THE BRIDGE

News

Japanese photo app Qtiie boasts impressive make-up enhancement features

SHARE:

With so many photo decoration apps available on the market, the hardest part for consumers may be choosing the best one to use. One recent trend among popular photo apps here in Japan is ‘purikura’ (or photo booths) features, such as whitening of skin and enlarging eyes. Qtiie, is a photo decoration app for iOS that was just released by a Japanese system integrations company Fujimic, a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings [1]. The app was developed to respond to the growing demand for Kawaii Japanese pop-culture from both inside and outside the country. The photo app comes with the obvious common features like stamps, frames, and brushes, but with a twist in ite design themes, or ‘tastes’ as the app calls them. These include location themes such as ‘Harajuku’, ‘Shibuya’, ‘Akihabara’, as well as themes like ‘Hime’ (or ‘princess’), Natural, Urban, and ‘’Wa-fu’ (Japanese style). One impressive feature of Qtiie is its make-up enhancements. Resizing the size of your eyes, changing the colors of your eyes and lips, smoothening of skin, and even changing your hair color. Many photo apps have these purikura features, but this app makes them especially easy to use, and the finished photo is pretty…

Qtiie-web

With so many photo decoration apps available on the market, the hardest part for consumers may be choosing the best one to use. One recent trend among popular photo apps here in Japan is ‘purikura’ (or photo booths) features, such as whitening of skin and enlarging eyes.

Qtiie, is a photo decoration app for iOS that was just released by a Japanese system integrations company Fujimic, a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings [1].

Qtiie-screenshotThe app was developed to respond to the growing demand for Kawaii Japanese pop-culture from both inside and outside the country. The photo app comes with the obvious common features like stamps, frames, and brushes, but with a twist in ite design themes, or ‘tastes’ as the app calls them. These include location themes such as ‘Harajuku’, ‘Shibuya’, ‘Akihabara’, as well as themes like ‘Hime’ (or ‘princess’), Natural, Urban, and ‘’Wa-fu’ (Japanese style).

One impressive feature of Qtiie is its make-up enhancements. Resizing the size of your eyes, changing the colors of your eyes and lips, smoothening of skin, and even changing your hair color. Many photo apps have these purikura features, but this app makes them especially easy to use, and the finished photo is pretty high quality with an authentic look. Some designer themes and certain eye colors can be purchased within the app for 100 to 200 yen (about $1 to $2).

Decorated photos can be shared with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and of course Instagram. As its tagline says, Qtiie brings Kawaii to the plam of your hands.

The app is available for free on iOS.


  1. This unusual name is an example of what my colleague Rick Martin is talking about in his previous post titled “What’s in a name?”. Qtiie is intended to be pronounced as ‘cutie’.  ↩

Aviary launches first international edition of its photo editor in Japan

SHARE:

If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, you may have seen our recent interview with Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs here in Tokyo (see above). The company has been gearing up for the launch of its first international edition of its Aviary photo editor app here in Japan. They inform us this morning that the app, designed for iOS7, is now live and available as a free download on the App Store. Aviary explains that will be Japan exclusive content available in this version of the app, including filters, frames, and yes, stickers too. You will, however, need to have your device set to Japanese in the region and language settings to be able to see this. Sharing to Line is also supported, although we haven’t tested this out yet. When we spoke with Tobias, he explained to us that Japan is going to be a big focus for Aviary in the near future, and he’s going to be spending a lot of time here in person, which is good to see. Japan does photo apps like no other country in the world, so we expect that Aviary will be able to find many more local partners to use their photo…

If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, you may have seen our recent interview with Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs here in Tokyo (see above). The company has been gearing up for the launch of its first international edition of its Aviary photo editor app here in Japan. They inform us this morning that the app, designed for iOS7, is now live and available as a free download on the App Store.

Aviary explains that will be Japan exclusive content available in this version of the app, including filters, frames, and yes, stickers too. You will, however, need to have your device set to Japanese in the region and language settings to be able to see this. Sharing to Line is also supported, although we haven’t tested this out yet.

When we spoke with Tobias, he explained to us that Japan is going to be a big focus for Aviary in the near future, and he’s going to be spending a lot of time here in person, which is good to see. Japan does photo apps like no other country in the world, so we expect that Aviary will be able to find many more local partners to use their photo editing technology in their own services [1].

For more information, check out Aviary’s home on the Japanese web at Aviary.jp. Or read more about the launch on the Aviary blog.

aviary-pic aviary-pic


  1. Readers may recall our piece on Japan-based Comnico earlier this year. Comnico’s own Facebook page management tool uses Aviary’s photo editor as a part of its workflow.  ↩

DeNA lets you enjoy live performances of Japanese stars on mobile

SHARE:

Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon. In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service. As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well. In the near future,…

showroom_leadimage

Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon.

In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service.

As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well.

In the near future, the company expects to provide this service in multiple languages, serving global fans of Japanese pop and entertainment scene.

(Thanks to Junya Mori for this news update.)

Telepathy CEO discusses the future of wearable technology at TechCrunch Tokyo

SHARE:

At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August. Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained: Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1]. Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added. It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi…

wide-techcrunch-tokyo

At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August.

Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained:

Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1].

Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added.

It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi froze for a moment in what might be a telling ‘non-response’ response.

Kevin further emphasized this point be drawing a comparison to other wearable technologies already on the market:

We think Fitbit and Jawbone will do quite well, and will maybe will have successful IPOs. They have big markets they’re going after, but they have just one use case: people’s desire to monitor and improve their fitness. […] But that’s just one use case. With smartphones, the products sits between users when you talk to another person. But telepathy takes the product out from between people. If it is done just right, it will feel like the product disappears. and to me that’s true elegance.

takehito-iguchi-kevin-landis
Takehito Iguchi right, Kevin Landis left

One of the most interesting moments of the talk came when Iguchi was asked whether or not he could really bring this product to market, in a way that makes it cheaper than Google Glass. He couldn’t say anything about the price or exact release date, but he did speak a little bit to the challenge of creating such a device, as well as why they are taking on that challenge:

This is not easy, but we are doing it because it’s not easy. That may sound a little strange, but if it is something that anyone can do then it is not worthwhile or challenging – it’s not innovation. We are happy to try it.

iguchi-takehito-techcrunch-tokyo

Iguchi also talked a little bit about how his team is spread across both Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Members in Silicon Valley are strong in software, user interface and core application development. And his team in Tokyo is focused on the core hardware development.

He added that when his product does come to market, it will likely be in the US market to start with.

The team still obviously has a lot of work to, perhaps symbolically illustrated by the fact that he was wearing his glasses hung around his neck, rather than on his head.


  1. Note that Iguchi’s quotes are taken from a live translation on-site. He spoke in Japanese for this talk.  ↩

Japan’s Kakaku.com partners with VeriTrans to deliver to overseas buyers

SHARE:

Japan’s Kakaku.com recently announced overseas users of its price comparison site can now purchase products through a new partner website called BuySmartJapan. This new site is provided by Veritrans. When users click on the BuySmartJapan banner on the products page, they’re taken to the new website where they can purchase that product [1]. BuySmartJapan will purchase the product from Japanese stores on behalf of the consumer and then ship it overseas. Kakaku.com is a comprehensive review portal strong in electronics, but it covers other things including insurance and travel plans. Its monthly pageviews exceed nine hundred million with over 45 million monthly users. Of this number, over one million are users residing outside of Japan. Many stores posted on the site do not ship to outside of Japan, and the new business was started to solve this inconvenience. In addition to credit card and Paypal, other accepted payment methods for this new site will be AliPay (offered by China’s Alibaba) and China-UnionPay. This is perhaps a good indication that this initiative is, in part, directed at serving Chinese consumers. In addition to international shipping, the site has also added shopping carts in English, Chinese, and Korean. Kakaku.com now ships to…

kakaku.com-logo

Japan’s Kakaku.com recently announced overseas users of its price comparison site can now purchase products through a new partner website called BuySmartJapan. This new site is provided by Veritrans.

When users click on the BuySmartJapan banner on the products page, they’re taken to the new website where they can purchase that product [1]. BuySmartJapan will purchase the product from Japanese stores on behalf of the consumer and then ship it overseas.

Kakaku.com is a comprehensive review portal strong in electronics, but it covers other things including insurance and travel plans. Its monthly pageviews exceed nine hundred million with over 45 million monthly users. Of this number, over one million are users residing outside of Japan. Many stores posted on the site do not ship to outside of Japan, and the new business was started to solve this inconvenience.

In addition to credit card and Paypal, other accepted payment methods for this new site will be AliPay (offered by China’s Alibaba) and China-UnionPay. This is perhaps a good indication that this initiative is, in part, directed at serving Chinese consumers.

In addition to international shipping, the site has also added shopping carts in English, Chinese, and Korean. Kakaku.com now ships to Japan as well as 120 countries outside of Japan.

Besides its price comparison site, Kakaku operates a range of internet services, including Cena, a Japanese equivalent to OpenTable. Readers may recall back in September when we wrote about its restaurant review site Tabelog and how its premium business model is skyrocketing.

kakaku-overseas


  1. Editor’s note: We’re in Japan and we’re not certain that this process is yet in place. Surfing Kakaku using a US IP address does not yet show BuySmartJapan banners in our initial test.  ↩

What’s in a name? For Japanese startups, sometimes alphabet soup

SHARE:

Over the past few years we are seeing more Japanese startups than ever before looking beyond domestic borders to markets abroad. This is undeniably awesome. But this development is not without growing pains and awkwardness. What works in Japan doesn’t always work elsewhere, and this is particularly true of company names. From the point of view a non-Japanese person, there seems to me to be a very disproportionate number of companies in Japan that have crazy names. This problem has a number of symptoms, including: the triple-letter epidemic (see Niiice, Freee, Snapeee, and Calll) strange/random capitalization (see DoCoMo, DeNA CocoPPA, MiCHi) [1] names that sound just plain wrong (see Cunpic, Askiss) I’m a little reluctant to point this out, but when I read how Takafumi Horie named his latest app, Teriyaki, it really made me think about the problem a little more. With hopes of global expansion potential, we decided to name the app ‘Teriyaki’ — something familiar to non-Japanese people too. Too few Japanese startups do this. In fact, our own team here fallen into this trap as well, although having rebranded as The Bridge recently, I’m glad we’re out of it! [2] Evasive maneuvers So if you are…

alphabet soup

Over the past few years we are seeing more Japanese startups than ever before looking beyond domestic borders to markets abroad. This is undeniably awesome. But this development is not without growing pains and awkwardness. What works in Japan doesn’t always work elsewhere, and this is particularly true of company names.

From the point of view a non-Japanese person, there seems to me to be a very disproportionate number of companies in Japan that have crazy names. This problem has a number of symptoms, including:

I’m a little reluctant to point this out, but when I read how Takafumi Horie named his latest app, Teriyaki, it really made me think about the problem a little more.

With hopes of global expansion potential, we decided to name the app ‘Teriyaki’ — something familiar to non-Japanese people too.

Too few Japanese startups do this. In fact, our own team here fallen into this trap as well, although having rebranded as The Bridge recently, I’m glad we’re out of it! [2]

Evasive maneuvers

So if you are a Japanese company, how can you avoid this sort of problem? I’d like to share a few points that I think should be considered when choosing a name for your company or service. Keep in mind, I don’t claim to be any sort of naming expert. But I’ll try to offer a few points that I think can help.

  1. Ask the crowd you know – Make use of the poll features in Google Drive or Facebook to gather feedback from as many of your friends as possible, and from a diverse range of people if you can.
  2. Ask the crowd you don’t know – If you don’t know any English-speaking people who can offer suggestions, consider using a service like PickyDomains, where you can crowdsource some domain name ideas for a reasonable price [3]. If you can’t manage to get feedback from English-speaking people using modern day internet tools, you should probably reconsider doing business abroad.
  3. The telephone test – A really great name is one that you can tell someone over the phone without any big problem.
  4. The t-shirt test – Is your name and logo something that your employees would wear on a t-shirt? If not, maybe reconsider.
  5. Don’t be afraid to use a Japanese name, even if you are targeting global markets. Some names can be just fine for global use. Rakuten, Origami, Gengo, and Niconico are all easy to say and remember. Some Western companies even choose names that sound Japanese because they sound sort of cool (see tech blog Kotaku).

Let’s face it, choosing a good name for your company or service is really hard. And if you have to do it for two markets, then it’s twice as difficult. Given that limitation, the best strategy might be simply choose a name that doesn’t suck in either market.

Of course if you have no plans on expanding beyond Japan, feel free to disregard everything I’ve just said. But if you think there is even a chance you might expand your business abroad in the future, it doesn’t hurt to factor that possibility into your naming decision.


  1. CocoPPa is actually doing quite well overseas, which is good to see. As an editor though, I really despise those double Ps. For the record, I wrote about unusual capitalization a long time ago, so I’m not going to bother going into that mess again.  ↩

  2. This is sort of getting to be a thing for me. Join a company and try to rename it…  ↩

  3. I think that actual domain names are not quite as important as they used to be in this mobile age. Our choice of ‘The Bridge’ was a tough one, because it’s not so SEO friendly. But SEO isn’t what it used to be, thankfully!  ↩

Former Livedoor CEO launches restaurant recommendation app

SHARE:

See the original story in Japanese. The Japanese economy appears to be getting better recently. In the startup scene in particular, we’ve seen more than a few acquisitions and fundings. This improved economic situation may have precipitated an interesting new mobile app too. Japanese entrepreneur Takafumi Horie (a.k.a. Horiemon) recently unveiled Teriyaki, an app that provides users with recommendations of the best restaurants in Japan. The app is available for free on both iOS and Android, but users have to pay a monthly subscription of 400 yen (about $4) via an in-app purchase. The app provides recommendations of restaurants and dishes based on curation by celebrity foodies called “Teriyakists”. They include high-profile restaurant guide editors, food-focused TV producers, and even Horiemon himself. At the recent launch party at a restaurant in Shibuya, Horie explained how his team plans to evolve our dining experiences: Even while I was in jail, I was thinking to develop this kind of app. There is still little information available in the app at the moment, but its volume will eventually be ten times larger than now. We’ll be launching an English and Chinese version in the upcoming few months using crowdsourced translation services, and also…

horiemon_sonoyamamakie
From the left: Takafumi Horie and Makie Sonoyama (cooking specialist)

See the original story in Japanese.

The Japanese economy appears to be getting better recently. In the startup scene in particular, we’ve seen more than a few acquisitions and fundings. This improved economic situation may have precipitated an interesting new mobile app too. Japanese entrepreneur Takafumi Horie (a.k.a. Horiemon) recently unveiled Teriyaki, an app that provides users with recommendations of the best restaurants in Japan.

The app is available for free on both iOS and Android, but users have to pay a monthly subscription of 400 yen (about $4) via an in-app purchase.

teriyaki_screenshot

The app provides recommendations of restaurants and dishes based on curation by celebrity foodies called “Teriyakists”. They include high-profile restaurant guide editors, food-focused TV producers, and even Horiemon himself.

At the recent launch party at a restaurant in Shibuya, Horie explained how his team plans to evolve our dining experiences:

Even while I was in jail, I was thinking to develop this kind of app. There is still little information available in the app at the moment, but its volume will eventually be ten times larger than now. We’ll be launching an English and Chinese version in the upcoming few months using crowdsourced translation services, and also a version featuring restaurants in east coast US cities. With hopes of global expansion potential, we decided to name the app ‘Teriyaki’ — something familiar to non-Japanese people too.

By the end of this month, the app will cover 700 restaurants profiles across the country. Through a partnership with Pocket Concierge, it will give you opportunities to dine at restaurants introduced on the app, where it is likely difficult to book a reservation.

By next spring, the app is expected to add e-commerce functions, with the ability to order local specialties from any part of the country online, in an effort to monetize the app.

curators
Teriyakists – foodies curating restaurants for the app

Tokyo Office Tour: SpinningWorks wants to bring bookworms back to offline bookstores

SHARE:

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011. I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1]. In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained: There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people. Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or…

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011.

I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1].

In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained:

There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people.

takestock_screenshot

Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or have a look before buying.

When you look for a book to buy, our service helps you buy it online as well as offline. If you prefer not to wait for something to be delivered, our service lets you know where you can buy it right away at a place nearby. In this way, we can present consumers other retailers with e-commerce giants like Amazon or Rakuten in line as their options.

The company started its service focusing on books, since the market volume in Japan is said to be as much as 1.9 trillion yen (approximately $19 billion). Every single title has a unique code (ISBN), which makes the process easier to systemize than other markets such as fashion apparel. In Japan, almost all books are sold at the listed prices at almost all stores, so consumers can choose to buy solely based on their conveniences.

Shirakata revealed that the Japanese e-commerce market accounts for only 2.8% of all commercial activities here in the country, which indicates it still has much room to grow [2]. In the future, by enhancing the services beyond book distribution, he expects to help more offline businesses find potential customers, giving them a chance to buy things they can’t find online.

spinningworks_kddiaward

spinningworks2


  1. Our readers may recall that we recently spoke to Yutaka Ishikawa, the CEO of Nightley. The two startups share the same office space.  ↩

  2. According to a report by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.  ↩

Website translation tool WorldJumper launches freemium version

SHARE:

See the original post in Japanese. WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free. With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese). Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time. The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee. The company expects to…

worldjumper_screenshot

See the original post in Japanese.

WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free.

With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese).

Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time.

The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee.

The company expects to see over 10,000 websites using the service by next April. We hope it can help many startups here in Japan reach out to global markets.

How to turn your iPhone into a retro television on the cheap

SHARE:

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier. Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here. Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room. To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put…

iphone-television

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier.

Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here.

hashy-2

Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room.

To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put together.

Hashy Topin really likes to use iPhones to turn back the clock in this way. Back in 2010 they featured a dock/charger combo that let you convert you iPhone into a conventional telephone.

Japan does fun novelty gifts like this incredibly well, and if you happen to pass through the country in your travels, do drop in on the nearest Tokyu Hands store for lots more disposable innovations like this one! [Via DG Freaks]