One of the first computer games that I remember playing as a kid is Breakout. Since then there have been many re-imaginings of the iconic game, but I recently stumbled upon a unique one over on App Bank. It’s called Cat with Rumba (‘Neko no Rumba’ in Japanese), and by combining computer game nostalgia and the power of cute cats, this game may very well have just won the internet.
If you’ve played Breakout before, the simple mechanics will be familiar to you. You simply move the paddle in the bottom of the screen to bounce your Roomba-riding cat around a very messy room.
The cat-and-Roomba combo are actually a pretty hard target to miss, but the difficult part is cleaning up all the garbage before the 60-second timer runs out. In the process you can snatch up valuable treasure items too, adding to your collection as you go. When you completely clean the room, the cat does a really awesome dance as well!
It is still just available to play in Japanese, but it’s simple enough to play even if you can’t read the text. If you’d like to give it a try, you can download it for free over on the App Store[1]. Even though it has yet to really catch on, even in Japan, it’s a super fun game and I really recommend you check it out!
I should note that this app did crash a few times for me when I installed it. So you may or may not experience the same thing. Good luck! ↩
Phroni is a FireFox add-on that scan whatever website you’re browsing and augment keywords with links to useful information resources. It uses artificial intelligence-based technology and a database of keyword-to-link mappings. Studio Ousia, the Japanese startup behind the technology, has now also introduced new add-ons for two smartphone web browsers: Dolphin Browser and Sleipnir Mobile (for iOS / Android). Dolphin Browser was developed by SF-based startup Mobotap, originally born from a Startup Weekend Beijing event. It is an alternative mobile browser for iOS and Android devices, and allows users to browse websites with gesture or sonar controls. Slepinir Mobile is the mobile version of the Sleipnir browser, created by Japanese startup Fenrir. The browser is known for its bold steps in user interface design and browsing experience. We reviewed Sleipnir for Mac back in February, if you’d like to learn more. Phroni technology adds helpful links on keywords, offering you a way to easily get to other resources you may be interested in. The technology is currently patent pending in the US and Japan. Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC‘s incubation program. The startup raised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital back in February of last…
Browsing the SD Japan website with the Phroni-enabled Dolphin Browser
Phroni is a FireFox add-on that scan whatever website you’re browsing and augment keywords with links to useful information resources. It uses artificial intelligence-based technology and a database of keyword-to-link mappings. Studio Ousia, the Japanese startup behind the technology, has now also introduced new add-ons for two smartphone web browsers: Dolphin Browser and Sleipnir Mobile (for iOS / Android).
Dolphin Browser was developed by SF-based startup Mobotap, originally born from a Startup Weekend Beijing event. It is an alternative mobile browser for iOS and Android devices, and allows users to browse websites with gesture or sonar controls.
Slepinir Mobile is the mobile version of the Sleipnir browser, created by Japanese startup Fenrir. The browser is known for its bold steps in user interface design and browsing experience. We reviewed Sleipnir for Mac back in February, if you’d like to learn more.
Phroni technology adds helpful links on keywords, offering you a way to easily get to other resources you may be interested in. The technology is currently patent pending in the US and Japan.
Studio Ousia is an standout graduate from Keio University SFC‘s incubation program. The startup raised 70 million yen (about $864,000) from Nissay Capital back in February of last year. It recently set up a satellite studio in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, where they expect to intensify software development and promotional activities.
You can learn more about Phroni in its promo video below.
Tokyo-based startup Pitapat was founded back in 2011, a subsidiary of Japanese web giant CyberAgent (TYO:4751). Some of our readers may recall that it launched Qixil an invitation-only Q&A app back in April. Now the startup is announcing today that the service has been fully opened to the public, and anyone can now join the Q&A forums without an invitation. Qixil is somewhat similar to Quora, and has acquired more than 1,000 users from a wide range of profession like lawyers, politicians, and investors. According to the company, if you post a question on the app, there’s about a 92% chance that you’ll get an answer back from someone. It originally focused on startup-related topics, mainly exchanging questions and answers between entrepreneurs and investors. However, upon this public release, the service is allowing users to discuss all kinds of topics. On the app, a user can post a question in the category of his or her choosing. If you answer the question and other users evaluate your feedback, you’ll win a point for that particular category. By accumulating points, you subsequently might be qualified as a professional or expert in that category.
Tokyo-based startup Pitapat was founded back in 2011, a subsidiary of Japanese web giant CyberAgent (TYO:4751). Some of our readers may recall that it launched Qixil an invitation-only Q&A app back in April. Now the startup is announcing today that the service has been fully opened to the public, and anyone can now join the Q&A forums without an invitation.
Qixil is somewhat similar to Quora, and has acquired more than 1,000 users from a wide range of profession like lawyers, politicians, and investors. According to the company, if you post a question on the app, there’s about a 92% chance that you’ll get an answer back from someone.
It originally focused on startup-related topics, mainly exchanging questions and answers between entrepreneurs and investors. However, upon this public release, the service is allowing users to discuss all kinds of topics.
On the app, a user can post a question in the category of his or her choosing. If you answer the question and other users evaluate your feedback, you’ll win a point for that particular category. By accumulating points, you subsequently might be qualified as a professional or expert in that category.
Japan’s Nippon Television Network is making the first ever attempt to make the experience of watching a music performance on TV into an extremely social experience. The creative team responsible for making this happen is TeamLab, with its ‘TeamLab Social Instrument’ technology. On July 6th, Nippon Television Network will mark its 60th anniversary. A TV program called The Music Day, Power of Music will be aired on that day for 12 hours. Japanese pop group Arashi will give performance that can be enjoyed as a real time sound game. Viewers in front of the TV can access a special web page on their mobile phones, computers, or even using their TV remote control. On the web page, they can choose an instrument and tap on the button whenever the instrument’s icon appears on TV during the performance. TeamLab’s social instrument technology has been used for real live performances before (check out the video below), but it has been enhanced to compensate for possible network delays. Each performance is given a score for rhythm accuracy after performance, and I assume that there will be some sort of social element to share the score on the internet. For those eager to join…
Japan’s Nippon Television Network is making the first ever attempt to make the experience of watching a music performance on TV into an extremely social experience. The creative team responsible for making this happen is TeamLab, with its ‘TeamLab Social Instrument’ technology.
On July 6th, Nippon Television Network will mark its 60th anniversary. A TV program called The Music Day, Power of Music will be aired on that day for 12 hours. Japanese pop group Arashi will give performance that can be enjoyed as a real time sound game. Viewers in front of the TV can access a special web page on their mobile phones, computers, or even using their TV remote control. On the web page, they can choose an instrument and tap on the button whenever the instrument’s icon appears on TV during the performance.
TeamLab’s social instrument technology has been used for real live performances before (check out the video below), but it has been enhanced to compensate for possible network delays.
Each performance is given a score for rhythm accuracy after performance, and I assume that there will be some sort of social element to share the score on the internet. For those eager to join the nation wide interactive event, you can access the special website here.
See the original story in Japanese. Integration of telephony or SMS with web services can be used for many purposes, like Google’s 2-step verification for its various apps, or user authentication for OTT (over-the-top) services like messaging apps, or for calling engineers for live server monitoring. For web service providers, such integration is typically made possible not by in-house systems but by using third-party telephony/SMS gateway services. The world’s three major players in this space are Twilio, Nexmo, and Tropo. Mr. Woo Kim, the head of Asia Pacific operations at Nexmo, was visiting Tokyo this week, speaking about how the company plans to extend its business to the Japanese market. Nexmo provides an SMS gateway to the Line messaging app for user authentication, and NHN Investment has invested in the company. Kim is a venture partner at NHN Investment as well as an employee at Nexmo. Can you tell us a little about Nexmo? Nexmo was founded in London’s Silicon Roundabout two and a half years ago. We’re headquartered in London, with an office in San Francisco as well. Our services are web-to-phone and web-to-SMS, and to date our customers include messaging apps like Line, Kakao Talk, WeChat, and Viber….
Integration of telephony or SMS with web services can be used for many purposes, like Google’s 2-step verification for its various apps, or user authentication for OTT (over-the-top) services like messaging apps, or for calling engineers for live server monitoring.
For web service providers, such integration is typically made possible not by in-house systems but by using third-party telephony/SMS gateway services. The world’s three major players in this space are Twilio, Nexmo, and Tropo. Mr. Woo Kim, the head of Asia Pacific operations at Nexmo, was visiting Tokyo this week, speaking about how the company plans to extend its business to the Japanese market. Nexmo provides an SMS gateway to the Line messaging app for user authentication, and NHN Investment has invested in the company. Kim is a venture partner at NHN Investment as well as an employee at Nexmo.
Can you tell us a little about Nexmo?
Nexmo’s Woo Kim
Nexmo was founded in London’s Silicon Roundabout two and a half years ago. We’re headquartered in London, with an office in San Francisco as well. Our services are web-to-phone and web-to-SMS, and to date our customers include messaging apps like Line, Kakao Talk, WeChat, and Viber. When these apps authenticate their users, messages are transmitted using our service.
You’re making progress in the Asian market. How important is this region for Nexmo?
Yes. As I mentioned before, we’re providing SMS gateway services for messaging apps, and they are on the rise in the Asian market. That’s why I believe there are market opportunities here. In fact, we get 60% of our entire revenue, or 50% of our profit, from the region.
There are several gateway providers in this space. How do you differentiate?
For our product, the most significant differentiation is high quality service. There are multiple routes to transmit an SMS message from one person to another. For instance, when delivering your message from our system to a mobile user subscribing to Indonesia’s Telekomsel, we have seven routes. The SMS scheme typically can’t guarantee to get your message to your recipient. That’s why we select the most reliable one out of the seven available routes to be sure your message is delivered.
In this process, our system monitors connectivity with each telecom carrier all the time using SS7, or Signalling System No. 7. Based on the performance history, the system chooses the best route for delivery by using a different criteria.
Besides e-mail, an SMS message is mission critical since it’s also used for the user authentication process. We have acquired much experience by working with the Line app. And this encourages other messaging app players in Asia to adopt our service for their user authentication needs.
Some web services using other gateway providers have switched to Nexmo. Why is that?
Well, our pricing is probably also one of their reasons, but I believe the main reason is our high deliverability rate, backed by our unique routing technique, as mentioned, and also our efforts to establish direct links with many carriers to reducing transmission relays and network hops.
How do you plan to expand your business in the Japanese market?
It was just six months ago when I took up this post. We just started exploring the market, and finding potential partners from web service companies and startups. We’ll be doing our best to work on many projects with Japanese companies.
During the last few years, OTT services are very hot regardless of location. The rise of such services are causing telcos to strain under the data demands, but it makes new business opportunities for telephony and SMS gateway providers.
We previously wrote about the very strange, but very cute Alpaca Evolution mobile game, which has managed to attract over 5 million downloads in Japan [1]. And now a new version has been released – or rather, to be precise it’s a prequel, appropriately titled Alpaka Nii-san Begins. If you recall the original game, you are an alpaca who beats up on your alpaca brothers, absorbing them into your body to evolve into monstrous new forms of alpaca. In this new iteration, the gameplay is essentially the same, but we have the option of choosing from two storylines (‘power’ or ‘subservient’), with four possible endings. And if you make it to the ending, you’ll know the mystery that lies behind these funny animals. So far the game is ranked 10th overall in the Japan App Store on iOS, and if the previous version is any indication, it is likely to hit the top spot too, perhaps sometime over the weekend. If you’d like give Alpaca Nii-san Begins a try, you can pick it up for free over on the App Store or on Google Play. To get an idea of how the game is played, check out our video for…
We previously wrote about the very strange, but very cute Alpaca Evolution mobile game, which has managed to attract over 5 million downloads in Japan [1]. And now a new version has been released – or rather, to be precise it’s a prequel, appropriately titled Alpaka Nii-san Begins.
If you recall the original game, you are an alpaca who beats up on your alpaca brothers, absorbing them into your body to evolve into monstrous new forms of alpaca. In this new iteration, the gameplay is essentially the same, but we have the option of choosing from two storylines (‘power’ or ‘subservient’), with four possible endings. And if you make it to the ending, you’ll know the mystery that lies behind these funny animals.
So far the game is ranked 10th overall in the Japan App Store on iOS, and if the previous version is any indication, it is likely to hit the top spot too, perhaps sometime over the weekend.
If you’d like give Alpaca Nii-san Begins a try, you can pick it up for free over on the App Store or on Google Play. To get an idea of how the game is played, check out our video for the original Alpaca Evolution below. (Via VS Media)
The title is actually Alpaca Nii-san, or ‘brother alpaca’, but the developer Cocosola translates it as ‘Alpaca Evolution’. Also, the five million downloads figure is taken from its English iOS app description. Some of the other app descriptions differ in their total. ↩
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based startup 
Yukari Mitsuhashi
