Dr. Serkan Toto is an independent consultant and advisor focusing on Japan’s web, mobile and social gaming industries. Based in Tokyo, he works together with financial institutions and startups worldwide.
Serkan has been the Japan contributor for TechCrunch.com since 2008.
He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics.
Creating and publishing content-rich, interactive ebooks without programming skills or distribution power: that’s the problem New York- and Seoul-based startup Moglue is trying to solve. The TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing finalist offers two products: MoglueBuilder (a desktop app that makes it dead simple for authors and artists to create and publish interactive ebooks) and MoglueBooks (an ebook store on iOS for users who just want to browse and consume content).
MoglueBuilder (download for Windows and Mac) has been in open beta for a few weeks and was downloaded by more than 20,000 creators worldwide so far, according to Moglue. With the new version that just launched, authors and artists can create interactive ebooks using a drag-and-drop-based UI and directly publish them to MoglueBooks to reach their audience – no programming required. → Read More
A big domestic market of 92 million people, English as an official language, a large IT talent pool, and a strategic location in South East Asia: the Philippines surely has the potential to become the next web powerhouse coming out of Asia. I traveled to the country last month (on a private trip) to realize that the startup scene is still in its infancy – but that’s poised to change very soon.
One pioneering startup from the Philippines is Twitmusic, a Twitter-based social music service aimed at artists and their fans. As an artist, having an account on Twitter is one thing, but Twitmusic allows them to upload and share songs (and other content) through Twitter in a matter of minutes. → Read More
Gnzo, the video startup that made its debut at TechCrunch Disrupt in September 2010 (it was called Gunzoo then), has its first consumer-oriented product ready. Named after the Japan-based maker itself, Gnzo (pronounced gun-zou) is an iOS application that can best be described as “Instagram for video” and a (pretty cool) multi-video viewer rolled into one (free download in English/Japanese).
Users can shoot six-second videos, upload the them to Gnzo, and share them with friends on Gnzo itself, Twitter or Facebook in just a few seconds. It’s also possible to tag videos, leave comments, “clip” videos you like, or follow what friends are posting (there is also a “public” screen where new videos are getting uploaded constantly). → Read More
NEC did it again: about 11 months after unveiling the world’s slimmest smartphone at that time, the company is ready to release another super-thin Android phone with a set of impressive specs (via Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo). Dubbed MEDIAS ES N-05D [JP], the handset will hit Japanese stores in February or March this year.
NEC rolled out quite a few Medias-branded Android phones in recent months, but this model is just 6.7mm thin and has the best specs. → Read More
WiGig, a multi-gigabit speed wireless communications technology, was first announced back in 2009, but it took companies like Panasonic quite a while to come up with applications that make use of it. Via WiGig, devices can communicate with each other at multi-gigabit speeds using the 60 GHz frequency band.
Panasonic has developed a prototype system, in which WiGig is embedded in a tablet that can wirelessly transmit data like photos or videos to displays mounted in the passenger seats of a car that has to be nearby: while Wi-Fi typically has a transmission range of about 30m, WiGig’s range is just 1-3m (Bluetooth: around 10m). → Read More
Do you own the latest version of the iPod nano (sixth generation)? Do you look for a way to turn it into a watch? If yes, then this watch conversion kit might be the right solution for you. Dubbed nanox, the kit just went on sale in a total of 39 countries via Amazon (US, UK, Japan), and it’s probably the one with the highest quality out there (Facebook page).
Made from aircraft-grade anodized aluminum, the nanox is available in the seven colors Apple offers the iPod nano itself in. The kit, which doesn’t require using tools or screws, comes with 2mm thin straps made of 100% silicone and an anti-glare sheet for the nano display.
→ Read More
Bad news from Japanese tech powerhouse NEC: the company yesterday announced [PDF] a net loss of $1.13 billion in the three months through December 2011, compared with a net loss of “just” US$350 million in the same time frame last fiscal. NEC said it wrote down its deferred tax assets.
For the three-month period, revenue dropped from $9.3 billion to $8.7 billion year-on-year. For the full fiscal (which ends in March this year), NEC now expects a net loss of $1.3 billion. The company says restructuring costs alone will cause a US$520 million net loss. → Read More
Android adoption is growing rapidly in Japan, with local handset manufacturers doing everything they can in order to meet the demands of customers in all segments of the population. One particularly attractive target group seems to be women, given how many Japanese companies say they design Android phones specifically for female users.
Here are three recent examples. → Read More
Following Fujitsu, another Japanese electronics maker is ready to sell color e-book readers: Toshiba announced [JP] the so-called BookPlace DB50 today, a 7-Inch device that comes with direct access to big T’s BookPlace store (which currently offers around 43,000 different Japanese e-books and magazines).
Toshiba says they plan to expand the range of available titles to 100,000 by March this year, the largest in its home market. The store has been available in America since 2010. → Read More
3DS sales have picked up lately, but Nintendo‘s financial numbers are still weak. Big N today released [PDF] another set of disappointing results for the first nine months of its fiscal year (April to December 2011). The company lost a whopping US$630 million, compared with a profit of US$635 million in the same time frame last fiscal.
Sales were down 31.2% year-on-year to US$7.2 billion. → Read More
A team of researchers at the Photonic Network Research Institute of Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has developed a new light source technology that might pave the way to some pretty spectacular applications in the future.
The core piece of the technology are “high-quality” quantum dots, tiny nano particles, that boast higher stability and optical frequency than those created the conventional way. → Read More
More news on the Sony-Olympus alliance that’s supposed to be announced soon: Japan’s biggest business daily The Nikkei is reporting today that big S is interested in purchasing a stake as large as “20%-30%” in its potential, scandal-hit partner (that would be up from the 0.03% Sony currently owns).
The capital and business alliance would be mainly aimed at bringing together Sony’s strength in imaging sensor technology with Olympus’ expertise in endoscopes and other medical equipment. → Read More
It would be a tie-up between two giants: Diamond Weekly, a major Japanese business journal, is reporting [JP] on its website today that scandal-hit Olympus is about to ink a capital and business alliance deal with Sony. Olympus has been under fire for months, after it was revealed the company has covered up large losses for the past 20 years.
At some point, Olympus was in danger of getting de-listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, but it’s now on a 3-year “probation” that requires the company to improve governance. According to Diamond, Olympus’ top management has been consulting with various electronics companies but chose Sony as the best partner to help get it out of one the biggest corporate scandals in Japanese history. → Read More
Two big Japanese electronics companies, namely Hitachi and Mitsubishi, are to stop producing parts of their product portfolio domestically: Hitachi announced [JP] it will end production of plasma and LCD TVs in Japan, marketed under the Wooo brand, by September this year.
The company owns a plant in Gifu prefecture in central Japan that churns out about 100,000 TVs per month (pictured: a Hitachi Wooo plasma from 2009). Citing price competition in the TV business as the main reason for the move, Hitachi said the plant will be used to produce projectors and chips instead. → Read More
Resident Evil isn’t the only big video game series that made the news in Nippon today: Konami announced [JP] the so-called METAL GEAR SOLID SNAKE EATER 3D PREMIUM PACKAGE for the Japanese market. The set includes a special 3DS system, a copy of Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D, and two clear files in MGS design. Here’s the so-called “Snake Camouflage”-style 3DS: → Read More
One of the world’s biggest video game franchises is getting a new title: Capcom today announced Resident Evil 6 [JP] for the Xbox 360, Sony PS3, and the PC. What’s interesting is that the company also said when exactly the game will come out, namely on November 20 in North America and Europe, and two days later in Japan.
Note that the release dates are for the console versions, the PC version hasn’t been dated yet. By way of comparison: Resident Evil 5 was announced in 2005 and went on sale four years later. → Read More
It’s not really news to say that the Galaxy S II is a hit, but it has actually become a mega hit in South Korea. According to maker Samsung, the Android handset has been sold a whopping 5 million times in its domestic market since release at the end of April 2011. In other words, a little more than 10% of the country’s entire population (48 million people) are now proud owners of the phone.
It’s the first cell phone that has reached this milestone in mobile-crazy South Korea, according to Japanese business daily The Nikkei. The paper also says that one out of four South Korean smartphones users owns a Galaxy S II (sounds like feature phones don’t play a big role in that country anymore). → Read More
Japan-based UC Technology Corp. [JP] has developed a wireless sensor that can automatically post data like temperature, humidity, illuminance, or radiation levels to Twitter. The so-called “Tsubuyaku Sensor” [JP, PDF] is mainly designed for use in food warehouses, plants, or wine cellars.
The data can be checked remotely on Twitter (the account can be set to private or public). UC Technology says that the sensor has a battery life of a year when it posts data once per minute. → Read More
First, Japan got the world’s first connected home garden device, and now it’s time for Nippon to get the world’s first cloud-based LED lighting system. Developed by Tokyo-based lighting tech startup Net LED Technology Corp., the so-called NetLED system will go on sale in Japan on February 20 (here‘s the company’s English website).
The 40W lights, which have a 40,000-hour lifespan, come with built-in Wi-Fi: users can control each tube over the web after installing the NetLed app on a smartphone, tablet, or computer (the iPhone app is already out, while iPad and Android apps will be released this summer). It’s possible to dim the lights (each tube has 10 different dimming levels) and to turn them on or off. → Read More
The Infobar C01 from yesterday was a bit too much for you? Not to worry, Japan still produces “ordinary” Android phones: Fujitsu’s ARROWS μ F-07D [JP], which mobile carrier NTT Docomo plans to start selling this Friday, is the newest example.
It doesn’t look as unique as the Infobar, but the list of specs is long and pretty impressive. → Read More
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