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. ↩
Over on our Japanese site, my colleague Takuya has put together a very informative list of incubators and accelerators from around the Asia region. This follows his previous list of Japanese seed accelerators and VC firms, which I encourage you to check out as well. We thought that since there aren’t many places online where you can find such information all in one place, it might be a good idea to publish it here too. So with that, I present to you the list below, which despite its size is not meant to be totally comprehensive — so we welcome any suggestions for places we might have missed in the comments [1]. [Credits] Startmate (Australia): This accelerator has a five-month program that includes a trip to Silicon Valley. Ignition Labs (Australia): A three month program that focuses on clean tech. Pollenizer (Australia): Offers funding via Pollenizer Ventures, and menturing from the founders and others. PushStart (Australia): A three-month program. Incubated startups receive some funding as well as office space and mentorship. Venture Incubator Space (Australia): A one-year incubation period, subsidized working space. BlueChilli (Australia): This incubator has presences in Sydney and Melbourne. Angel Cube Melb (Australia): Based in Melbourne, this…
We thought that since there aren’t many places online where you can find such information all in one place, it might be a good idea to publish it here too. So with that, I present to you the list below, which despite its size is not meant to be totally comprehensive — so we welcome any suggestions for places we might have missed in the comments [1].
Startmate (Australia): This accelerator has a five-month program that includes a trip to Silicon Valley.
Ignition Labs (Australia): A three month program that focuses on clean tech.
Pollenizer (Australia): Offers funding via Pollenizer Ventures, and menturing from the founders and others.
PushStart (Australia): A three-month program. Incubated startups receive some funding as well as office space and mentorship.
Venture Incubator Space (Australia): A one-year incubation period, subsidized working space.
BlueChilli (Australia): This incubator has presences in Sydney and Melbourne.
Angel Cube Melb (Australia): Based in Melbourne, this three month intensive incubator accepts four teams, awarding $20,000 to each one.
York Butter Factory (Australia): Focused on digital media. It also provides co-working space.
Gen Innovation Australia (GENIAUS) (Australia): Focused on interactive media and digital art. Mentoring is peer-based, with assistance from experienced entrepreneurs.
iLab (Australia): A paid incubator for early stage companies.
Innovation Centre (Australia): Focused on things like clean tech, health, and creative.
Startup Tasmania (Australia): Focuses on fast-growth startups. There is a co-working space that also provides networking opportuities to meet investors.
Innovyz (Australia): Offers a 12-week accellerator program, which includes cash, mentoring, and more.
iCentre Brunei (Brunei): Focuses on ICT startups, and provides mentorship and networking.
Axlr8r (China): Established in 2010, helping companies improve their products for US and Chinese markets.
Innovation Works (China): Established by Kaifu Lee back in 2009. The Innovation Works Development Fund is an early stage development fund co-managed with WI Harper Group.
HAXLR8R (China): HAXLR8R is a seed program that offers mentorship for international hardware startups.
SOFTLAYER CATALYST (Hong Kong): This virtual incubator from SoftLayer helps startups with hosting, development and support. It is based in Hong Kong, but covers all of the Asia Pacific region.
NEST (Hong Kong): Holds monthly pitch days, and startups receive office space, some funding, and mentoring.
AcceleratorHK (Hong Kong): Provides co-working space and mentorship. It is run by entrepreneurs Stephen Forte and Paul Orlando.
The Morpheus (India): Focused on early stage startups, and incubates companies for four months.
T-Labs (India): Operated by Times Internet Limited, provides mentorship from entrepreneurs and angel investors.
The Startup Centre (India): Has a resident program as well as an accelerator program.
Microsoft Accelerator India (India): This program runs for four months, and brings in new batches in May and November.
iAccelerator (India): Targets mobile and internet startups, providing them with capital as well as mentoring, networking opportunities, and a demo day.
VentureNursery (India): Runs for 13 weeks with 8 startups selected, and is held twice a year.
GSF India (India): This Delhi-based accelerator is actually a multi-city effort with presences in Mumbai and Bangalore as well. It is led by Rajeshi Sawhney, the former president of Reliance Entertainment.
The Hatch (India): Has physical and virtual programs for startups. The incubator program runs for 52 weeks; accelerator for 13 weeks.
INFUSE Ventures (India): Focuses on startups doing work in the areas of sustainable energy and clean tech. Has a partnership with the Indian government.
Gemini New Media Ventures (India): Offers startups assistance with their business strategy, helping them grow to a sustainable state.
New Ventures India (India): This Indian incubator targets the ‘green business’ space.
Technopark TBI (India): A joint initiative between Technopark and the DST.
IIIT-Bangalore Innovation Centre (India): Targets seed-stage startups, providing support in the form of a work space and consultation.
Startup Village (India): Supports student entrepreneurs in the Kerala region.
5ideas (India): Founded by Pearl Uppal and Gaurav Kachru, and aims to support entrepreneurship among women.
Freemont Partners (India): India’s first global incubator and accelerator, focusing on tech startups
MyfirstCheque (India): Invests in local startups, and provides mentorship. It is organized by a group of experienced entrepreneurs.
Indian Angel Network Incubator (India): Supported by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, the Department of Science and Technology, and the government of India.
Veddis (India): Offers office space, insfrastructure, and support to startups. Investments range from $250,000 to $10M.
Khosla Labs (India): Run by Srikanth Nadhamuni, the head of technology at the Unique Identificantion Authority of India.
MerahPutih (Indonesia): Provides working space and capital to early to mid-stage startups.
investidea (Indonesia): Focused on early stage tech/web startups, providing funding, advice, and other support.
Bandung Ventures (Indonesia): Bandung Ventures makes seed-stage investments in the Bandung region.
Raja Capital (Indonesia): VC that focuses on tech startups in the seed/early/growth stages.
Ideosource (Indonesia): Run by Andi S. Boediman, focusing on see investment. It launched in June of 2011.
Project Eden (Indonesia): Claiming to be Indonesia’s first startup accelerator, this one is supported by Jardintech Capital.
Batavia Incubator ( Indonesia): Joint venture run by Takeshi Ebihara, who is very experienced in the tech startup scene.
SparkLabs (Korea): An accelerator focused on tech companies, with mentorship, office space, and advisors available.
Strong Ventures (Korea): Targets young entrepreneurs and startups in the seed stage.
KStartup (Korea): KStartup operates under AppCenter, and is a partner with Google for Entrepreneurs.
Primer (Korea): Initiated by Primer Group, and headed by by CEO Douglas Guen.
IgniteSpark (Korea): This incubator/accelerator is led by David Choi.
Fast Track Asia (Korea): Initiated by same investors who backed TickerMonster.
TJ Heaven(Startup Party) (Korea): Focuses primarily on mentoring for young startups, and is led by Gyumin Cho.
Founders Camp (Korea): This accelerator is led by Heeseung Kang.
Grey Attic (Malasya): Aspires to create new businesses and match them with business opportunities. It provides them with valable mentoring along the way. Update: We’re told this isn’t active these days.
MAD Incubator (Malaysia): Makes assistance and incubation affordable to most entrepreneurs via its MAD programs.
MVP’s Incubator (Philippines): Supported by a wide range of business interests.
Launchgarage (Philippines): Early stage funding program supported by Globe Telecom.
IdeaSpace (Philippines): Incubator and accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurship in the Philippines.
Kickstart (Philippines): Began in March of 2012 to support tech entrepreneurship in the Philippines.
Seed Accelerator (Singapore (AUS)): An early stage VC/incubator targeting startups in Sydney and Singapore.
Azione Capital (Singapore): This seed stage VC focuses on digital media and mobile communications.
Golden Gate Ventures (Singapore): This incubator helps internet startups across Southeast Asia,
Jungle Ventures (Singapore): Focuses on seed and Series A investments in the Asia Pacific region.
IncuVest (Singapore): Focuses on mentoring young startup companies in the information technology space.
TNF Ventures (Singapore): Includes many established individuals in the tech community, highly experienced in founding and mentoring young startups.
Red Dot Ventures (Singapore): Operated by entrepreneur Leslie Loh. It provides support in the form of financing, mentoring, etc.
Get2Volume Accelerator (Singapore): Focused on building companies in the microelectronics and semiconductor industries.
The Biofactory (Singapore): This incubator creates biomedical companies.
WaveMaker Labs (Singapore): Focuses on digital media and tech startups.
Clearbridge Accelerator (Singapore): Clearbridge Partner’s incubator arm, comprised of Singaporean tech entrepreneurs and scientists.
I2G Tech Accelerator (Singapore): Accelerator focused on clean energy, wireless, and medical technologies for B2B.
Social Slingshot (Singapore): Founded by MySpace.com founder Brad Greenspan, invests in social, mobile, clean tech.
Small World Group (Singapore): Focused on clean tech and optical systems.
Stream Global (Singapore): Venture ‘catalyst’ for tech startups.
TechCube8 (Singapore): Private technology investor and incubator to promote entrepreneurship and high tech R&D.
Gobi Partners (Singapore): Early stage VC firm for IT and digital media in China.
JFDI.Asia (Singapore): Seed accelerator focusing on mobile and digital products for Asia.
Expara (Singapore): Established in 2003, it invests in and nurtures entrepreneurs, mostly in the interactive and digital media spaces.
Base@muvee (Singapore): An incubator and a co-working space.
Founder Institute Singapore (Singapore): A four month training program for entrepreneurs in a range of industries.
I.JAM INCUBATOR (Singapore): Supports startups with great ideas that can be developed into products and services.
NUS Enterprise Incubator (Singapore): For both early and late stage startups, providing advice, mentoring, facilities and more.
Crystal Horse Investment (Singapore): Primarily involved in angel investments, also providing advice, support, funding and expertise.
Ruvento Ventures (Singapore): Manages RUVENTO’s venture funds. Focuses on incubating companies in Singapore, then giving them market access to Asia Pacifc and Greater China.
NTU Ventures (Singapore): A greenlane incubator for a number of grant schemes.
In case you’d like to dig further, here are the places from which we gathered most of this info. These are all quality resources and we encourage you to check them out.
Masaru Ikeda
Tokyo-based startup 
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
