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Japan tech this week: Mobile standouts Line, Puzzle & Dragons still kicking butt

japan tech this week

Rick Martin 2013.05.05

It was Golden Week here in Japan, so there wasn’t too much happening from the business world. We took the opportunity to be a little more reflective, spotlighting some interesting companies, apps, and games. For those of you in Japan, we hope you’ve had a good holiday! [1] 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 Kickstart this: 14 of Japan’s top crowdfunded projects Beauty products portal @Cosme is an internet mainstay among Japanese women Japan’s Weathernews hopes to take the US market by storm Relux: A satisfaction-guaranteed online marketplace for Japanese ryokan Business NTT Docomo to acquire Japan’s largest medical database Gadgets This hard drive will self-destruct: New HDD case from Japan takes security seriously! Line tries to hook kids early, launching toy smartphone with Takaratomy Fun Apps StickerMe: Add your own face to mobile chat stickers, share on Facebook, Line, or Kakaotalk Line’s hockey stick moment: Japanese chat app hits 150 million users Japanese finance app Zaim rolls out slick web version, updates Android app with OCR Kame Camera takes Japanese schoolgirl ‘Dragon Ball’ meme a step further Games With over 5 million…

It was Golden Week here in Japan, so there wasn’t too much happening from the business world. We took the opportunity to be a little more reflective, spotlighting some interesting companies, apps, and games. For those of you in Japan, we hope you’ve had a good holiday! [1]

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

Business

NTT Docomo to acquire Japan’s largest medical database

Gadgets

Fun Apps

Games

Actually, tomorrow is a public holiday in Japan too, so I guess you have one more day still! ↩

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Kickstart this: 14 of Japan’s top crowdfunded projects

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.04

Visualizing.info is a website that visualizes statistics and metrics from market surveys. On May 1st, the website was updated for the first time in almost a month, and it presented some interesting statistics from the Japanese crowdfunding space. The website has collected figures from the major Japanese crowdfunding sites: Readyfor, Campfire, Motion Galery, Countdown, and Kibidango. It presented an overview of what projects are trending or are most influential by counting the number of supportive ‘likes’ or the accumulation of funds raised. So what projects are the most popular in Japan in terms of the amounts raised? Let’s have a quick look below. All the statistics were current as of April 30th, 2013. Readyfor 1st place: Fill an empty library Raised 8.2 million yen from 862 people This project aims to help a library in Rikuzen Takada fill its shelves with with books. The library is located in the heart of an area that was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, where most books were damaged or destroyed by the subsequent tsunami. 2nd place: Support the koalas Raised 4.8 million yen from 677 people It aims to help a zoo in Nagoya grow eucalyptus to feed their…

Visualizing.info is a website that visualizes statistics and metrics from market surveys. On May 1st, the website was updated for the first time in almost a month, and it presented some interesting statistics from the Japanese crowdfunding space. The website has collected figures from the major Japanese crowdfunding sites: Readyfor, Campfire, Motion Galery, Countdown, and Kibidango. It presented an overview of what projects are trending or are most influential by counting the number of supportive ‘likes’ or the accumulation of funds raised.

So what projects are the most popular in Japan in terms of the amounts raised? Let’s have a quick look below. All the statistics were current as of April 30th, 2013.

Readyfor

1st place: Fill an empty library

Raised 8.2 million yen from 862 people

This project aims to help a library in Rikuzen Takada fill its shelves with with books. The library is located in the heart of an area that was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, where most books were damaged or destroyed by the subsequent tsunami.

2nd place: Support the koalas

Raised 4.8 million yen from 677 people

It aims to help a zoo in Nagoya grow eucalyptus to feed their koalas. As some of our readers may know, koalas don’t eat anything other than eucalyptus. But these trees don’t grow naturally, and have to be grown artificially. Due to a lack of funds from the local government, this project raised money by turning to the public for financial support.

3rd place: Send young artists to Italy

Raised 4.2 million yen from 388 people

Elementary school students living in the area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake have created artwork made from the debris left by the devastation. These are to be exhibited at the Toy Museum in Zagarolo, Italy. The project owners wish to take the children to attend the exhibition.

Campfire

1st place: From Fukushima to Chernobyl

Raised 6 million yen from 728 people

Three famous Japanese journalists and critics who have been observing the devastated area affected by the 2011 disaster are planning to visit Chernobyl to cover what’s has been happening there after the nuclear power plant accident. The three have raised money for a trip and will bring the latest reports and information to their audience in return.

2nd place: iPhone Polaroids

Raised 5.3 million yen from 268 people

A hardware manufacturing group called Impossible Instant Lab is planning to produce a device that allows you to develop Polaroid-style physical photos using the iPhone.

3rd place: Akihiro Nishino’s picture books

Raised 5.3 million yen from 585 people

Popular Japanese comedian Akihiro Nishino has created his own original picture books. He is hoping for a global outreach, and is planning to hold an exhibition at a gallery in New York.

Motion Gallery

1st place: Herb & Dorothy

Raised 14.6 million yen from 915 people

Japanese film maker Megumi Sasaki created a documentary film called Herb & Dorothy. It focuses on how an elderly couple living in NYC assembled one of the most important post–1960 art collections in history, on their modest civil-service salaries. Megumi wants to show the movie at a Japanese theater.

2nd place: Like someone in love

Raised 5.6 million yen from 244 people

Award-winning Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami shot a film in Japan called Like Someone in Love. Abbas once gave up on shooting the film due to the Great Earthquake, but eventually production was finished. The story revolved around an old man and a young prostitute in Japan, and thus far has been well received by critics. This effort aimed to raise funds to go towards the film’s distribution in Japan.

3rd place: Remembering Yanana

Raised 3.2 million yen from 132 people

These days, many Japanese local governments have introduced mascot characters called ‘Yuru-chara,’ primarily in an effort to promote local products and tourism in their areas. “Yanana” is one of the characters hailing from Gifu, Japan, but she subsequently had to stop her activities because her promotion schedule was unexpectedly terminated. For the purpose of keeping her alive in the minds of locals, some fans are raising money to hold retirement event, establish a monument, and even create a movie in her honor.

Countdown

1st place: Gamarjobat

Raised 8.4 million yen from 399 people

Japanese comedy duo Gamarjobat has been performing pantomime shows in 32 countries around the world. The duo has appeared on the BBC variety show Blue Peter and their next destination is Hollywood. To help them make it there, they want to create a promotional video about themselves.

2nd place

Raised 4.1 million yen from 115 people

A Japanese inn owner hopes to found a co-working space in a hot spring resort. Located in the Tohoku region just three hours away from Tokyo by bullet train, the owner wants to create a facility where everyone can comfortably work – but given the relaxing environment, heal at the same time.

3rd place: Online sign language dictionary and keyboard

Raised 2.9 million yen from 132 people

This project aspires to create the world’s first online dictionary for sign languages. Readers may recall that we previously featured this idea back in February.

Kibidango

1st place: The perfect camera bag

Raised 6.5 million yen from 226 people

Ulysses is the ideal camera bag. The creators have been polishing the idea for eight years, and they’ve finally invented one which uses natural materials but is still durable and easy-to-use.

2nd place: Pinot noir from Niigata

Raised 2.5 million yen from 107 people

A winery owner in Niigata plans to create a new wine using a Pinot noir grape. He wants to cultivate a grape vineyard, create his wine, and finally ship it. His customers (investors) have to wait five years for the wine to mature.

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StickerMe: Add your own face to mobile chat stickers, share on Facebook, Line, or Kakaotalk

SCORE 2,290

Rick Martin 2013.05.03

Adding to our growing list of fun Japanese photo apps, here’s one for all your guys who have joined the mobile chat app craze. It’s called StickerMe, and it comes from the folks at Motion Portrait, an app publisher well known for its face-altering technology. One of the biggest attractions of mobile chat applications like Line or Kakaotalk is that you can use fun stickers to express yourself. And now with StickerMe, you can take a picture of yourself or any of your friends, and make it into a cute sticker that you can send with your favorite mobile chat application. After taking your initial photo, you can then choose from a pretty wide array of stamps, many of them closely resembling those you’d find on Line (see pictures below). But given the growing popularity of these chat apps in Asia and around the world, this certainly looks like it could be a popular photo utility. Check it out over the Apple App Store, or see how it works in the video above.

Adding to our growing list of fun Japanese photo apps, here’s one for all your guys who have joined the mobile chat app craze. It’s called StickerMe, and it comes from the folks at Motion Portrait, an app publisher well known for its face-altering technology.

One of the biggest attractions of mobile chat applications like Line or Kakaotalk is that you can use fun stickers to express yourself. And now with StickerMe, you can take a picture of yourself or any of your friends, and make it into a cute sticker that you can send with your favorite mobile chat application.

After taking your initial photo, you can then choose from a pretty wide array of stamps, many of them closely resembling those you’d find on Line (see pictures below). But given the growing popularity of these chat apps in Asia and around the world, this certainly looks like it could be a popular photo utility.

Check it out over the Apple App Store, or see how it works in the video above.

news

This hard drive will self-destruct: New HDD case from Japan takes security seriously!

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.03

Whether it’s a Facebook post, a tweet, or a photo, the general understanding of web and digital content used to be that it lives forever. But very recently, we’re seeing a lot of services built around the concept of expiration dates. For example, the photo sharing app Snapchat has become popular among teenagers, now boasting over 150 million photo shares per day, each one with a limited duration viewing period. Likewise Twitter app Efemr allows you to post self-destructing tweets by adding a dedicated hashtag to your message. This self-destruct feature is not limited to just services. A Japanese company called Century has released a hard disk drive case called Jigen (CT-25-ERP). When there is no access to the encrypted drive for a set period of time, the encrypted key is automatically deleted thus making it impossible to access what’s inside the drive. The period of data preservation can be set by using a dedicated utility available on the Century website for both Windows and Mac. The data can be preserved up to a maximum of 9,999 days. In addition to this self-destruct feature, the device has automatic locking as well. When there is no access to the encrypted drive…

Whether it’s a Facebook post, a tweet, or a photo, the general understanding of web and digital content used to be that it lives forever. But very recently, we’re seeing a lot of services built around the concept of expiration dates. For example, the photo sharing app Snapchat has become popular among teenagers, now boasting over 150 million photo shares per day, each one with a limited duration viewing period. Likewise Twitter app Efemr allows you to post self-destructing tweets by adding a dedicated hashtag to your message.

This self-destruct feature is not limited to just services. A Japanese company called Century has released a hard disk drive case called Jigen (CT-25-ERP). When there is no access to the encrypted drive for a set period of time, the encrypted key is automatically deleted thus making it impossible to access what’s inside the drive. The period of data preservation can be set by using a dedicated utility available on the Century website for both Windows and Mac. The data can be preserved up to a maximum of 9,999 days.

In addition to this self-destruct feature, the device has automatic locking as well. When there is no access to the encrypted drive (for a maximum of 999 minutes), the content will be locked and will require a password.

Your HDD/SSD can be divided into three partitions, but only one can be encrypted. Such a case would be perfect for Inspector Gadget (see the video below for some fun 80s nostalgia!) is available for just 3,980 yen, or about $41. Note that if data is deleted as a result of misuse, the company says it will not be held accountable.

Japan appears to like such self-destructing services and solutions that provide anonymity on our increasingly social web. For example, to avoid the possibility of having your boss read your angry or dissatisfied tweets, there are interesting solutions such as Arrow which we featured recently. There are also services like Gtitter (a playful variant of the word ‘vent’) which allows users to complain about things anonymously.

[Via Impress]

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Now with over 5 million downloads, Battle Cats gears up to move merchandise

Rick Martin 2013.05.02

So while I’m on the topic of Japanese tower defense games today (see my post from earlier today on GotchaWarriors), I thought I’d take a moment to update you on Battle Cats, a game that has been a favorite of mine over the past year. Since its initial release back in November, the game has gone on to hit three million downloads on February 25th, and then 4 million on March 26th. And keeping up that million-per-month pace, the game hit 5 million downloads just over a week ago. Now I don’t want to make any radical comparisons here, but that’s not far off the pace of Gungho’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons, which has been picking up a million downloads every three weeks or so. Of course Battle Cats – or Nyanko, as it is called in Japan – doesn’t have non-stop TV ads like P&D, so I think this is a pretty impressive feat. Serkan Toto today pointed out a Battle Cats collaboration with Princess Punt Sweets, and I’m sure efforts like this certainly help out a little. When I interviewed Kyoto-based Ponos last month, the publisher behind the uber-cute game, they confirmed that merchandising was in the…

So while I’m on the topic of Japanese tower defense games today (see my post from earlier today on GotchaWarriors), I thought I’d take a moment to update you on Battle Cats, a game that has been a favorite of mine over the past year. Since its initial release back in November, the game has gone on to hit three million downloads on February 25th, and then 4 million on March 26th. And keeping up that million-per-month pace, the game hit 5 million downloads just over a week ago.

Now I don’t want to make any radical comparisons here, but that’s not far off the pace of Gungho’s hit game Puzzle & Dragons, which has been picking up a million downloads every three weeks or so. Of course Battle Cats – or Nyanko, as it is called in Japan – doesn’t have non-stop TV ads like P&D, so I think this is a pretty impressive feat. Serkan Toto today pointed out a Battle Cats collaboration with Princess Punt Sweets, and I’m sure efforts like this certainly help out a little.

When I interviewed Kyoto-based Ponos last month, the publisher behind the uber-cute game, they confirmed that merchandising was in the works for Battle Cats. And now fans of the game can pre-order some gear right now, as branded mugs, tote bags, and phone straps will go on sale this July (h/t Appbank).

But it’s really encouraging to see such strong character branding here in Japan, where game companies can capitalize on an entirely separate revenue stream.

If you have yet to play Battle Cats check out our video primer below.

Hand-powered personal fan promises to be big in Japan this summer

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