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Fujitsu unveils retail store analytics solution to visualize customer movement

Rick Martin 2014.05.16

The folks over at Tech-On have reported about some clever infrared sensor technology from Fujitsu that visualizes the movements of shoppers in a store. By using the recorded data, a store manager can gain insights into whether or not their product displays are effective or find out information about their in-store queues. The solution sounds somewhat similar to that of startup Locarise, which instead determines foot traffic metrics based on wi-fi signals collected from customers’ smartphones. Our readers may recall that Locarise was a special award winner at last October’s OnLab Demo Day. Via TechOn

The folks over at Tech-On have reported about some clever infrared sensor technology from Fujitsu that visualizes the movements of shoppers in a store. By using the recorded data, a store manager can gain insights into whether or not their product displays are effective or find out information about their in-store queues.

The solution sounds somewhat similar to that of startup Locarise, which instead determines foot traffic metrics based on wi-fi signals collected from customers’ smartphones. Our readers may recall that Locarise was a special award winner at last October’s OnLab Demo Day.

Via TechOn

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Mixi’s investment firm invests in Taiwanese recruitment site Job178

Masaru Ikeda 2014.05.14

I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese internet company Mixi (TSE:2121), announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in Taiwan’s Loyal Sun Holdings, the operator of Taiwanese recruitment site Job178. Prior to this funding, the Taiwanese company raised funding (the sum also undisclosed) from Japanese investment companies Inspire and ICP last August. The company charges advertisers based on a performance basis, so you don’t actually need to pay anything if you don’t hire anyone using the platform. As for job seekers, they can get a cash reward from the company when successfully hired using the platform. The company has been rapidly growing and has acquired more than 3,000 Taiwanese companies as clients. This strategy is similar to that of Japanese recruiting site Livesense (TSE:6054), which has had promising results in terms of acquiring both advertisers and job seekers. Interestingly, Job178 has been leveraging the Line messaging app for marketing and has successfully attracted more than 5.2 million users with their original Line stickers. Mixi has been running its own recruitment site ‘Find Job’, and is considering a possible synergy with the Taiwanese job site. via Mixi

I Mercury Capital, the investment arm of Japanese internet company Mixi (TSE:2121), announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in Taiwan’s Loyal Sun Holdings, the operator of Taiwanese recruitment site Job178.

Prior to this funding, the Taiwanese company raised funding (the sum also undisclosed) from Japanese investment companies Inspire and ICP last August.

The company charges advertisers based on a performance basis, so you don’t actually need to pay anything if you don’t hire anyone using the platform. As for job seekers, they can get a cash reward from the company when successfully hired using the platform.

The company has been rapidly growing and has acquired more than 3,000 Taiwanese companies as clients. This strategy is similar to that of Japanese recruiting site Livesense (TSE:6054), which has had promising results in terms of acquiring both advertisers and job seekers.

Interestingly, Job178 has been leveraging the Line messaging app for marketing and has successfully attracted more than 5.2 million users with their original Line stickers. Mixi has been running its own recruitment site ‘Find Job’, and is considering a possible synergy with the Taiwanese job site.

via Mixi

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Evernote’s success driven by Japanese market

Rick Martin 2014.05.14

I’m late to the party on this one, but after Evernote hit 100 million users earlier this week (101 million to be specific), I was surprised to see that the Asia Pacific was the company’s biggest regional market, accounting for about 35 million of its users (see above). This prompted me to reflect on when Evernote CEO Phil Libin dropped the following numbers about their Japan users a year ago: About 20% of our users and 30% of our revenue comes from Japan. The Japanese aesthetic really influences us. We have said from the beginning that we want to make it a 100 year startup, and that was influenced by Japan. Japan understands this idea of long term thinking, and we hope to combine that with the best of Silicon Valley. It’s a nice sentiment, and it’s good to see they’ve paid so much attention to Japan. Assuming that those percentages haven’t changed much over the past year, Japan may very well be Evernote’s biggest national market (or at least second biggest) in terms of both users and revenue. Via Evernote Read about this in Japanese

I’m late to the party on this one, but after Evernote hit 100 million users earlier this week (101 million to be specific), I was surprised to see that the Asia Pacific was the company’s biggest regional market, accounting for about 35 million of its users (see above).

This prompted me to reflect on when Evernote CEO Phil Libin dropped the following numbers about their Japan users a year ago:

About 20% of our users and 30% of our revenue comes from Japan. The Japanese aesthetic really influences us. We have said from the beginning that we want to make it a 100 year startup, and that was influenced by Japan. Japan understands this idea of long term thinking, and we hope to combine that with the best of Silicon Valley.

It’s a nice sentiment, and it’s good to see they’ve paid so much attention to Japan. Assuming that those percentages haven’t changed much over the past year, Japan may very well be Evernote’s biggest national market (or at least second biggest) in terms of both users and revenue.

Via Evernote

Read about this in Japanese

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Look out Google Glass. Look out all you want. These glasses from Japan look inward!

Rick Martin 2014.05.13

The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above [1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly. The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system: Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management…

The latest in wearable tech from Japan is an interesting contrast with Google Glass. Instead of scanning the world around you for useful data, ‘Jins Meme’ glasses look back only at yourself in an effort to collect useful data from your eyes and the areas around them, monitoring blinking, blink duration, vision shifts and more. The glasses are scheduled to go on sale next spring, with a public API coming in the fall. ~~For Jins’ own explation of the concept, check out the promo video from Jins, which we’ve included above~~ [1]. Update: Looks like Jins has made the YouTube video private suddenly.

The data will sync with an accompanying smartphone app which lets you review important info at any time. Here’s an excerpt from the product’s webpage that nicely sums up the value proposition of the system:

Based on changes in eye movement, JINS MEME is able to determine levels of mental and physical tiredness, which many people are unable to notice on their own. Recovery rates from tiredness in humans drop dramatically once a certain threshold is crossed. JINS MEME can detect and alert you to those levels before reaching that point, providing a new kind of management tool for preventing tiredness from accumulating and for improving work efficiency.

In addition to electrooculography (or eye motion) sensors, the device will also be equipped with a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyro sensor. So even when you are active or exercising, Jins Meme can help you monitor how many calories you’ve burned, or even feedback on your speed or posture.

Jins Meme will come in three styles, the classic ‘Wellington’ style, a half-rim style, and sunglasses. The glasses will certainly benefit from the added advantage of being rather stylish, and not making the wearer look like a tech-augmented cyborg.

On a somewhat related note, our readers will likely be familiar with Japan’s other notable glasses tech ‘Telepathy’ from the creator of Sekai Camera. As for Google Glass, it was recently discovered via code in its latest apk file that localized Japanese commands are soon on the way. So we can expect to see a battle for user eyeballs not to far in the future here in Japan! [2]

car-view — The Jins Meme app, alerting you while driving

It’s an unlisted video that we’ve gone and embedded, so Jins could disable it at any time. Apologies in advance if they do. Update: And it looks like they have. ↩
Since these glasses serve an entirely different function than Google Glass, many would argue that Jins Meme is not a Glass competitor. But I would assert that since one cannot wear two pairs of glasses at once, that any pair of glasses is a competitor for any other pair of glasses. ↩

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TeamLab Studio lets you be a video star in 3D virtual spaces

Rick Martin 2014.05.09

The creative folks over at Tokyo-based TeamLab have developed an interesting video solution that lets you transform any given location into your own three-dimensional graphical space over a green screen. What’s remarkable about it is that when the camera moves, the virtual space will adjust to the viewing angle in real time. Dubbed TeamLab Studio, the technology is currently in the beta phase, but has been put into use at Cure Studio in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The studio can be used by anyone to create cosplay videos in virtual worlds, and you can even add things like magic effects to accentuate your movement. One such video sample can be viewed below. Cure Studio can be used for free, although visitors will have to pay admission for Haco Stadium Ikebukuro where the studio is located. While a TeamLab rep couldn’t disclose too much details about the technology behind the real-time synchronized camera movement and visualized space, I understand that the software to interface with the camera was developed in-house at TeamLab. This is just the latest digital work from the very prolific TeamLab, which is also responsible for ingenious projects like the interactive TV game that was played by a million people…

The creative folks over at Tokyo-based TeamLab have developed an interesting video solution that lets you transform any given location into your own three-dimensional graphical space over a green screen. What’s remarkable about it is that when the camera moves, the virtual space will adjust to the viewing angle in real time.

Dubbed TeamLab Studio, the technology is currently in the beta phase, but has been put into use at Cure Studio in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The studio can be used by anyone to create cosplay videos in virtual worlds, and you can even add things like magic effects to accentuate your movement. One such video sample can be viewed below. Cure Studio can be used for free, although visitors will have to pay admission for Haco Stadium Ikebukuro where the studio is located.

While a TeamLab rep couldn’t disclose too much details about the technology behind the real-time synchronized camera movement and visualized space, I understand that the software to interface with the camera was developed in-house at TeamLab.

This is just the latest digital work from the very prolific TeamLab, which is also responsible for ingenious projects like the interactive TV game that was played by a million people in real time last year, or the two-ton, 4D animated tree that was displayed in Fukuoka last Christmas.

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Kamcord raises $7M in funding, now lets users share game videos to Line, WeChat

Rick Martin 2014.05.02

San Francisco-based Kamcord announced this morning that it has raised $7.1 million in series A funding, in a round led by Silicon Valley-based TransLink Capital. Other participants included DeNA, SV Angel, Innovation Works, KLab, M&Y Growth Partners, and XG Ventures. Kamcord’s SDK enables game developers to put a ‘movie’ button in game, and when it is pressed, users can then share video clips/replays of game play. Namco Bandai was the first Japanese company to use the localized version of Kamcord’s SDK, as we mentioned back in February. But now we understand that it’s also used in games from DeNA and Colopl. When we spoke with Kamcord co-founder Adi Rathnam last December in Kyoto (see below), he emphasized the importance of Asian markets, including Japan, Korea, and China. We wondered about the possibility of sharing Kamcord videos to Asian message services Line and WeChat, and the sharing functionalities to those networks has now been added. In their announcement this time around, Adi had this to say: In order to build a truly global platform for sharing and watching gameplay videos, we prioritized strengthening our presence in Asia. The partnerships we’ve formed with this round of funding will help us tremendously in…

San Francisco-based Kamcord announced this morning that it has raised $7.1 million in series A funding, in a round led by Silicon Valley-based TransLink Capital. Other participants included DeNA, SV Angel, Innovation Works, KLab, M&Y Growth Partners, and XG Ventures.

Kamcord’s SDK enables game developers to put a ‘movie’ button in game, and when it is pressed, users can then share video clips/replays of game play. Namco Bandai was the first Japanese company to use the localized version of Kamcord’s SDK, as we mentioned back in February. But now we understand that it’s also used in games from DeNA and Colopl.

When we spoke with Kamcord co-founder Adi Rathnam last December in Kyoto (see below), he emphasized the importance of Asian markets, including Japan, Korea, and China. We wondered about the possibility of sharing Kamcord videos to Asian message services Line and WeChat, and the sharing functionalities to those networks has now been added. In their announcement this time around, Adi had this to say:

In order to build a truly global platform for sharing and watching gameplay videos, we prioritized strengthening our presence in Asia. The partnerships we’ve formed with this round of funding will help us tremendously in that effort.

As for Kamcord’s recent progress, we understand that users are now sharing at a pace of one video every two seconds, and that rate is sure to grow with more support for games and gamers here in Asia. The company has also recently launched a new Kamcord app (screenshots above) where you can watch fun mobile gameplay videos all in one place. You can get it for free over on the App Store.

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Japan’s love affair with photo apps

photo apps

Rick Martin 2014.05.01

This morning I met with Canadian research student Laurel Hart who is currently in Tokyo studying mobile photography communities in Japan. Even though we’ve written about mobile photo apps significantly on this site (which is how she found me), I needed to take some time to think about what information I might be able to offer her. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here, just in case it might be of interest to readers as well. While there has been some indication that Japanese mobile users love photo apps more than other regional markets (see this chart from Flurry Analytics) [1], it’s a little bit more difficult to identify what kinds of things they are doing and what sorts of photos they are taking. In a purely non-scientific exercise, I thought I’d review a few of the kinds of apps we see trending here in Japan, in an effort to dive deeper this area. Here a few genres of photo apps (and photo-related apps [2]), in no particular order: Collage apps (Petapic, Cameran Collage, Papelook) Photo decorations apps (DecoAlbum, Snapeee) Food apps (SnapDish, Miil) Fashion apps (Wear, Nailbook, Stulio, In My Bag ) Manga/Anime effects (Manga Camera, Otaku…

This morning I met with Canadian research student Laurel Hart who is currently in Tokyo studying mobile photography communities in Japan. Even though we’ve written about mobile photo apps significantly on this site (which is how she found me), I needed to take some time to think about what information I might be able to offer her. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here, just in case it might be of interest to readers as well.

While there has been some indication that Japanese mobile users love photo apps more than other regional markets (see this chart from Flurry Analytics) [1], it’s a little bit more difficult to identify what kinds of things they are doing and what sorts of photos they are taking.

In a purely non-scientific exercise, I thought I’d review a few of the kinds of apps we see trending here in Japan, in an effort to dive deeper this area. Here a few genres of photo apps (and photo-related apps [2]), in no particular order:

Collage apps (Petapic, Cameran Collage, Papelook)
Photo decorations apps (DecoAlbum, Snapeee)
Food apps (SnapDish, Miil)
Fashion apps (Wear, Nailbook, Stulio, In My Bag )
Manga/Anime effects (Manga Camera, Otaku Camera, Kame Camera)
Family photo apps (Nohana, Kiddy and more)
Printing apps (Nohana, Tolot, and Fotofig if you include 3D printing) [3]
Beautifying apps (Beautecam, BeautyPlus, Qtiie)

These represent just a few of the more popular clusters of photos apps that we have seen here in Japan. Of course, everyone makes use of their mobile camera for different reasons, so we cannot claim that there is any sort of trend among consumers here. But perhaps we can assume that the apps that Japanese developers produce are at least partially indicative of the market’s demands.

As for mobile photography communities, I confess I’ve never seen such groups gathering offline [4]. But we often see people come together online around common ideas or themes. For example, the Nailbook app mentioned above is an intriguing community where people exchange pictures of nail art. And then their are mobile photographers who share photos around a suddenly viral meme, such as the ‘Cups Fuchiko-san’ meme where a tiny figure is posed on cups or glasses in strange ways, or the Makankosappo (literally translated as “Magic Penetrating Killing Ray”) meme, upon which the Kame-Camera app is based.

The world of smartphone photography obviously runs far deeper than what I’ve outlined above. If you there’s something that we’ve overlooked, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.

This chart doesn’t seem to be on Flurry’s site any longer. But thankfully, we still have a version here. ↩
I say photo-related, because some photo apps might technically be classified by an App Store as a photography app, but it might have a different primary purpose. The mobile flea market app Fril is an example of this. ↩
These are interesting considering the aging demographic in Japan, giving you the ability to send prints to older folks who may not use smartphones. ↩
It seems rather silly to me to define a photography community by device. ↩

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Japanese startup Sumally launches mobile marketplace service

Takeshi Hirano 2014.04.29

See the original article, written in Japanese Sumally is a social platform where users find recommendations by recording what they already have and they what. The startup has now also begun a C2C e-commerce service called Sumally Marketplace. Currently, it is available only on iPhone. You can list your item as available for sale on the app platform either by selecting an item you have already registered on site, or by registering new items via a bookmarklet and uploading its picture via the app. There is no initial fee and monthly fee for sellers, and at the moment no sales commission either. People who buy items need to only pay for the price displayed on the app, with no transaction fees. Payments are transacted by Sumally, and CEO of Sumally Kensuke Yamamoto says that the company plans to implement a 10% commission in the future. The competition in C2C mobile commerce is still very fierce in Japan. There are already Frill and Mecari in the startup arena, and Yahoo Japan on the corporate side. There are other C2C platforms out there are well including as Locari, Listore, Stulio, and Mom’s Market. It is estimated that the C2C mobile platform in…

See the original article, written in Japanese

Sumally is a social platform where users find recommendations by recording what they already have and they what. The startup has now also begun a C2C e-commerce service called Sumally Marketplace. Currently, it is available only on iPhone.

You can list your item as available for sale on the app platform either by selecting an item you have already registered on site, or by registering new items via a bookmarklet and uploading its picture via the app.

There is no initial fee and monthly fee for sellers, and at the moment no sales commission either. People who buy items need to only pay for the price displayed on the app, with no transaction fees.

Payments are transacted by Sumally, and CEO of Sumally Kensuke Yamamoto says that the company plans to implement a 10% commission in the future.

The competition in C2C mobile commerce is still very fierce in Japan. There are already Frill and Mecari in the startup arena, and Yahoo Japan on the corporate side. There are other C2C platforms out there are well including as Locari, Listore, Stulio, and Mom’s Market. It is estimated that the C2C mobile platform in Japan transacts nearly $200 million a month. All the players are striving to either increase their current share or find a new market.

50 million data points

In this extremely competitive field, how can Sumally compete? I think Sumally has much potential to grow, because of its solid structure for connecting the users and items based on their accumulated data.

Sumally started in September of 2011, and since then it has been building a network where items are connected to one another. According to Yamamoto, the database now contains 1.35 million items, built by almost 400,000 registered users. In addition, a lot of metadata has been added to each item, amounting to nearly 50 million data points. All that metadata can really help you find what you really want.

Here is how it actually works. First you click the “want it“ button on whatever item is similar to what you want. Related items will begin to appear by continuing to use the want, you will eventually achieve the ideal item.

Find a handbag in 7 steps

Since I was not quite sure how accurate the underlying data structure was, I tried out the service to see if I could find a bag to fit my own taste. Here is how I reached my ideal bag, in a total of 7 steps. I really feel this recommendation system is quite novel, very different from that of Amazon.

I wanted a handbag. So I pushed the “want it” button on a bag that I randomly selected. And I chose a hand bang of the sort that I wanted.

I continued to click “want it“ on bags which I thought were better.

I wanted a blue bag. The selection is got closer to what I wanted.

I finally I found my ideal bag.

The potential

At this point, you cannot buy the items you want on the Sumally website at the marketplace. But sellers can understand which product is popular on the website site and use that info to choose which items to sell on the marketplace.

As the number of listed items grows on the marketplace, the precision of the matching will be key. It could be a big advantage for the company, and they could even expand their business by allowing other services to use their data.

In talking with Yamamoto, I saw a lot of potential with this business structure. I’ll write more about that next time.

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Duolingo adds English courses for Japanese, Chinese, & Hindi speakers in new 4.0 update

Rick Martin 2014.04.25

A few weeks ago we heard from a Duolingo rep that they had some big news coming for us soon. We haven’t heard from them since, but today we know what it is (via TechCrunch), as the company has launched version 4.0 of its language learning iOS app. The good news? There are now English courses for Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi speakers. We encourage you to give them a try and let us know if they are any good. The bad news? Still no Japanese or Chinese courses for English speakers [1]. Bad news for me at least, as these are two I was hoping would be added. ↩

A few weeks ago we heard from a Duolingo rep that they had some big news coming for us soon. We haven’t heard from them since, but today we know what it is (via TechCrunch), as the company has launched version 4.0 of its language learning iOS app.

The good news? There are now English courses for Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi speakers. We encourage you to give them a try and let us know if they are any good.

The bad news? Still no Japanese or Chinese courses for English speakers [1].

Bad news for me at least, as these are two I was hoping would be added. ↩

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3 great startup ideas from the latest Samurai Venture Summit in Tokyo

Masaru Ikeda 2014.04.24

See the original article written in Japanese Last weekend at the Microsoft Japan Office here in Tokyo, the ninth edition of the Samurai Venture Summit took place. This is a semi-annual startup event organized by Samurai Incubate, and is a great opportunity for investors to find startups in the early seed stages. Here is a quick rundown of the startups that caught our eye at the event. Wine It! Wine It is an app that identify the kind of wine you are drinking by taking picture of the label with a smartphone camera. The app contains data for nearly 11,000 wine brands, including information such as grape variety, the place of production, and cuisines that match the wine. There is an app called Sakenote that helps you to keep track of Japanese sake that you drink. But the main feature of Sakenote is to keep a record of your experience, Wine It is more like a wine encyclopedia. If you can’t find a certain brand of wine in the app, the information will be transferred to a sommelier, and it will be added to the database later on. Wine It! has not succeeded in monetizing just yet, but it could…

See the original article written in Japanese

Last weekend at the Microsoft Japan Office here in Tokyo, the ninth edition of the Samurai Venture Summit took place. This is a semi-annual startup event organized by Samurai Incubate, and is a great opportunity for investors to find startups in the early seed stages. Here is a quick rundown of the startups that caught our eye at the event.

Wine It!

Wine It is an app that identify the kind of wine you are drinking by taking picture of the label with a smartphone camera. The app contains data for nearly 11,000 wine brands, including information such as grape variety, the place of production, and cuisines that match the wine.

There is an app called Sakenote that helps you to keep track of Japanese sake that you drink. But the main feature of Sakenote is to keep a record of your experience, Wine It is more like a wine encyclopedia. If you can’t find a certain brand of wine in the app, the information will be transferred to a sommelier, and it will be added to the database later on.

Wine It! has not succeeded in monetizing just yet, but it could be possible to create an e-commerce service such as a Sake subscription service.

This initiative began as an incubated startup at D2C, a joint venture of NTT Docomo and ad agency Dentsu.

STARted

Many aspiring fashion designers have dreamt of launching their own brand. But doing so requires a very complicated process. In addition to creating your designs, you need to look for factories and then convince retailers or online stores to sell it.

But using a service like STARted, you need only upload a hand-drawn design of your dress, and STARted takes over the rest of the process. It’s a little early to talk about the potential of the service since it is still in the closed testing phase right now, with plans to launch this summer.

However, if the startup successfully builds a solid platform, perhaps implementing a crowdfunding system, it could become a place that helps designers do business without the usual required capital or risk.

Edulio

Edulio is an online learning platform that launched in Japan earlier this month. The first ‘O’ in MOOC stands for ‘open’, but in contrast, Edulio is a platform that runs closed online courses. It has about 180 clients including training companies and private preparatory schools. The platform lets clients to provide online courses for a closed group of users, and it has a dashboard where clients can track the learning progress of the participants and manage tests and results.

As Youngme Moon, the dean of Harvard Business School’s MBA program, mentioned at the recent New Economy Summit, the audience is not forced to engage, so it is important to build a system that motivates them to participate in learning. Edulio currently lets users who are taking the same course share their achievements, with future plans to strengthening this feature later on.