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Subscription-based Japanese sake service? Yes please!

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.26

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

Hanami season is not only a wonderful time to check out cherry blossoms, but it also gives us a great excuse to drink sake in broad daylight guilt-free. But most of us are not sake experts, and it can often be difficult to choose one given the variety of choices out there. But Sakelife can be a solution for many facing this dilemma. The service is a monthly subscription commerce for Japanese sake.

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

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

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

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

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

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Tokyo’s iPad-powered bars remember your favorite drinks

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.26

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

A new bar just opened yesterday in Tokyo’s busy Shibuya district, bringing with it a new digital solution that could disrupt the bar industry. It’s called LogBar, and was founded by entrepreneurial programmers Takuro Yoshida and Takayuki Yamazaki.

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

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

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

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Animation effects startup Cybernoids raises $557K for global expansion

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fujitsu can take your pulse with nothing more than a camera

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.25

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

Photo by ITpro

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

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

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

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

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

Rick Martin 2013.03.25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With contributions from Rick Martin

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Japanese auction price comparison site Aucfan approved for IPO in April

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.25

Aucfan, a Tokyo-based startup featuring price comparisons and quotes for items from several auction sites, was approved to IPO on Friday and is expected to be listed on the TSE Mothers stock exchange, a market for emerging companies. Aucfan started out way back in September of 2000 as a part of Defacto Standard, a company known for operating Brandear, an online pawn shop and luxury second-hand e-commerce site. It was spun off in 2009. Aucfan curates price quotes from major auction sites including Yahoo Auction, Moba Oku (Mobile Auction by DeNA), Rakuten Auction, and even some international sites such as eBay and Taobao. The service suggests the best bidding price for the item that you want, which is a handy feature for shoppers on the lookout for the best deals. Aucfan has acquired more than 240,000 users (as of September of 2012), and approximately 30,000 of them subscribe to premium services. Most paid users are probably avid auction traders who need to be conscious about prices, as many of them can get revenue from taking advantage of price gaps, buying items at an auction site and selling them at another one. The company’s major shareholders include the company’s founder Shuichi…

aucfan_logo Aucfan, a Tokyo-based startup featuring price comparisons and quotes for items from several auction sites, was approved to IPO on Friday and is expected to be listed on the TSE Mothers stock exchange, a market for emerging companies.

Aucfan started out way back in September of 2000 as a part of Defacto Standard, a company known for operating Brandear, an online pawn shop and luxury second-hand e-commerce site. It was spun off in 2009.

Aucfan curates price quotes from major auction sites including Yahoo Auction, Moba Oku (Mobile Auction by DeNA), Rakuten Auction, and even some international sites such as eBay and Taobao. The service suggests the best bidding price for the item that you want, which is a handy feature for shoppers on the lookout for the best deals. Aucfan has acquired more than 240,000 users (as of September of 2012), and approximately 30,000 of them subscribe to premium services. Most paid users are probably avid auction traders who need to be conscious about prices, as many of them can get revenue from taking advantage of price gaps, buying items at an auction site and selling them at another one.

The company’s major shareholders include the company’s founder Shuichi Takenaga, Globis Capital Partners, Digital Garage, NetPrice.com, Gree, and Kyoto University’s startup fund. In the last fiscal period ending September of 2012, they achieved about 620 million yen ($6.5million) in net sales with 201 million yen ($2.1million) in operating income.

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Japan’s Softbank Mobile to acquire majority shares of game developer Gungho Online Entertainment

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.25

Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile announced today it would tender an offer of social gaming giant Gungho Online Entertainment. Softbank (TSE:9984) was founded by Masayoshi Son, and Gungho was founded by Masayoshi’s young brother Taizo Son who is also a serial entrepreneur and now running a tech startup incubator called Movida Japan. Gungho has been getting lots of attention from investors because of its hugely popular titles Puzzle & Dragons and Ragnarok Online, making the company’s stock price five times what it was at the beginning of this year. By partnering with the gaming company, Softbank Mobile expects to expand the sales of online and smartphone game titles using the company’s global business. Softbank’s announcement can be found over on its website in English and in Japanese (PDFs) GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons recently surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone on March 9th, but perhaps its biggest accomplishment to date has been its longevity on the top grossing apps charts, and is reportedly has a market cap of about $4.6 billion [1]. The company’s success to date has primarily been limited to Japan. It has a US subsidiary, but it remains to be seen if global users will get behind the…

Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile announced today it would tender an offer of social gaming giant Gungho Online Entertainment. Softbank (TSE:9984) was founded by Masayoshi Son, and Gungho was founded by Masayoshi’s young brother Taizo Son who is also a serial entrepreneur and now running a tech startup incubator called Movida Japan.

Gungho has been getting lots of attention from investors because of its hugely popular titles Puzzle & Dragons and Ragnarok Online, making the company’s stock price five times what it was at the beginning of this year. By partnering with the gaming company, Softbank Mobile expects to expand the sales of online and smartphone game titles using the company’s global business. Softbank’s announcement can be found over on its website in English and in Japanese (PDFs)

GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons recently surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone on March 9th, but perhaps its biggest accomplishment to date has been its longevity on the top grossing apps charts, and is reportedly has a market cap of about $4.6 billion [1].

The company’s success to date has primarily been limited to Japan. It has a US subsidiary, but it remains to be seen if global users will get behind the P&D phenomenon.

Gungho also recently launched its own online store for Puzzle & Dragon’s merchandise, where you can pick up plush toys, iPhone cases, and even P&D mugs. So far, it’s just for fans in Japan, but we hope to see an international version later on if the game catches on elsewhere.

If you’d like a general introduction to the wildly popular game, check out our video demo below.

This according to Serkan Toto. ↩

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Let your iPhone meditate on this zen smartphone stand from Elecom

Rick Martin 2013.03.25

Here’s a fun new smartphone stand from the folks at Elecom (TYO:6750), affectionately called the Buddy Stand. Japan really likes to anthropomorphize things, and this is a good example. The stand is made of silicon, mimicking a human sitting on the floor with legs in the lotus position, folded underneath, or folded off the the side in a more feminine manner. Each position comes in its own set of colors. The smartphone is held where the person’s head should be, creating the feeling of a small character that can accompany on your desk, or at your bedside if you’d like to watch some late night video. The surface is sticky so as to keep your smartphone from slipping, and if any dirt gets on there, you can wipe it down with some water. I wouldn’t mind picking one of these up for my workstation and letting it just run through Tweets using the Trickle app all day. Admittedly, this smartly designed stand doesn’t come too cheap, priced at 3190 yen (or about $34). Check out more photos of the Buddy Stand below, and let us know what you think!

Here’s a fun new smartphone stand from the folks at Elecom (TYO:6750), affectionately called the Buddy Stand. Japan really likes to anthropomorphize things, and this is a good example. The stand is made of silicon, mimicking a human sitting on the floor with legs in the lotus position, folded underneath, or folded off the the side in a more feminine manner. Each position comes in its own set of colors.

The smartphone is held where the person’s head should be, creating the feeling of a small character that can accompany on your desk, or at your bedside if you’d like to watch some late night video. The surface is sticky so as to keep your smartphone from slipping, and if any dirt gets on there, you can wipe it down with some water.

I wouldn’t mind picking one of these up for my workstation and letting it just run through Tweets using the Trickle app all day. Admittedly, this smartly designed stand doesn’t come too cheap, priced at 3190 yen (or about $34).

Check out more photos of the Buddy Stand below, and let us know what you think!

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Japan tech this week: Apps for finance, photos, and fair skin

japan tech this week

Rick Martin 2013.03.24

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. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here. Features Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists 03/24 5 photo apps with fantastic skin filters that Japanese women prefer 03/23 ‘Super lettuce’ grown under LED lights in Japan 03/18 Business How one Japanese fashion brand is using smartphones to connect with customers 03/22 Japan’s members-only discount site LUXA raises $5.32M 03/21 2012 was Apple’s first year on top of Japan’s mobile market 03/21 Fabless printing startup Raksul partners with Stores.jp, fulfills printing needs for e-store owners 03/21 Japanese fashion e-commerce service Laso raises $2.1M from DCM 03/20 Language Cloud gets investment boost from CyberAgent Ventures 03/19 Japanese hit game ‘Puzzle and Dragons’ gets its own online store 03/18 Design New transparent, foldable material could be the future of e-paper 03/20 Sony TVs through the years [Timeline] 03/19 Apps So you’re the new Japanese prime minister, eh? There’s an app for that!…

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. If you’d like to get this weekly summary plus other bonus content, we hope you’ll check out our shiny new newsletter here.

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Japan increasingly turning to Facebook to reach potential tourists

Rick Martin 2013.03.24

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well. The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week. It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form. Reaching beyond Japan’s borders Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential…

Last month Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surpassed the 18 million user mark in Japan, pushing it well past domestic social network rival Mixi as perhaps the preferred SNS in Japan [1]. In addition to consumers jumping on the bandwagon, businesses are getting in on the action as well.

The travel industry is no exception, and there are a number of initiatives that try to leverage Facebook to promote tourism among domestic and international audiences. One such service just launched this past week.

It’s called ’fb Japan Kankou Annai (or simply fb Japan), and it is essentially a website that collects Facebook pages relating to the tourism industry (currently a total of 324), including those of hotels and ins, as well as airlines and railways. The page was created by Tokyo-based social network consulting company Ainapal, which has runs a few other Facebook pages, including Beautiful Ryokan in Japan. If any tourism-related companies out there wish to add their Facebook page to the list, they can do so using a submission form.

Reaching beyond Japan’s borders

Similarly, the recently launched Travelience service (I’m not a fan of the name!) offers guided tours of Tokyo, and is making use of Facebook by engaging potential tourists, posting photos from around Japan, and conducting quizzes. The company boasts cheaper tours than its competitors, and its Facebook presence (now with about 21,000 fans) is a place potential tour participants can comment and have discussions.

As for Japan’s official tourism arm, the JNTO, it has also been pretty active in reaching out on the social network. The organization operates a number of regional pages targeting a variety of countries, including the USA (153,000 fans), Singapore (141,000), and Thailand (92,000).

Of course, the efforts of these companies to promote Japan abroad via Facebook pales in comparison to startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which has racked up more than 11 million Facebook fans with its page about Japanese otaku subculture [2]. Likewise, another young startup under the KDDI Mugen Labo incubator program, Kawaii Museum JPN, is doing something similar, and currently has more than 3 million Facebook fans.

In addition to capitalizing on the power of Facebook, companies and organizations are using the afore-mentioned Line chat app to reach audiences and customers. This past week we featured the apparel brand Lip Service which has been using Line to connect with customers via smartphones, and the end result was a 50% boost in in sales over the previous week. Even the Prime Minister’s Office has a Line account, promising to push updates to citizens who want to stay in the loop using their smartphones [3].

I say ‘perhaps’ because many would say that recently the social network of choise is Line, although as a chat app many others would say it isn’t strictly a social network. ↩
To learn more about Tokyo Otaku Mode, see our feature on the young up-and-coming startup from last month. ↩
And as of this week, the Prime Minister’s Office also has its own smartphone apps! ↩

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