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Yahoo Japan offers to rescue Google Reader refugees

Rick Martin 2013.03.18

A number of services are already reaping the benefits of the Google Reader’s impending retirement this coming July. Most notable among them is Feedly.com, which has seen half a million new users since Google made its announcement. But in Japan, the leading internet property YahooJapan (TYO:4689) is poised to capitalize on the opportunity as well.

Currently when users log in to their My Yahoo pages they’ll see a link to a promotion of sorts by the company, whereby it explains step-by-step how to export their feeds from Google Reader to import them into My Yahoo. It also explains how to bring your data from iGoogle, which is being retired in November. Yahoo Japan’s ‘My Yahoo’ is much like the product of the same name from Yahoo proper, except for it probably has enthusiastic users.

I took a quick walk though the process, and it works pretty seamlessly, although if you’re a heavy feed consumer you’ll likely want to try something a little more robust. Japanese users also have Livedoor Reader, although I’ve never tried that one myself. I suspect, like anywhere else, Feedly will be a popular choice in Japan too.

I’m not certain which service I’m going to settle on for my own feeds, although I’m currently testing out Fever for no other reason than Gabe Weatherhead seems to like it [1].

What service you you plan to use for RSS feeds? Do you ever make use of RSS feeds at all these days? Let us know! (Via Impress Internet Watch)

Gabe is cool. Note however that Fever is a self-hosted solution without much support. But so far, I like it too. ↩

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‘Super lettuce’ grown under LED lights in Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.18

Japanese families who live along side Tokyo’s Odakyu train line can now enjoy more nutritious vegetables thanks to a collaborative project between Tamagawa University and Nishimatsu Construction. Last October, the two groups began an experimental operation to grow leaf lettuce using LED lights and liquid fertilizer. The project was carried out at the 900 square meter LED SciTech farm, spanning two floors, where lights, temperature, and humidity are controlled by 50 sensors. By adjusting the RGB light wavelength as well as the amount of light, the system is able to produce nutritious vegetables in a very short amount of time. Including the time for seedling, vegetables can be harvested within 15 days. At SciTech farms, sweetness, color, texture, softness and even flavor can be controlled. The resulting lettuce can contain as much as 2.6 times the antioxidative potency in comparison to regular lettuce. Since these vegetables are harvested without pesticides, they can even be eaten without washing. The process of LED cultivation brought many challenges, including the durability of lamps and the huge initial cost. After much trial and error, they succeeded in improving the lamps and developing their cultivation method by analyzing how plants react to lights. The entire…

Japanese families who live along side Tokyo’s Odakyu train line can now enjoy more nutritious vegetables thanks to a collaborative project between Tamagawa University and Nishimatsu Construction.

Last October, the two groups began an experimental operation to grow leaf lettuce using LED lights and liquid fertilizer. The project was carried out at the 900 square meter LED SciTech farm, spanning two floors, where lights, temperature, and humidity are controlled by 50 sensors. By adjusting the RGB light wavelength as well as the amount of light, the system is able to produce nutritious vegetables in a very short amount of time. Including the time for seedling, vegetables can be harvested within 15 days.

At SciTech farms, sweetness, color, texture, softness and even flavor can be controlled. The resulting lettuce can contain as much as 2.6 times the antioxidative potency in comparison to regular lettuce. Since these vegetables are harvested without pesticides, they can even be eaten without washing.

The process of LED cultivation brought many challenges, including the durability of lamps and the huge initial cost. After much trial and error, they succeeded in improving the lamps and developing their cultivation method by analyzing how plants react to lights. The entire process from seeding to harvesting is done mechanically, which reduces man power, bringing the project closer to achieving profitability.

Dr. Hiroyuki Watanabe, the brains behind the SciTech farm project, initially got the idea during his time as a researcher at Mitsubishi Chemical back in 1992, when he inspected a NASA project which used LED lights to cultivate plants in space. He officially began his research for SciTech farms upon starting his job at Tamagawa University. The project aims not only to provide consumers with safer food but also to support industrial recovery in regions affected by the Tohoku earthquake.

This new super lettuce is named Yumena (roughly meaning ‘dreams and vegetables’) and can be bought at sixteen Odakyu OX super markets for about 200 yen, as of February 1. (Source tamagawa.jp, Yomiuri)

Photo by Sankei Photo

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Japanese hit game ‘Puzzle and Dragons’ gets its own online store

Rick Martin 2013.03.18

As if GungHo Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle and Dragons wasn’t making enough money already, now the title has its own online store where you can buy an assortment of P&D merchandise. Currently in the store you can buy a range of products including plush toys, P&D iPhone cases, and even a P&D coffee mug. Unfortunately the store only delivers to locations within Japan, so overseas fans will have to wait until the company decides to extend this initiative. Of course, supplementing a successful mobile game with brand merchandise is nothing new in the gaming industry. We recently even saw how Finnish company Rovio is pushing its plush toys with lucky draws nationwide in Japan. Puzzle & Dragons recently cracked through the 10 million downloads mark, although to date the game owes the vast majority of those downloads to its home market of Japan. It will be interesting to see if the game can catch on overseas this year after English versions launched in late 2012. For a general introduction to P&D, check out our video overview of the game below. (Via VS Media)

As if GungHo Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle and Dragons wasn’t making enough money already, now the title has its own online store where you can buy an assortment of P&D merchandise.

Currently in the store you can buy a range of products including plush toys, P&D iPhone cases, and even a P&D coffee mug. Unfortunately the store only delivers to locations within Japan, so overseas fans will have to wait until the company decides to extend this initiative.

Of course, supplementing a successful mobile game with brand merchandise is nothing new in the gaming industry. We recently even saw how Finnish company Rovio is pushing its plush toys with lucky draws nationwide in Japan.

Puzzle & Dragons recently cracked through the 10 million downloads mark, although to date the game owes the vast majority of those downloads to its home market of Japan. It will be interesting to see if the game can catch on overseas this year after English versions launched in late 2012.

For a general introduction to P&D, check out our video overview of the game below. (Via VS Media)

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Japan tech this week: Remembering the past and building for the future

japan tech this week

Rick Martin 2013.03.17

We’ve had another fun week here at SD, doing our best to bring you interesting tech stories going down in Japan. But in case you missed any of it, here’s a wrap up below. Readers on mobile might want to check out the features on Readlists or in ePub format. 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 Japanese startup acquisitions: An interactive timeline 03/14 Catching up with the CoolIris team in Tokyo 03/13 Online support software provider Zendesk makes its presence in Japan official 03/13 Second anniversary of 2011 Japan earthquake remembered online 03/11 Business Japan’s language learning site Best Teacher raises $530,000 from GMO-VP and SMBC-VC 03/15 Fancy showing fantastic growth, planning launch in Japan soon 03/14 Rovio holds Angry Birds lucky draws nationwide in Japan 03/12 Japanese legal portal Bengo4.com raises $208,000 from Kakaku.com 03/12 On-demand theater service Dreampass acquired by Yahoo Japan 03/11 Design Japanese-made lamp is a Stroke of design genius 03/13 Google Glass, you’ve got company! Sekai Camera inventor introduces Telepathy One 03/13 Apps This iPhone app from Japan might be the sexiest calculator ever [Video] 03/15 Domino’s Hatsune…

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’s Open Network Lab now taking applications for its incubation program 03/14

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How Japan’s Keio University is reaching out to potential students abroad

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.03.16

My old school, Keio University, is attracting some attention to its newly launched website, intended to attract students from abroad. Most notably, its two-minute video titled “Shaping History, Shaping Tomorrow,” shot by Australian filmmaker Tim White, exhibits all the charms of the university and Japan as a whole. This is Keio’s attempt to use social media to reach potential students outside the country. Since the video’s initial release last December, it has been played over 113,000 times on Youtube. The video’s creator Tim White noted: I wanted to express what is expected of Tokyo from students all over the world-heritage, cutting-edge technology, rich culture, friendly people, most safe and secure. The project was part of an initiative led by the Ministry of Education. Keio University was founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa in 1858, the same man pictured on the 10,000-yen bill. To check out more of the campus life at Keio University, here is another video, this one from the students of the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design.

This is Keio’s attempt to use social media to reach potential students outside the country. Since the video’s initial release last December, it has been played over 113,000 times on Youtube. The video’s creator Tim White noted:

I wanted to express what is expected of Tokyo from students all over the world-heritage, cutting-edge technology, rich culture, friendly people, most safe and secure.

The project was part of an initiative led by the Ministry of Education. Keio University was founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa in 1858, the same man pictured on the 10,000-yen bill.

To check out more of the campus life at Keio University, here is another video, this one from the students of the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design.

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A brainwave music player so nice, Japan made it twice

Masaru Ikeda 2013.03.15

During the past week, a Japanese startup and a Japanese university both brought us innovative music players that allow us to choose songs without the need for any remote controls. Here’s a quick look at both, which appear to operate on the same principle. Neurowear, the Tokyo-based startup best known for having introduced wearable cat ears controlled by brain waves, unveiled an new amazing product called Mico. It’s an automatic song selection headset, and it was exhibited at SXSW Interactive 2013 from March 8th to the 12th. The headset reads brainwaves from your frontal lobe, and the program predicts the a song you might want to listen to by comparing the signal received to previously recorded patterns. The system integrates with an iPhone app that plays a song for you, and the surface of ear pads are illuminated according to your emotion state (e.g. concentrating, or sleeply). The startup hopes to let users discover music they might not have heard or tried before. Likewise, some academics in Japan are working to bring us a similar solution. Professor Yasue Mitsukura and her team at Keio University have studied more than 1,000 people and have succeeded to map the patterns of brainwave…

neurowear_600 — Japanese digital pop artist Julie Watai wearing Neurowear’s Mico

Neurowear, the Tokyo-based startup best known for having introduced wearable cat ears controlled by brain waves, unveiled an new amazing product called Mico. It’s an automatic song selection headset, and it was exhibited at SXSW Interactive 2013 from March 8th to the 12th.

The headset reads brainwaves from your frontal lobe, and the program predicts the a song you might want to listen to by comparing the signal received to previously recorded patterns. The system integrates with an iPhone app that plays a song for you, and the surface of ear pads are illuminated according to your emotion state (e.g. concentrating, or sleeply). The startup hopes to let users discover music they might not have heard or tried before.

Likewise, some academics in Japan are working to bring us a similar solution. Professor Yasue Mitsukura and her team at Keio University have studied more than 1,000 people and have succeeded to map the patterns of brainwave that emerge when a user wants to listen to specific type of songs. Then by detecting your brainwave pattern with the sensor on their headset, the music player lets you listen to a series of songs you might like.

The new technology aims to help users who have a difficult time selecting song. The study used a small brainwave sensor and a music player, and the team succeeded in achieving 90% precision, in terms of choosing songs based on what test participants were thinking they wanted to listen to.

Professor Mitsukura and her team have been exploring possibilities of augmented reality (AR), facial image recognition, and sensibility evaluation. The group was previously known for having developed a real-time avatar webcam which was exhibited at Digital Content Expo 2012.

Yahoo Japan offers to rescue Google Reader refugees

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