We get a chance to attend quite a few technology and startup related events here in Tokyo. This week TechCrunch Tokyo was the big one, and we were pleased to see many of the country’s upcoming startups in attendance. But on the horizon later this month is an evening that aspires to bring together some diverse entrepreneurial initiatives and communities.
The folks from Mobile Monday are spearheading what looks to be a fun networking event dubbed Tokyo Startups United, taking place on the night of Wednesday, November 27. It comes on the heels of Startup Weekend and will be ‘the’ after-party following Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Judging by the partnering groups, it looks like it’s going to be a diverse crowd, and we’re delighted to be able to come along as a media partner for such a worthwhile event. It’s especially interesting for us because I think some of the challenges facing the Japanese startup community could be remedied by more cultural cross-pollination [1].
With so many photo decoration apps available on the market, the hardest part for consumers may be choosing the best one to use. One recent trend among popular photo apps here in Japan is ‘purikura’ (or photo booths) features, such as whitening of skin and enlarging eyes. Qtiie, is a photo decoration app for iOS that was just released by a Japanese system integrations company Fujimic, a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings [1]. The app was developed to respond to the growing demand for Kawaii Japanese pop-culture from both inside and outside the country. The photo app comes with the obvious common features like stamps, frames, and brushes, but with a twist in ite design themes, or ‘tastes’ as the app calls them. These include location themes such as ‘Harajuku’, ‘Shibuya’, ‘Akihabara’, as well as themes like ‘Hime’ (or ‘princess’), Natural, Urban, and ‘’Wa-fu’ (Japanese style). One impressive feature of Qtiie is its make-up enhancements. Resizing the size of your eyes, changing the colors of your eyes and lips, smoothening of skin, and even changing your hair color. Many photo apps have these purikura features, but this app makes them especially easy to use, and the finished photo is pretty…
With so many photo decoration apps available on the market, the hardest part for consumers may be choosing the best one to use. One recent trend among popular photo apps here in Japan is ‘purikura’ (or photo booths) features, such as whitening of skin and enlarging eyes.
Qtiie, is a photo decoration app for iOS that was just released by a Japanese system integrations company Fujimic, a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings[1].
The app was developed to respond to the growing demand for Kawaii Japanese pop-culture from both inside and outside the country. The photo app comes with the obvious common features like stamps, frames, and brushes, but with a twist in ite design themes, or ‘tastes’ as the app calls them. These include location themes such as ‘Harajuku’, ‘Shibuya’, ‘Akihabara’, as well as themes like ‘Hime’ (or ‘princess’), Natural, Urban, and ‘’Wa-fu’ (Japanese style).
One impressive feature of Qtiie is its make-up enhancements. Resizing the size of your eyes, changing the colors of your eyes and lips, smoothening of skin, and even changing your hair color. Many photo apps have these purikura features, but this app makes them especially easy to use, and the finished photo is pretty high quality with an authentic look. Some designer themes and certain eye colors can be purchased within the app for 100 to 200 yen (about $1 to $2).
Decorated photos can be shared with friends on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and of course Instagram. As its tagline says, Qtiie brings Kawaii to the plam of your hands.
This unusual name is an example of what my colleague Rick Martin is talking about in his previous post titled “What’s in a name?”. Qtiie is intended to be pronounced as ‘cutie’. ↩
If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, you may have seen our recent interview with Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs here in Tokyo (see above). The company has been gearing up for the launch of its first international edition of its Aviary photo editor app here in Japan. They inform us this morning that the app, designed for iOS7, is now live and available as a free download on the App Store. Aviary explains that will be Japan exclusive content available in this version of the app, including filters, frames, and yes, stickers too. You will, however, need to have your device set to Japanese in the region and language settings to be able to see this. Sharing to Line is also supported, although we haven’t tested this out yet. When we spoke with Tobias, he explained to us that Japan is going to be a big focus for Aviary in the near future, and he’s going to be spending a lot of time here in person, which is good to see. Japan does photo apps like no other country in the world, so we expect that Aviary will be able to find many more local partners to use their photo…
If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, you may have seen our recent interview with Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs here in Tokyo (see above). The company has been gearing up for the launch of its first international edition of its Aviary photo editor app here in Japan. They inform us this morning that the app, designed for iOS7, is now live and available as a free download on the App Store.
Aviary explains that will be Japan exclusive content available in this version of the app, including filters, frames, and yes, stickers too. You will, however, need to have your device set to Japanese in the region and language settings to be able to see this. Sharing to Line is also supported, although we haven’t tested this out yet.
When we spoke with Tobias, he explained to us that Japan is going to be a big focus for Aviary in the near future, and he’s going to be spending a lot of time here in person, which is good to see. Japan does photo apps like no other country in the world, so we expect that Aviary will be able to find many more local partners to use their photo editing technology in their own services [1].
For more information, check out Aviary’s home on the Japanese web at Aviary.jp. Or read more about the launch on the Aviary blog.
Readers may recall our piece on Japan-based Comnico earlier this year. Comnico’s own Facebook page management tool uses Aviary’s photo editor as a part of its workflow. ↩
Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon. In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service. As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well. In the near future,…
Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon.
In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service.
As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well.
In the near future, the company expects to provide this service in multiple languages, serving global fans of Japanese pop and entertainment scene.
Decoppa! is a neat mobile app from Japan that lets you create illustrated portraits. The app provides many illustration types, and with over 1,000 different face parts available, you can make a high quality, authentic-looking illustration of yourself, your friends, or even your favorite celebrity. The process is very simple: you can choose face parts such as eyes, nose, and hair style to create portrait. There are other details like jewelry and background patterns to help make your illustration unique. Face parts can be positioned and then resized with a simple pinch or zoom. Each part can also be tilted to give the face an added expressions. The resulting illustration can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Line, and can be used as your profile picture as well. Decoppa also has a fun feed of portraits drawn by its users from all over the world. According to research by Adobe Japan, roughly 51% of users use their own photos as a profile picture on social networks. But on Twitter, many people are less willing to show their real face, so Decoppa can provide a unique alternative to such people. Decoppa is available for free on iOS and Android. It can…
Decoppa! is a neat mobile app from Japan that lets you create illustrated portraits. The app provides many illustration types, and with over 1,000 different face parts available, you can make a high quality, authentic-looking illustration of yourself, your friends, or even your favorite celebrity.
The process is very simple: you can choose face parts such as eyes, nose, and hair style to create portrait. There are other details like jewelry and background patterns to help make your illustration unique. Face parts can be positioned and then resized with a simple pinch or zoom. Each part can also be tilted to give the face an added expressions.
The resulting illustration can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Line, and can be used as your profile picture as well. Decoppa also has a fun feed of portraits drawn by its users from all over the world.
According to research by Adobe Japan, roughly 51% of users use their own photos as a profile picture on social networks. But on Twitter, many people are less willing to show their real face, so Decoppa can provide a unique alternative to such people.
Decoppa is available for free on iOS and Android. It can currently be enjoyed in Japanese, English, and Korean.
At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August. Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained: Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1]. Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added. It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi…
At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August.
Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained:
Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1].
Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added.
It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi froze for a moment in what might be a telling ‘non-response’ response.
Kevin further emphasized this point be drawing a comparison to other wearable technologies already on the market:
We think Fitbit and Jawbone will do quite well, and will maybe will have successful IPOs. They have big markets they’re going after, but they have just one use case: people’s desire to monitor and improve their fitness. […] But that’s just one use case. With smartphones, the products sits between users when you talk to another person. But telepathy takes the product out from between people. If it is done just right, it will feel like the product disappears. and to me that’s true elegance.
Takehito Iguchi right, Kevin Landis left
One of the most interesting moments of the talk came when Iguchi was asked whether or not he could really bring this product to market, in a way that makes it cheaper than Google Glass. He couldn’t say anything about the price or exact release date, but he did speak a little bit to the challenge of creating such a device, as well as why they are taking on that challenge:
This is not easy, but we are doing it because it’s not easy. That may sound a little strange, but if it is something that anyone can do then it is not worthwhile or challenging – it’s not innovation. We are happy to try it.
Iguchi also talked a little bit about how his team is spread across both Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Members in Silicon Valley are strong in software, user interface and core application development. And his team in Tokyo is focused on the core hardware development.
He added that when his product does come to market, it will likely be in the US market to start with.
The team still obviously has a lot of work to, perhaps symbolically illustrated by the fact that he was wearing his glasses hung around his neck, rather than on his head.
Note that Iguchi’s quotes are taken from a live translation on-site. He spoke in Japanese for this talk. ↩
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
