We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. But in case you missed any of it, here’s a wrap up below. Readers on mobile might want to check out the features on Readlists or in ePub format.
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Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) recently held its annual business plan presentation event for college and university students. It’s called Kigyouka Koshien, which literally means ‘entrepreneur championship.’ The event took place at an CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Basecamp this past Thursday. NICT provides mentoring to students who have a passion for entrepreneurship. At the Thursday event, nine finalists from different regions came together in Tokyo, all hoping to walk away with the championship. Here’s a quick run down of what the participating teams are working on. Judges: Koki Sato (CEO, Septeni) Ryuichi Nishida (editor-in-chief, TechCrunch Japan) Tsuyoshi Hoshina (CTO, Nihon Unisys) Masahiko Honma (representative partner, Incubate Fund) Re-Ja ¶ Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them. Moku Tomo ¶ Japan is…
Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) recently held its annual business plan presentation event for college and university students. It’s called Kigyouka Koshien, which literally means ‘entrepreneur championship.’ The event took place at an CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Basecamp this past Thursday.
NICT provides mentoring to students who have a passion for entrepreneurship. At the Thursday event, nine finalists from different regions came together in Tokyo, all hoping to walk away with the championship. Here’s a quick run down of what the participating teams are working on.
Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them.
Japan is said to have more than 20 million smokers. Moku Tomo is an app that lets them to find a smoking area nearby using a handy map. The business model is based on sponsorships from cigarette companies, from pharmaceutical companies selling nicotine patches, and from restaurants which have such smoking areas. The presenters, from Doshisha University in Kyoto, are now in talks with Japan Tobacco and British Tobacco.
Shingo Aida (of Aizu University in Fukushima) has developed an iOS app that acts as an alternative to seat posture measurement instruments. Such instruments are used to prevent those with mobility problems from developing posture issues or sores by ensuring the wheelchair is adjusted specifically for their body size and shape. An instrument of this kind helps people live better but is very costly. So Shingo has developed this app which is much cheaper. The target market is comprised of about 10,000 people in Japan and 80,000 more in the US.
When we hire a private teacher for our son or daughter, the biggest problem is usually that the quality of the lectures is very much dependent on who you hire. Tamiko Iwama (of Digital Hollywood University) wants to standardize the quality of the lectures by providing tutors with a web-based knowledge sharing platform. Learning materials and slides can be stored on the platform, and tutors can download them via the dashboard and customize their own lectures.
It’s often said that learning to reading code is like mastering a new language. But it’s not always easy since other people’s code could be written or structured far differently than what you might envision. And physical books for programming languages can be very costly and bulky. Code Library is a smartphone app that allow users to receive a lecture regardless of time and location. As part of its testing, Hamhei Horiuchi (of Tokyo’s University of Electrocommunications) has introduced a beta app called Code Library Lite, which will enable him to receive lots of feedback from programmers so he can refine the service.
A ‘Gakushoku’ is a cafeteria at a university which typically offers decent foods at affordable prices. For students who usually have little or no income, expenses for lunch at the cafeteria can account for most of their spending. That’s why this Chuo University team has come up with the idea of giving students a chance to win a complimentary meal. A QR code is printed on the back of a meal ticket, and a student can then scan it with his smartphone and watch ads while he waits for the meal. The team receives revenue from advertisers and pay a commission to cafeteria owners participating in the program.
The world’s Muslim community has huge market potential with a population of 1.6 billion people. A team from Yokohama National University hopes to found a sort of Craiglist for Muslims, in order to bridge Muslim communities around the world and here in Japan too. To refine the idea, the team has enlisted feedback from the folks at the Saudi Arabian Embassy and mosques in Tokyo. In partnership with Japanese travel agencies, C@ndy expects to provide information on travel packages for Muslim people, offer Japanese dishes made from Halal foods, and provide venues for praying during the trip.
Perler beads (or Hama beads) are a popular craft for children. But it’s difficult to build an original design on aa peg board. This team from Yonago National College of Technology hopes to produce a system that lets children create their own designs from their favorite pictures on an iPad. They plan to speak with Kawada Co., Ltd., a local distributor of Perler beads in Japan, to explore the monetization potential of this idea.
Elderly people in Japan (and in Okinawa, where this team originates) are eager to use digital devices to browse the web, but in many cases they can’t. In order to bridge this digital divide, the team has developed an app that lets elderly to browse news and updates from social media and blog on an iPad in a way that reflects the newspaper experience. Instead of searching a keyword to look for a specific topic, all you have to do is place your hand over an interesting story on your physical newspaper, just in front of the iPad camera. The app will detect which story you are interested in, and then collect updates from the blogsphere, showing them to you if they were a from a physical newspaper.
Pictured: The team from Okinawa National College of Technology presents ShinbuNet
Japanese gaming company Aiming Inc has announced today that it has received almost 300 million yen (or about $3.21 million) in investment from Nissay Capital. The funds will be used to expand its portfolio of games, and make a play for the overseas smartphone and PC games market. To date, most of the company’s titles are for the Japanese market, including the recently launched Lord of War which after its release in late February managed to briefly grab the number one spot in the Japanese app store on March 1st [1]. I confess, I’ve not spent any significant time with any of their games, many of which are Japanese style RPGs, but it is promising to see yet another Japanese gaming company looking to markets abroad, and also finding some funds to drive forward. If you’d like to try out one of its titles in English, you can perhaps get your hands on Lord of Knights: The Conquerors which it seems to have quietly launched last year on the New Zealand app store. The original Japanese version of that title has over 400,000 downloads to date. You can check out a promo video for Lord of Knights below. (Aiming via…
Japanese gaming company Aiming Inc has announced today that it has received almost 300 million yen (or about $3.21 million) in investment from Nissay Capital. The funds will be used to expand its portfolio of games, and make a play for the overseas smartphone and PC games market.
To date, most of the company’s titles are for the Japanese market, including the recently launched Lord of War which after its release in late February managed to briefly grab the number one spot in the Japanese app store on March 1st [1].
I confess, I’ve not spent any significant time with any of their games, many of which are Japanese style RPGs, but it is promising to see yet another Japanese gaming company looking to markets abroad, and also finding some funds to drive forward.
If you’d like to try out one of its titles in English, you can perhaps get your hands on Lord of Knights: The Conquerors which it seems to have quietly launched last year on the New Zealand app store. The original Japanese version of that title has over 400,000 downloads to date. You can check out a promo video for Lord of Knights below. (Aiming via Gamebiz)
Since then, however, it has dropped off significantly, now really only visible in the ‘simulation’ and ‘role playing’ categories, where it still ranks in the top 50. The Android version of the title is coming soon. ↩
This is the first in our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones. We recently heard from Tokyo-based smartphone ad company Metaps, which just raised $11 million in series B funding. As a semi-related follow up, I thought it might be fun to ask someone from Metaps how they use their own Android phone. Yusuke Kobayashi was kind enough to participate in the first of what we hope to be a continuing series called ‘On My Mobile’. The goal is to take a look at the notable applications that folks in Japan’s tech industry use themselves, in the interests of better understanding Japan’s mobile space. In the interactive graphic below, you can see a couple of screens from Yusuke’s Android phone. He elaborates a little on three of his favorite applications: MT2 Free – This app is site viewer of Japanese 2channel which is a huge bulletin board site. I often use this app to get various information about entertainment, society, sport, etc. Also, the user comments for this app are pretty funny. Sudoku Plus – This app is puzzle game with numbers. I use this app to kill…
This is the first in our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones.
We recently heard from Tokyo-based smartphone ad company Metaps, which just raised $11 million in series B funding. As a semi-related follow up, I thought it might be fun to ask someone from Metaps how they use their own Android phone. Yusuke Kobayashi was kind enough to participate in the first of what we hope to be a continuing series called ‘On My Mobile’. The goal is to take a look at the notable applications that folks in Japan’s tech industry use themselves, in the interests of better understanding Japan’s mobile space.
In the interactive graphic below, you can see a couple of screens from Yusuke’s Android phone. He elaborates a little on three of his favorite applications:
MT2 Free – This app is site viewer of Japanese 2channel which is a huge bulletin board site. I often use this app to get various information about entertainment, society, sport, etc. Also, the user comments for this app are pretty funny.
Sudoku Plus – This app is puzzle game with numbers. I use this app to kill time and exercise my brain.
Revenge Of Dragoon – This app is social game, and the most interesting thing about it is its story and the card battle.
You can mouse over the image below to explore more of Yusuke’s preferred applications.
As far as digital efforts in the fashion industry goes, there is an unfortunate lack of innovation in Japan. Even the more enthusiastic brands have only gone as far as releasing dedicated mobile apps for customer loyalty. But I recently stumbled upon a Tokyo-based company called Ceno which might be an exception to the digitally challenged status quo in the fashion industry. Ceno operates seven different lines of clothing, with one of the most famous brand being Vanquish. Its main customers are men in their early twenties, but the brand has managed to even attract teenagers and men in their forties. Vanquish received a lot of attention recently for an in-store collaborative project called Vanquish Venus, created in cooperation with Team Lab, a local organization famous for their digital creativity. Vanquish installed something called ‘TeamLabHanger’ at their stores, and when an item on a hanger is removed from the rack, it triggers video and audio on a screen overhead. The idea here was to bring in customers who would normally just walk past the Vanquish store, and for those already inside it would show them different ways to coordinating clothes. The project recruited famous female artists and celebrities to model…
Vanquish: in-store manga camera
As far as digital efforts in the fashion industry goes, there is an unfortunate lack of innovation in Japan. Even the more enthusiastic brands have only gone as far as releasing dedicated mobile apps for customer loyalty. But I recently stumbled upon a Tokyo-based company called Ceno which might be an exception to the digitally challenged status quo in the fashion industry.
Ceno operates seven different lines of clothing, with one of the most famous brand being Vanquish. Its main customers are men in their early twenties, but the brand has managed to even attract teenagers and men in their forties. Vanquish received a lot of attention recently for an in-store collaborative project called Vanquish Venus, created in cooperation with Team Lab, a local organization famous for their digital creativity. Vanquish installed something called ‘TeamLabHanger’ at their stores, and when an item on a hanger is removed from the rack, it triggers video and audio on a screen overhead.
The idea here was to bring in customers who would normally just walk past the Vanquish store, and for those already inside it would show them different ways to coordinating clothes. The project recruited famous female artists and celebrities to model in the videos, and it currently features Chiaki Ito from the popular pop group AAA. To keep things fresh, videos are renewed every two months with different models.
But perhaps the most notable model of all was virtual star Hatsune Miku (see video below), who attracted not-so-fashion-savvy netizens to the Vanquish brand, thus expanding its fan base a little beyond who the audience they normally sell to. Ceno even ended up creating an orginal Vanquish song by Hatsune Miku under the supervision of music label Karent.
There are also manga camera machines installed at three Vanquish stores (pictured above), including the Shibuya and Ikebukuro locations. These original purikura machines convert photos into unique manga-like images, which are then uploaded to the Vanquish Facebook page. The customers are then brought to the Facebook page where the company hopes they will click the ‘Like’ button [1].
Ceno has already expanded to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, China, and even Australia. Its next project is the launch of a Vanquish ecommerce site for BangKok, scheduled for this April. The brand is pretty well received by consumers around Asia, as the pricing is not too expensive. After going through different vendors to reach overseas markets, many Japanese brands end up being high-priced luxury brands (whether they want to or not). Ceno has partnered directly with different vendors in locals market to ensure this doesn’t happen.
The company has also started another brand called Gonoturn which sells unique hats and facial masks that mimic cute animals. It looks like a fun company too, as you can see below. Here the employees are pulling off another Harlem Shake video while wearing their own products.
In case you were wondering, Ceno began this manga camera project before the popular Manga Camera app appeared on the app store. ↩
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the National Diet Library have finally launched an online archive of photos, videos, and other infomation relating to the tragic March 2011 east Japan earthquake. It’s currently available for viewing at kn.ndl.go.jp. Media can be browsed and sorted by location (there’s a useful map interface here), media type, and language. And while it’s not the easiest site in the world to navigate, there is a lot of content brought together from external sources under one umbrella [1]. Currently the site provides interfaces in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. It’s far from perfect, but it’s good to see an initiative like this finally get going. The two year anniversary of the disaster will fall on Monday, and since then a number of organizations have curated such collections in the interests of ensuring that we remember what happened. Other archive initiatives Another organization that’s playing a major role in recording the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami is Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), which has been collecting Street View images of the affected areas, cataloguing these as memories on its Memories for the Future website (actually, the NDL’s online archive draws content from here as well)….
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the National Diet Library have finally launched an online archive of photos, videos, and other infomation relating to the tragic March 2011 east Japan earthquake. It’s currently available for viewing at kn.ndl.go.jp.
Media can be browsed and sorted by location (there’s a useful map interface here), media type, and language. And while it’s not the easiest site in the world to navigate, there is a lot of content brought together from external sources under one umbrella [1]. Currently the site provides interfaces in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean.
It’s far from perfect, but it’s good to see an initiative like this finally get going. The two year anniversary of the disaster will fall on Monday, and since then a number of organizations have curated such collections in the interests of ensuring that we remember what happened.
Other archive initiatives
Another organization that’s playing a major role in recording the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami is Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), which has been collecting Street View images of the affected areas, cataloguing these as memories on its Memories for the Future website (actually, the NDL’s online archive draws content from here as well). Recently, Google have even been mapping areas in the exclusion zone near the Fukushima nuclear plant.
And then there is also Project 311, which emerged from a ‘Big Data Workshop’ organized by Google and Twitter, a collection of media reports from around the time of the earthquake. Professor Hidenori Watanave has created a Google Earth view of the data, which you can find at media.mapping.jp.
Harvard has also assembled a useful digital archive too, located at jdarchive.org.
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Most of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them.
Yukari Mitsuhashi
