Japanese game developer Sega recently launched a new licensing brand called SegaKawaii. Segakawaii will leverage the company’s legacy games and characters and redesign them to appeal to wider range of fans, especially girls.
The very first project is set to kick off on April 25th with popular apparel brand Galaxxy. The Dreamcast Controller backpack sells for 13,860 yen (or about $142) may attract some geeky girl gamers. A kickoff exhibition will be held from April 25th to May 6th at Galaxxxy Hi-Fi store at Shiuya, Tokyo.
Japan has always been a pretty great country in which to take a relaxing soak. But jacuzzi and bath company, Takeshita, gave the nation’s bath culture an extra special splash of color today with its new ‘Hotaru’ (or ‘Firefly’) LED bathtub. Incredibly this tub, which is composed of a special translucent resin, will cycle through a seven-color gradation of light, producing what the company hopes is a therapeutic, relaxing experience. The Firefly’s lights can be connected to your bathroom lights, so that when you illuminate the bathtub, your bathroom lights go off. The tub comes in a few varieties, a 350 liter model for 1,002,750 yen, and a 340 liter model for 892,500 yen. There’s also a ‘blower’ type for those of you who like bubble baths. If you live in Japan and think this is for you, the company can arrange for installations nationwide. Check out the video above for a quick demonstration of the Firefly in action! (Takeshita via Impress)
Japan has always been a pretty great country in which to take a relaxing soak. But jacuzzi and bath company, Takeshita, gave the nation’s bath culture an extra special splash of color today with its new ‘Hotaru’ (or ‘Firefly’) LED bathtub.
Incredibly this tub, which is composed of a special translucent resin, will cycle through a seven-color gradation of light, producing what the company hopes is a therapeutic, relaxing experience. The Firefly’s lights can be connected to your bathroom lights, so that when you illuminate the bathtub, your bathroom lights go off.
The tub comes in a few varieties, a 350 liter model for 1,002,750 yen, and a 340 liter model for 892,500 yen. There’s also a ‘blower’ type for those of you who like bubble baths. If you live in Japan and think this is for you, the company can arrange for installations nationwide.
Check out the video above for a quick demonstration of the Firefly in action!
See the original story in Japanese Tokyo-based web solution provider GaiaX has introduced a new tool called Co-work. It’s specifically designed for communication and knowledge sharing among colleagues at your company. GaiaX has been developing a social networking platform for specific purposes like following up with students before hiring, or keeping in touch with employees paternity or maternity-leaves. During this development process, the company recognized the need for a corporate communication platform that could improving operational efficiency in business. To sign up for an account with the new service, you’ll need a corporate email address. No free e-mail addresses are allowed. Its features are still very limited, with basic file sharing, as well as a mention feature that allows you to ask other colleagues if a requested task was completed. There’s also timeline feature called ‘company’ which allows you to check out what’s happening in other sections or departments. With this function, the app encourages you to share knowledge with colleagues beyond your immediate projects. The company’s communication manager Takashi Sabetto says that there’s still more room to develop in the ICT market, not only for startups but also for big companies. They are planning to add optimization for smartphone…
Tokyo-based web solution provider GaiaX has introduced a new tool called Co-work. It’s specifically designed for communication and knowledge sharing among colleagues at your company.
GaiaX has been developing a social networking platform for specific purposes like following up with students before hiring, or keeping in touch with employees paternity or maternity-leaves. During this development process, the company recognized the need for a corporate communication platform that could improving operational efficiency in business.
co-work.gaiax.com
To sign up for an account with the new service, you’ll need a corporate email address. No free e-mail addresses are allowed. Its features are still very limited, with basic file sharing, as well as a mention feature that allows you to ask other colleagues if a requested task was completed. There’s also timeline feature called ‘company’ which allows you to check out what’s happening in other sections or departments. With this function, the app encourages you to share knowledge with colleagues beyond your immediate projects.
The company’s communication manager Takashi Sabetto says that there’s still more room to develop in the ICT market, not only for startups but also for big companies. They are planning to add optimization for smartphone browsing, as well as Chinese and Korean versions. Currently Co-work is available in Japanese and English.
The corporate chat space is getting noisy
These days most of us are forced to use an assortment of communication channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or e-mail. It often troubles me to think which channel is the best way to get in touch with someone, or even worse is the dilemma of trying to recall which tools I’ve used in the past to exchange messages with someone. I hope this congested environment can sort itself out some day soon.
In addition to this the Co-work app, Osaka-based startup Chatwork has also developed a corporate communication tool. They have acquired more than 150,000 users and are now looking to expand to North America and other Asian regions. Cybozu Live, another key player in this space, has surpassed 3,000 corporate accounts. US-based project management tool Asana is also seeing good numbers in its business user acquisition in Japan.
The traditional Japanese style of lacquer art known as Maki-e goes back thousands of years, involving the use of metal powders or seashell material to create spectacular designs under a fine lacquer finish. And one company has brought this ancient tradition into the modern day by using it for the creation of intricate iPhone covers. This special smartphone cover, which goes on sale tomorrow, is the amazing Hello Kitty iPhone cover pictured above. It was created by Echizen Lacquerware Ltd, with planning from Principle Co Ltd, and of course licensed from the folks at Sanrio. As you can see in the video below, it’s a handcrafted product that requires great care, and the resulting cover doesn’t come cheap. The Hello Kitty case will go on sale tomorrow for the price of 18,000 yen, or about $200. It can be purchased at Kusuyama stores in Japan and around the world, and it can also be bought online. This is not the first time that we’ve seen an old-school Japanese art encasing Apple’s iPhone. Last month we looked at elegant ‘Musubi’ paper cases from Kyoto-based manufacturer Suzuki Shufudo.
The traditional Japanese style of lacquer art known as Maki-e goes back thousands of years, involving the use of metal powders or seashell material to create spectacular designs under a fine lacquer finish. And one company has brought this ancient tradition into the modern day by using it for the creation of intricate iPhone covers.
This special smartphone cover, which goes on sale tomorrow, is the amazing Hello Kitty iPhone cover pictured above. It was created by Echizen Lacquerware Ltd, with planning from Principle Co Ltd, and of course licensed from the folks at Sanrio.
As you can see in the video below, it’s a handcrafted product that requires great care, and the resulting cover doesn’t come cheap. The Hello Kitty case will go on sale tomorrow for the price of 18,000 yen, or about $200. It can be purchased at Kusuyama stores in Japan and around the world, and it can also be bought online.
This is not the first time that we’ve seen an old-school Japanese art encasing Apple’s iPhone. Last month we looked at elegant ‘Musubi’ paper cases from Kyoto-based manufacturer Suzuki Shufudo.
Line chat app users can now enjoy unique stamps from world famous modern artist Takashi Murakami. The stamps were created to commemorate the release of the movie Mememe-no-kurage, a film which saw Murakami assume the role of director for the very first time. As I’ve written in a past article, stamps are often cited to as the reason behind chat apps’ huge success to date, especially in Asia. Silicon Valley’s Path released original stickers within its app at beginning of March, a move that makes sense given that the company is eager to expand to the Japanese market (having also hired a business development person here). Line provides both free stamps and premium stamps which cost about 170 yen (about $1.80) for a set of 40. The platform sells over 300 million yen (about $3,126,000) worth of stamps per month. That works out to about about 60,000 downloads of premium stamps a day. So who is actually buying these stamps? According to a survey conducted by Ceres, its people in their 30s who are the most frequent buyers with one in four people purchasing stamps. This is followed by users in their 20s at 21.8%. Only 10% of teenagers and…
Line chat app users can now enjoy unique stamps from world famous modern artist Takashi Murakami. The stamps were created to commemorate the release of the movie Mememe-no-kurage, a film which saw Murakami assume the role of director for the very first time.
As I’ve written in a past article, stamps are often cited to as the reason behind chat apps’ huge success to date, especially in Asia. Silicon Valley’s Path released original stickers within its app at beginning of March, a move that makes sense given that the company is eager to expand to the Japanese market (having also hired a business development person here).
Line provides both free stamps and premium stamps which cost about 170 yen (about $1.80) for a set of 40. The platform sells over 300 million yen (about $3,126,000) worth of stamps per month. That works out to about about 60,000 downloads of premium stamps a day.
So who is actually buying these stamps? According to a survey conducted by Ceres, its people in their 30s who are the most frequent buyers with one in four people purchasing stamps. This is followed by users in their 20s at 21.8%. Only 10% of teenagers and people over the age of 50 are paying for stamps.
The survey also revealed that official character stamps by corporate brands are very popular with 61% of respondents saying they have downloaded such stamps. On April 2nd, Line kicked off its new campaign where stamps could be redeemed for free after buying certain products. The very first product on board is a Japanese blend tea by Coca Cola Japan. The company worked in collaboration with a major publisher with its hit comic series as GTO and Moteki.
For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start. The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well. You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen. Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is…
At the Startup Asia conference today in Singapore, Cinnamon – a startup led by CEO Miku Hirano – pitched a new photo app called ‘Seconds.’ I recently had a chance to meet with Miku, who gave me a preview of the soon-to-be-released app. To be launched first on the Android platform, she says that she would like Seconds to replace your native camera app, with private photo sharing features targeting the Southeast Asia market to start.
The app is is simple and easy to use. You just take a photo, and choose your desired album for upload. Photos added are immediately visible to members who have access to that album, and those members can also upload pictures as well.
Cinnamon CEO Miku Hirano
You can also create any number of albums, which differ depending on who has access – it could be your family, friends, or your significant other. With photos being automatically uploaded, you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures if you misplace your phone or have it stolen.
Cinnamon plans to release the app first in Thailand, says Miku, a country known for its love of photo sharing. They’re targeting the huge population of Southeast Asia because private sharing is a little bit more popular in Asian regions. They hope that more mature mobile markets like Japan, China, and Korea will help make it profitable.
Cinnamon was founded in Singapore back in October, and received seed funding December from CyberAgent Ventures and other angel investors. Currently the company has a headcount of like 10 people including its president at Hajime Hotta.
There are many ways in which they hope they can monetize Seconds, likely with premium features or with ads. If they go for premium model would mean extra features like storage, filters, decoration, or Facebook sync.
Tomorrow is day two of Startup Asia, so it will be interesting to see how Cinnamon fares in the field of 20 Asian startups. I had the pleasure of being a part of the last Startup Asia event in Jakarta last year, where the winner of the startup event was Moso, the sole Japanese entry in the competition.
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
Shintaro Eguchi
