport drinks.

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With over 25 million downloads, FX Camera is one of Japan’s most successful photo apps

Rick Martin 2013.03.25

We’ve written a lot about unusual photo apps from Japan here on SD. There are decorative purikura apps like Decopic or Snapeee, or off-the-wall apps like Face Stealer or the stealthy Ninja Camera. But one of the most successful photo apps from Japan is not nearly a niche as these. FX Camera is more straightforward, with a repertoire of photo filters and effects, plus simple social sharing. It doesn’t over-complicate things. I finally took the plunge and spent some serious time with FX Camera over the past few weeks. Given the relatively normal feature set I didn’t have huge expectations. But there were a few things that pleasantly surprised me: the filters consistently produce photos of an unexpected quality, especially the ‘Oldie’ filter under the ‘toy camera’ filter collection [1]. There’s also the fun symmetry effect collection, which can make for some great images if you use it wisely (see my attempt, lower right). Recently the company behind FX Camera, Bit Cellar, announced that their app has surpassed 25 million downloads, which is certainly an impressive feat. Although it should be noted that the app was first released for Android all the way back in 2009, a big head start…

We’ve written a lot about unusual photo apps from Japan here on SD. There are decorative purikura apps like Decopic or Snapeee, or off-the-wall apps like Face Stealer or the stealthy Ninja Camera. But one of the most successful photo apps from Japan is not nearly a niche as these. FX Camera is more straightforward, with a repertoire of photo filters and effects, plus simple social sharing. It doesn’t over-complicate things.

I finally took the plunge and spent some serious time with FX Camera over the past few weeks. Given the relatively normal feature set I didn’t have huge expectations. But there were a few things that pleasantly surprised me: the filters consistently produce photos of an unexpected quality, especially the ‘Oldie’ filter under the ‘toy camera’ filter collection [1]. There’s also the fun symmetry effect collection, which can make for some great images if you use it wisely (see my attempt, lower right).

Recently the company behind FX Camera, Bit Cellar, announced that their app has surpassed 25 million downloads, which is certainly an impressive feat. Although it should be noted that the app was first released for Android all the way back in 2009, a big head start on its competitors, especially here in Japan.

If you try out the app these days, you’ll find that there is a new ‘water’ effect section. I understand that if you use these photo effects that BitCellar will donate a penny for each photo to the Japan Water Forum. Check out their promo video below for more on that.

FX Camera is not my primary photo app (that honor goes to Big Lens) but I expect I’ll continue to use it as one of my favorites. My only complaint so far is that it kills my podcast player when I open it, which is a little annoying.

If you’d like to give FX Camera a try for yourself, it’s available over on the App Store as well as on Google Play.

A photo took of my new daughter ended up bearing a bit of a resemblance to ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earring’. ↩

With contributions from Rick Martin

Japanese tower defense hit ‘Battle Cats’ marches on, now with 4 million downloads

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