Tokyo-based WebPay Holdings [1], a startup providing Stripe-compatible payment processing solutions for web services, announced yesterday that it has raised 110 million yen (approximately $1.1 million) from CyberAgent Ventures and two other undisclosed VC firms. Prior to this round, the company raised an undisclosed amount of funding from CyberAgent Ventures, Architype, and GMO Payment Gateway upon its launch back last year.
The company says they plan to use the funds for hiring more engineers to improve their solution’s usability in order to serve their users better.
Our readers may recall that Start Today Co. Ltd, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown, launched its ‘Wear’ app back in October. The application is a fashion coordination search service, letting you save photos of clothes, upload pictures of your own styles, or scan barcodes when you show to get detailed information about an item. In participating stores, you can even buy that item online at Zozotown. Start Today is announcing (today) that the Wear app has surpassed a million downloads, and they’ll be running a promotional commercial for Wear here in Japan starting on March 19th. We’re interpreting this as a sign that the app is off to a reasonably good start, in spite of initial resistance from some local retailers over its showrooming features.
Our readers may recall that Start Today Co. Ltd, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown, launched its ‘Wear’ app back in October. The application is a fashion coordination search service, letting you save photos of clothes, upload pictures of your own styles, or scan barcodes when you show to get detailed information about an item. In participating stores, you can even buy that item online at Zozotown.
Start Today is announcing (today) that the Wear app has surpassed a million downloads, and they’ll be running a promotional commercial for Wear here in Japan starting on March 19th. We’re interpreting this as a sign that the app is off to a reasonably good start, in spite of initial resistance from some local retailers over its showrooming features.
Readers may recall that we have written much about Kyoto-based startup Qooq Inc, whose Yesterscape app provides a new and interesting way to view photos of the past. But viewing old photos according to location is just one way show images of the past. This past weekend at Photo Hack Day Japan [1], hosted by Aviary and Mixi, the winning project for the two-day hackathon was a similar solution to view photos of the past. But instead of narrowing the presentation by location, the ‘Back to the Future’ web app (as it was dubbed) grouped images by topic according to a keyword search. The project was created by Theeraphol Wattanavekin, a developer working here in Japan, and three other team members (Rapee Suveeranont, Yoonjo Shin, and Thiti Luang) who joined him remotely [2]. The app made use of the Getty Images API and used Leap Motion as an interface, in order to create a sort of walk through time experience. As you can see in the picture above, Theeraphol did a search for the term ‘computer’ with image results restricted to a time range of 1972 to 2012. Using Leap Motion, he could walk through the timeline by making a…
Readers may recall that we have written much about Kyoto-based startup Qooq Inc, whose Yesterscape app provides a new and interesting way to view photos of the past. But viewing old photos according to location is just one way show images of the past. This past weekend at Photo Hack Day Japan[1], hosted by Aviary and Mixi, the winning project for the two-day hackathon was a similar solution to view photos of the past. But instead of narrowing the presentation by location, the ‘Back to the Future’ web app (as it was dubbed) grouped images by topic according to a keyword search.
The project was created by Theeraphol Wattanavekin, a developer working here in Japan, and three other team members (Rapee Suveeranont, Yoonjo Shin, and Thiti Luang) who joined him remotely [2]. The app made use of the Getty Images API and used Leap Motion as an interface, in order to create a sort of walk through time experience.
As you can see in the picture above, Theeraphol did a search for the term ‘computer’ with image results restricted to a time range of 1972 to 2012. Using Leap Motion, he could walk through the timeline by making a sort of stepping motion with both hands. Of course, it doesn’t take much to imagine possible applications for such a presentation. Aviary CEO Tobias Peggs mentioned that something like this would be interesting for kids to use in a museum, for example.
Walk through the history of the computer using ‘Back to the Future’ web app
I was personally more impressed with the actual design of the timeline (above), and if you think about integrating more photo sources, especially rich sources like museums or historical archives or even news organization, then it could be really exciting. In a way, it looks like a more refined version of Timeline.js from Knight Lab, which has been popular among news organizations (we’ve used it here on The Bridge as well). I hope that the team can keep developing this project, or alternatively make it available in a way that is easy for people to use [3].
Back to the Future was chosen as the winning project out of the 23 projects that were presented, walking away with 300,000 yen as the top prize, the Leap Motion API prize of Leap controllers for all team members and a Unity3D license, and the Gettyimages Connect API prize of a 50,000 yen gift card. There were lots of other fun ideas developed over the weekend, and hopefully we can tell you about more of them soon.
If you’d like to see more photos from event, do check out the album over on our Facebook page.
Theeraphol and his team also won the prize for best use of the Leap Motion API.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I volunteered to participate as one of the judges as a way of lending some support for this competition. ↩
I understand the three others are co-founders of Boonmee Lab, though Rapee and Yoonjo have worked in Japan like Theeraphol. ↩
Theeraphol has made his code available on Github (I hope he doesn’t mind me linking to it), and I managed to get it running myself, but not entirely functional due to the Chrome web security issue. (Note that it only runs on Chrome for now.) ↩
We spoke to Japan-based startup Wantedly back in December, discussing their online social job platform that leverages your social graph to give you a better chance at the job you love. And as of today, that platform is accessible via a brand new Wantedly iOS app as well. A few weeks back I spoke with the two Wantedly team members who worked on this app, Feras Yasin and Rei Kubonaga [1]. What I found most interesting was that they both come from very different backgrounds – Feras from design and Rei from mathematics – but apparently they found a way to work very well with each other and within their team. The app itself will be familiar to you if you’re accustomed to the web/desktop version of Wantedly. You’ll see a list of projects/jobs, which is just the same as in the PC version. But in the app there is also a “Today’s Pick-up” that features a few selected jobs each day. Feras (pictured right) explained the intention here is to make it seem almost like a news reader here. Initially I thought this section would have to be curated, but he reassured me that they have an algorithm doing…
We spoke to Japan-based startup Wantedly back in December, discussing their online social job platform that leverages your social graph to give you a better chance at the job you love. And as of today, that platform is accessible via a brand new Wantedly iOS app as well.
A few weeks back I spoke with the two Wantedly team members who worked on this app, Feras Yasin and Rei Kubonaga [1]. What I found most interesting was that they both come from very different backgrounds – Feras from design and Rei from mathematics – but apparently they found a way to work very well with each other and within their team.
Feras Yasin
The app itself will be familiar to you if you’re accustomed to the web/desktop version of Wantedly. You’ll see a list of projects/jobs, which is just the same as in the PC version. But in the app there is also a “Today’s Pick-up” that features a few selected jobs each day. Feras (pictured right) explained the intention here is to make it seem almost like a news reader here. Initially I thought this section would have to be curated, but he reassured me that they have an algorithm doing the dirty work here. He adds:
Visually the app is more like an SNS with the friend-list view. This is one of the features that is unique to the mobile app. It’s a place where you can see who among your friends is using Wantedly [2]. Another button shows the activity of your friends within the app.
Feras tells me that his own development skills are self-taught, having picked up javascript to make the transition from Flash as it became obsolete. This new app was his first foray into Xcode, in fact, so clearly he’s a fast learner.
So why develop a native iOS app, instead of just making their platform into a mobile-friendly web app? Why not make an Android app too? Rei says that they’ve found many Wantedly users access the platform from iOS, and at a rate of about three times that of Android users. But nevertheless, they do hope to make an Android version eventually too.
It’s especially interesting to hear 26-year-old Rei talk about this app, as he confesses he didn’t even use a computer when he studied natural mathematics at the University of Kyoto. But he quickly decided that in order to do more, he wanted to supplement his math skills by learning programming:
In high school I was very good at math, but you can rarely see the impact on society with math. But in business the impact is rapid and easily seen. I wanted to incorporate my math in a way that could be used for business, and that meant learning to code.
Given that Wantedly’s CEO Akiko Naka has some coding background herself, I was curious to hear what kind of development dynamic they had within the team. Often developers are segregated from teams, especially here in Japan – but I had a feeling that wasn’t the case with Wantedly. Their communications rep Nozomi Umenai elaborated on how their meetings typically proceed:
We share the concept of a new project, then Akiko, engineers, and the designer work close together. She knows exactly what she wants, and also what we lack. It’s nice to have someone who has coding background, a more clear vision, and knowledge of the output of the product. […] In Japanese companies, engineers are not often valued as much as they should, and with bosses who have non-coding backgrounds it can be hard to communicate with them.
Rei Kubonaga
While their product is currently just for Japan’s domestic market (in Japanese only), I understand they’re hoping to have a version for English or some other language soon. Most of the people I’ve spoken with there display an fluency in English that is regrettably uncommon in the Japanese startup scene, so communication won’t be an issue for them.
In a great show of dogfooding, both Feras and Rei were hired using Wantedly, and as far as I can tell they both look like smart pick-ups. And if the company can continue to hire good talent with diverse talents and backgrounds, they should be able to expand their service well.
Above all else, the Wantedly platform does offer a unique value to both employers and job seekers. So I’m really looking forward to seeing how they grow. If you’d like to give the new app a try, get it here.
I’m told there were some others who helped as well, but my understanding is that the app was primarily made by these two. ↩
You can also see friends that are not using Wantedly, but they are clearly presented with a Facebook icon rather than their own avatar. ↩
See the original article in Japanese On February 7th, an Osaka-based startup pitch event called Shoot took place. Nine startups pitched in total, and perhaps the most remarkable one was Mimimiru, presenting a wearable device designed for the blind and visually impaired. Mimimiru analyzes image data and lets users know what’s in that image by reading information aloud. Tomoyuki Hisada is a software engineer and the CEO of Another Brain, the startup behind this device. He has been considering how he could support a visually impaired friend of his through IT. Observing a rising trend in wearable devices like Google Glass, he came up with the idea for Mimimiru. He tells us: When I saw wearable devices, I thought this could be a tool for disabled people. If I could inform blind and visually impaired people about what they see in front of them, their everyday lives could be much improved. He presented Mimimiru for the first time at the MA9 Mashup Camp Osaka web development contest, where the device won the top award and moved on to the second stage where it won the NTT docomo Award, KDDI Web Communications Award, and the TechWave Award. At the Docomo Wearable…
On February 7th, an Osaka-based startup pitch event called Shoot took place. Nine startups pitched in total, and perhaps the most remarkable one was Mimimiru, presenting a wearable device designed for the blind and visually impaired. Mimimiru analyzes image data and lets users know what’s in that image by reading information aloud.
Tomoyuki Hisada is a software engineer and the CEO of Another Brain, the startup behind this device. He has been considering how he could support a visually impaired friend of his through IT. Observing a rising trend in wearable devices like Google Glass, he came up with the idea for Mimimiru. He tells us:
When I saw wearable devices, I thought this could be a tool for disabled people. If I could inform blind and visually impaired people about what they see in front of them, their everyday lives could be much improved.
Technology for reading image data aloud is still under development, and it is expected that it will be a few years before it can be really put to use. So Hisada sought and found another solution by turning to crowdsourcing and social media. He explains:
A user takes pictures with a wearable device and post the image(s) to Twitter. And his followers can then reply and tell him information about the picture, which the device will then read aloud. It’s essentially five-second volunteer work that can really help the visually impaired.
He’s receiving support from a volunteer group on Twitter, and he hopes to develop a system by utilizing the activity of social welfare corporations and NPOs who create lists of visually impaired Twitter users and blocks mischievous users. They could also gain support from corporations as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
We’d like to keep our eyes on Mimimiru, one of many interesting wearable tech startups here in Japan.
The last time I met up with Tokyo-based hardware company Cerevo, it was back in 2012 when they were gearing up to release their LiveShell Pro, an affordable hardware solution that enables just about anyone to broadcast live video to the web. That very niche product has been the company’s bread and butter up until now, and I was curious to find out what Cerevo’s CEO Takuma Iwasa has been busy these days. Turns out, Cerevo has been up to quite a lot actually. In addition to the company’s futuristic internet-enabled power strip that is soon going on sale, the company plans to release a completely new connected video switcher next month called LiveWedge. It’s another connected hardware device for Cerevo, with great potential to really make an impact for video producers, priced at just $1000. Their HD video switcher supports four cameras (HDMI connection), integrating with a handy (free) iPad app that lets users easily control what video is displayed. Users can even add transitions (such as dissolves, wipes, or fade to black) or even display picture-in-picture using a simple drag and drop motion. Iwasa-san gave me a brief demo, and I was really surprised by how easy it…
The last time I met up with Tokyo-based hardware company Cerevo, it was back in 2012 when they were gearing up to release their LiveShell Pro, an affordable hardware solution that enables just about anyone to broadcast live video to the web. That very niche product has been the company’s bread and butter up until now, and I was curious to find out what Cerevo’s CEO Takuma Iwasa has been busy these days.
Turns out, Cerevo has been up to quite a lot actually. In addition to the company’s futuristic internet-enabled power strip that is soon going on sale, the company plans to release a completely new connected video switcher next month called LiveWedge. It’s another connected hardware device for Cerevo, with great potential to really make an impact for video producers, priced at just $1000.
Their HD video switcher supports four cameras (HDMI connection), integrating with a handy (free) iPad app that lets users easily control what video is displayed. Users can even add transitions (such as dissolves, wipes, or fade to black) or even display picture-in-picture using a simple drag and drop motion. Iwasa-san gave me a brief demo, and I was really surprised by how easy it was to control.
Iwasa showing LiveWedge’s iPad app
And as you might guess from their previous LiveShell product, it lets you livestream video to the internet as well [1].
LiveWedge also features a SD card, which you can use to record you output video (1080/30p), or even store video and pictures that can be used as input.
Iwasa explains that currently video switching solutions typically are big and heavy, often carried around in a suitcase. In contrast, their LiveWedge could easily fit in a laptop case or a purse. He points out that while they were selling their LiveShell Pro, there were a lot of customers were asking them to build a video switcher. So they already have a willing base of customers in place that will be certain to buy.
Cerevo currently has a headcount of just 13 people, and its office is a tiny third floor space packed to the ceiling with electronics components, instructional books, and I think there’s a box of oranges in there somewhere too. But they’re a global hardware manufacturer that appears to be doing well by identifying a narrow but important demand for hardware. In a somewhat unlikely metaphor, Iwasa likened their hardware strategy to that of a small batch whisky maker:
Small batch whisky and bourbon have really enthusiastic fans. Similarly, we are making a niche product, but we have a tight relationship with our fans all over the world. Our product [strategy] is very different than Panasonic or Sony, which is to find a market for a billion dollar product. But our strategy is to make a popular niche product, and that’s very possible.
He pointed out that software makers – in contrast – really have a big challenge these days, and if (for example) he wanted to make a recruiting app for India, there would be lots of competition already in that space. In contrast, their LiveShell Pro video streaming device only has one real competitor globally [2].
If you’re in Austin, they’ll have it on display at the SXSW next week, so be sure to pay them a visit. We really look forward to seeing how LiveWedge is received once it’s released.
LiveWedge rear view
Supports Ustream, YouTube Live, or your own servers. ↩
This would be Teledek in Canada, says Iwasa. Their target market is more high end serving TV stations, and their hardware is priced around $1500 or $2000 dollars. LiveShell Pro costs only about $500. ↩
Junya Mori
Rick Martin
Shintaro Eguchi
