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Japan’s Fotofig lets you make a 3D Mini-Me with your smartphone camera

Rick Martin 2013.07.25

In recent months there are more and more great 3D printing projects popping up here in Japan. But here’s a fun consumer services that aims to make the process a little but easier. Fotofig lets you create a miniature human figure simply by sending in photos of a somebody taken from different angles. It’s a figure created from photos, hence the clever name ‘Fotofig’. You need to capture every side of your subject, getting a clear image from the front, the back, and from the left and the right. The service then creates a digital composite that can then be printed as a plaster figure. Created by House of Art, the Fotofig process is now in beta, accepting orders from customers who would like to create their own ‘Mini Me’ or perhaps a model of their child. The size of the figures range from 15cm to 25cm, ranging in price from 39,800 yen (about $400) to process the data and print a 15cm figure, to 64,800 for a 25cm size. To process the data only, it will require 29,800 yen. An optional pedestal is also available, as is extra finishing. Given Japan’s fascination with smartphone photo services, I expect we…

In recent months there are more and more great 3D printing projects popping up here in Japan. But here’s a fun consumer services that aims to make the process a little but easier. Fotofig lets you create a miniature human figure simply by sending in photos of a somebody taken from different angles. It’s a figure created from photos, hence the clever name ‘Fotofig’.

You need to capture every side of your subject, getting a clear image from the front, the back, and from the left and the right. The service then creates a digital composite that can then be printed as a plaster figure.

Created by House of Art, the Fotofig process is now in beta, accepting orders from customers who would like to create their own ‘Mini Me’ or perhaps a model of their child.

The size of the figures range from 15cm to 25cm, ranging in price from 39,800 yen (about $400) to process the data and print a 15cm figure, to 64,800 for a 25cm size. To process the data only, it will require 29,800 yen. An optional pedestal is also available, as is extra finishing.

Given Japan’s fascination with smartphone photo services, I expect we will continue to see even more services like Fotofig that involve 3D printing in the future.

Other places in Japan that have offered similar 3D figure services, such as Omote 3D pop-up store.

(Source: Fotofig, via the always excellent VS Media)

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Japanese online learning platform to create a new generation of car designers

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.25

Photo via Car Design Academy Online education platforms are getting a lot of attention these days, and that includes here in Japan. There are platforms like Dot Install or Qiita for programmers, and services like Schoo that use online videos to teach a variety of subjects. But there another online school that has launched in Japan which is a little different from the rest. It’s called Car Design Academy. As the name of the school suggests, this is an online school where students can learn the many methods and techniques for designing cars. In the domestic car industry — and perhaps even outside of Japan too — nurturing the next generation of car designers is a serious challenge. This school was built to address this very problem, and to create new talents with design skills for the car industry. The supervisor and instructor of the class is world famous car designer, Noriyoshi Kurihara. He joined Honda back in 1975 where he began his career designing two-wheel vehicles. He went on to design for Renault, Porche, and many domestic and international manufacturers. He established DCI, his first design company, in 1985, and in 2001, he founded Nori where he designs and…

Photo via Car Design Academy

Online education platforms are getting a lot of attention these days, and that includes here in Japan. There are platforms like Dot Install or Qiita for programmers, and services like Schoo that use online videos to teach a variety of subjects. But there another online school that has launched in Japan which is a little different from the rest. It’s called Car Design Academy.

As the name of the school suggests, this is an online school where students can learn the many methods and techniques for designing cars. In the domestic car industry — and perhaps even outside of Japan too — nurturing the next generation of car designers is a serious challenge. This school was built to address this very problem, and to create new talents with design skills for the car industry.

The supervisor and instructor of the class is world famous car designer, Noriyoshi Kurihara. He joined Honda back in 1975 where he began his career designing two-wheel vehicles. He went on to design for Renault, Porche, and many domestic and international manufacturers. He established DCI, his first design company, in 1985, and in 2001, he founded Nori where he designs and works consulting jobs.

At Car Design Academy, students can learn about sketching techniques and the kind of styling design necessary in designing cars. The class will consist of texts and videos, and there will be assignments given to students in every class. Upon submitting their assignments, students’ work will be evaluated by designers at Nori Inc, including Kurihara.

The program at Car Design Academy will consist of a total of 24 classes beginning on August 5th. The fee is 250,000 yen (or about $2500), but the first 30 students to sign up receive a discounted price of 198,000 yen. For more information about the world’s first online car design school, you can check out its Facebook page. There are lots of great car design photos shared, so it’s definitely worth a look.

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Introducing our Interactive LINE Timeline

Rick Martin 2013.07.24

One of the stories that we have been watching closely on this site is the progress of Line, the chat app that is wildly popular here in Japan and rapidly expanding abroad. In the same spirit of our recent Japan Internet Map, here is our second interactive production – our Line Timeline. It brings together the company’s major updates since it’s original launch way back in 2011, all the way to yesterday’s astounding 200 million downloads milestone. We’re still experimenting with these information rich presentations, but as with last time, the goal here is to provide you with as many details and links as possible. But we had fun with a chat bubble design and even added some fun stickers! We don’t ask anything in return, but if you like it and want to share it with friends, it would certainly be good incentive for us to continue this kind of more time-intensive work! As always, your feedback is welcome! Click to view interactive Line Timeline

One of the stories that we have been watching closely on this site is the progress of Line, the chat app that is wildly popular here in Japan and rapidly expanding abroad.

In the same spirit of our recent Japan Internet Map, here is our second interactive production – our Line Timeline. It brings together the company’s major updates since it’s original launch way back in 2011, all the way to yesterday’s astounding 200 million downloads milestone.

We’re still experimenting with these information rich presentations, but as with last time, the goal here is to provide you with as many details and links as possible. But we had fun with a chat bubble design and even added some fun stickers! We don’t ask anything in return, but if you like it and want to share it with friends, it would certainly be good incentive for us to continue this kind of more time-intensive work!

As always, your feedback is welcome!

Click to view interactive Line Timeline

news

With strong iPhone sales, Apple’s biggest regional revenue growth was Japan

Rick Martin 2013.07.24

Apple reported its Q3 2013 earnings yesterday, showing a record June quarter for iPhone sales, helped by very strong sales in Japan in particular, which grew 66% over the same period the year before. In fact, amid sluggish international revenue growth for the Cupertino company, Japan represented the biggest regional yearly revenue growth, up more than 26 percent while most other regions dropped (see chart above). Overall Apple’s quarterly revenue was $35.3 billion, up 1% on the year before. iPhone sales were up 20%, and in addition to Japan, the U.S., UK, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, Thailand and Singapore all grew well. On the earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was asked if he thought smartphone markets were reaching saturation on the high end. Cook expressed confidence that, at least for Apple, they are not: From a growth point of view for Apple our key catalysts will be always will be new products and new services, and these are above in existing categories. […] And I don’t subscribe to the common view that […] the smartphone market is at it’s peak. I don’t believe that, but we will see and we will report our result as we go along. For Apple…

Apple reported its Q3 2013 earnings yesterday, showing a record June quarter for iPhone sales, helped by very strong sales in Japan in particular, which grew 66% over the same period the year before. In fact, amid sluggish international revenue growth for the Cupertino company, Japan represented the biggest regional yearly revenue growth, up more than 26 percent while most other regions dropped (see chart above).

Overall Apple’s quarterly revenue was $35.3 billion, up 1% on the year before. iPhone sales were up 20%, and in addition to Japan, the U.S., UK, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, Thailand and Singapore all grew well.

On the earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was asked if he thought smartphone markets were reaching saturation on the high end. Cook expressed confidence that, at least for Apple, they are not:

From a growth point of view for Apple our key catalysts will be always will be new products and new services, and these are above in existing categories. […] And I don’t subscribe to the common view that […] the smartphone market is at it’s peak. I don’t believe that, but we will see and we will report our result as we go along.

For Apple here in Japan, the most obvious opportunity for growth lies specifically in the 61 million Docomo subscribers that its handsets currently do not reach. Apple has partnered with rival carriers KDDI/au and Softbank, but Docomo remains a staunch holdout.

apple-quarterly-revenue — Apple quarterly revenue (millions)

news

HackerNews meetups offer much-needed diversity for Japan’s tech ecosystem

Rick Martin 2013.07.24

Last week I had a chance to swing by the HackerNews Tokyo event in Roppongi. As most readers know, HackerNews is a social news site for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. There is a strong community of contributors and commenters, and many community meetups take place all over the world, including here in Japan. There are a number of tech events that take place in Japan, and because HackerNews is an English language site, participants in this one are mostly expats. But speaking to them at a recent Tokyo meetup, I found the place filled with smart interesting folks, many working on their own startup or app – contributing to the local community in ways that often go overlooked. Many entrepreneurs in attendance were given a few quick moments to share what they were working on, and I’m sure that resulted in quality feedback from those in attendance afterwards. Tokyo HackerNews organizer Jason Winder explained that these events represent a great opportunity for founders, coders, investors, CEOs, marketers and everyone interested in business and technology to get together and talk shop.” With those advantages in mind, it would be great to see an event like this grow [1]. Beyond the capital…

HackerNews Tokyo event in Roppongi last week

Last week I had a chance to swing by the HackerNews Tokyo event in Roppongi. As most readers know, HackerNews is a social news site for tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. There is a strong community of contributors and commenters, and many community meetups take place all over the world, including here in Japan.

There are a number of tech events that take place in Japan, and because HackerNews is an English language site, participants in this one are mostly expats. But speaking to them at a recent Tokyo meetup, I found the place filled with smart interesting folks, many working on their own startup or app – contributing to the local community in ways that often go overlooked.

Many entrepreneurs in attendance were given a few quick moments to share what they were working on, and I’m sure that resulted in quality feedback from those in attendance afterwards.

Tokyo HackerNews organizer Jason Winder explained that these events represent a great opportunity for founders, coders, investors, CEOs, marketers and everyone interested in business and technology to get together and talk shop.” With those advantages in mind, it would be great to see an event like this grow [1].

Beyond the capital

Meanwhile, there are other HackerNews events taking place beyond the Tokyo as well, with HackerNews Kansai getting a foothold in the past year or so. I spoke to Sacha Greif, a very well-known French designer based in Osaka [2], who has been involved with organizing HackerNews events in the Kansai region, along with Raphael Guyot and Paco Alcantara. He describes the events thusly:

We’ve had quite a few interesting presentations from HNKansai members and visitors (including one by a YCombinator entrepreneur) on topics ranging from startups and Bitcoins, to quadrocopters and electromagnetic brain stimulation. The meetup also helped a few people find new jobs or freelancing gigs. So altogether I think it has been a very positive initiative. Now our next goal is to reach more of the local Japanese startup and tech community. The meetup is still very foreigner-centric, and we’d like to change that to promote more exchanges between the two communities.

There are some talks from HN Kansai events over on their YouTube channel including one below from Sacha on the importance of side projects (see below).

Groups like these are great bridge events. As we have written here before (citing Rakuten’s Hiroshi Mikitani, no less), since Japan is lacking engineers, making use of skilled foreigners may be a good way to pick up the slack. They make for a more diverse tech ecosystem, people of different backgrounds and specialities can learn from one another.

If you’d like to attend one of the HackerNews events, there is one coming up this Friday in Osaka, and another in Tokyo on on August 15th.

Jason is the founder of Japan-based invoicing startup MakeLeaps, a company we have featured on here previously. ↩
Creator of The Toolbox, Telescope, Patternify, and co-author of Discover Meteor. ↩

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Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

Masaru Ikeda 2013.07.24

Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service. At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth. With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many…

Tokyo-based cloud startup Freee announced today that it has raised 270 million yen (approximately $2.7 million) in a series A funding from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM. This follows the previous seed round where the company secured seed funding of 50 million yen (about $523,000) from DCM back in December. Coinciding with this new funding, the startup rebranded its company name to Freee from CFO K.K., coinciding with the name of its accounting service.

At the time of its launch back in March, CEO Daisuke Sasaki stated his goal of acquiring at least 10,000 users in its first year. Surprisingly it is way ahead of that pace, acquiring 6,500 users in the last four and half months, 1.7 times faster than expected. The startup originally planned series A funding for the end of this year but moved up its timeline to accelerate service expansion and user growth.

With these new funds, the startup is expecting to hire additional staff and intensify its system development. According to Mr. Sasaki, their users have given them a lot of feedback, and they have been adding features and refining user interface based on those responses. He believes these efforts have helped them acquire many new users, and now his first priority is to form a responsive team.

The company has three key topics that it will focus on moving forward: opening up to third-party services, easing collaborative work, and providing a better user experience. They plan to introduce an API that encourages third-party developers to connect with its platform, which should help the platform in terms of its collaborative capabilities. To improve user experience, they are expecting to introduce a native app for tablet devices to allow users to record and sort out their revenue and expenses regardless of where they are.

Some of our readers may recall that the company previously won the top prize at the Infinity Ventures Summit back in May, a conference hosted by Japan’s Infinity Ventures Partners. We’ve seen more than a few outstanding financial apps in the Japanese startup scene, and Freee can be considered to be among the best of them.

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Japanese web platform lets fans send gifts to college sports teams

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.24

Photo via Sashiire Sports fans usually show support for a team simply by cheering. But here in Japan, there is a mechanism that lets enthusiastic fans to do something more. Sashiire is a platform that allows fans and supporters to give sports-related gifts to college sport teams. This act is called ‘sashiire’, and the platform was first launched back in October of 2010. To date 180 teams from 48 universities have joined up, including one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, Waseda university, which leverages the platform for all of its 44 sports teams. On Sashiire, fans can start by choosing their favorite team, and then choose the item they want to send. There are over 60 items available on site including protein, supplements, healthy snacks, and even sportswear, and payment can be made either by bank transfer or credit card. The gift will be sent directly to the sport team with a message of support from that fan. Many users on Sashiire are alumni from those same teams. The platform was launched by Daigaku Sports Channel to create a better overall environment for college sports teams, lending them a helping hand. Funding or support provided from universities can sometimes…

Photo via Sashiire

Sports fans usually show support for a team simply by cheering. But here in Japan, there is a mechanism that lets enthusiastic fans to do something more. Sashiire is a platform that allows fans and supporters to give sports-related gifts to college sport teams. This act is called ‘sashiire’, and the platform was first launched back in October of 2010. To date 180 teams from 48 universities have joined up, including one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, Waseda university, which leverages the platform for all of its 44 sports teams.

On Sashiire, fans can start by choosing their favorite team, and then choose the item they want to send. There are over 60 items available on site including protein, supplements, healthy snacks, and even sportswear, and payment can be made either by bank transfer or credit card. The gift will be sent directly to the sport team with a message of support from that fan. Many users on Sashiire are alumni from those same teams.

The platform was launched by Daigaku Sports Channel to create a better overall environment for college sports teams, lending them a helping hand. Funding or support provided from universities can sometimes be scarce, and many students juggle their sport and a part-time job in order to purchase their equipment. Compared to professional sports, there is a definite lack of support for college sports and games in Japan, and many competitions are played in front of little to no spectators. Sashiire was built as a solution to these problems.

We had a chance to speak briefly with Takuya Kato, the CEO of the company. He explains:

By showing support in ways other than just cheering, by actually giving to players, it not only helps teams financially but it will likely motivate players as well. So instead of building a platform to collect funds, we made Sashiire so that actual items that can be delivered right to the players.

The company plans to add sashiire for businesses, where (for example) an energy drink company could support college teams by sending its products.

With a platform like this one, college sports become a more engaging form of entertainment people, especially for local residents who may live near a particular school.

You can see more about how the Sashiire platform works in the video below.

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Japanese flea market app Mercari raises $500,000 from East Ventures

Takeshi Hirano 2013.07.24

See the original story in Japanese. Mercari, a flea market app launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada, has been showing good numbers of late. Since the release of its Android app back on July 2nd, more than 50,000 users have put over 10,000 items up for sale using the marketplace. Kouzoh, the startup behind the app, introduced the iOS version of its app today, and also announced that it has fundraised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from East Ventures. Several hundred items submitted every day According to Yamada, they are struggling to acquire users but have started seeing good result in user activity. He explained: So far things are as we expected. In terms of user submissions, we saw lots of ladies clothes being posted, but we’ve seen also home appliances sold on the marketplace — so item posted vary. Several hundred items are submitted every day and the market is still small, but we’re seeing sound growth in deals between buyers and sellers on the platform. The startup itself might be best known for having a very high-profile management board. In addition to having ex-Zynga Japan GM Yamada as CEO, Hiroshi Tomishima (the founder at Bank of Innovation)…

See the original story in Japanese.

Mercari, a flea market app launched by Japanese serial entrepreneur Shintaro Yamada, has been showing good numbers of late. Since the release of its Android app back on July 2nd, more than 50,000 users have put over 10,000 items up for sale using the marketplace.

Kouzoh, the startup behind the app, introduced the iOS version of its app today, and also announced that it has fundraised 50 million yen (approximately $500,000) from East Ventures.

Several hundred items submitted every day

According to Yamada, they are struggling to acquire users but have started seeing good result in user activity. He explained:

So far things are as we expected. In terms of user submissions, we saw lots of ladies clothes being posted, but we’ve seen also home appliances sold on the marketplace — so item posted vary. Several hundred items are submitted every day and the market is still small, but we’re seeing sound growth in deals between buyers and sellers on the platform.

The startup itself might be best known for having a very high-profile management board. In addition to having ex-Zynga Japan GM Yamada as CEO, Hiroshi Tomishima (the founder at Bank of Innovation) and Ryo Ishizuka (COO at Rock You Asia) are serving as the heads of engineering. They are a small team but their prominent skills and experience have contributed to the services solid operations to date.

Increased competition

When I spoke with Yamada, I found it interesting that he spoke about resources that we thought were lacking on our planet. He noted:

Any kind of resource is limited. You will need energy to create something new. If you have a PSP but don’t want to keep it, you will probably not be interested in selling it for a high price. But instead you likely need way to easily hand it over to someone else. We call it a sort of frictionless society. That’s what we want to help to make.

His concept is very similar to Craiglist in a way. There will be a way to share resources easily, rather than the complicated schemes often used on auction sites.

From my perspective, a flea market app is a form of C2C that everyday people — even less tech-savvy ones — can use without hesitation.

Yamada has previously involved in launching the Rakuten auction site. Based on the history of Japanese auction sites, he is predicting a high rise in flea market apps on smartphones.

It will be interesting to see if Mercari can get to the top of this increasingly competitive arena.

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Unstoppable: Popular mobile chat app Line surpasses 200M users

Rick Martin 2013.07.23

Line Corporation has announced today that its popular mobile chat application has surpassed the 200 million registered user milestone. This comes not too long after it passed 150 million back on April 30th. For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million. The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so. The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year. For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

line_users — Line’s journey to 200 million

Line Corporation has announced today that its popular mobile chat application has surpassed the 200 million registered user milestone. This comes not too long after it passed 150 million back on April 30th.

For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million.

The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so.

The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

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New Japanese collage app off to a hot start, passes 500K downloads in its first month

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.23

Back in June, yet another cute Japanese photo app, Cameran Collage, joined an already crowded market. And now it has just been announced that the app has reached 500,000 downloads not yet a month after its initial release. Cameran Collage is seeing users not only here in Japan, but from other Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook. Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more…

Back in June, yet another cute Japanese photo app, Cameran Collage, joined an already crowded market. And now it has just been announced that the app has reached 500,000 downloads not yet a month after its initial release. Cameran Collage is seeing users not only here in Japan, but from other Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook.

Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more ‘kawaii’. She explains:

Girls use different apps for different purposes, adding filters with Instagram, clipping with Papelook, and using Decopic for stamps. For these girls, there is no such thing as too much effort in making something kawaii. Cameran Collage has every feature they need all in one app.

The process of ‘app stacking’ is a pretty common phenomenon for smartphone photographers, and applications like this Cameran Collage that put everything in one place will likely continue to be well received as long as they save users time and trouble.

The company behind this popular collage app is Media Technology Lab, an experimental laboratory operated under Recruit. Media Technology Lab has released a series of apps in the past, which you can check out over on its official website.

Cameran Collage is available for download on the app store, and an Android version is expected to be released soon. You can check out how the app works in the video below.

News

Japan’s Fotofig lets you make a 3D Mini-Me with your smartphone camera

Japanese online learning platform to create a new generation of car designers

Introducing our Interactive LINE Timeline

With strong iPhone sales, Apple’s biggest regional revenue growth was Japan

HackerNews meetups offer much-needed diversity for Japan’s tech ecosystem

Beyond the capital

Japanese accounting startup Freee raises $2.7 million from Infinity Venture Partners and DCM

Japanese web platform lets fans send gifts to college sports teams

Japanese flea market app Mercari raises $500,000 from East Ventures

Several hundred items submitted every day

Increased competition

Unstoppable: Popular mobile chat app Line surpasses 200M users

New Japanese collage app off to a hot start, passes 500K downloads in its first month

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