As Erick wrote in September, over the course of the last year, Fotopedia has been hard at work at trying to reinvent the photo book for the iPad. To date, the so-called “Wikipedia for photos” has launched seven apps, two of which have been in partnership with National Geographic, and has racked up 5.2 million downloads since August of last year.
In September, as part of turning its attention to creating more magazine-like experiences, it launched the Fotopedia Magazine on Flipboard, which highlights five photo essays each day of the week from the company’s impressive bullpen of high-end photographers. And, today, Fotopedia is launching its eighth app and, in turn, is embarking on a new initiative that aims to leverage its photographic talent to begin creating branded experiences in magazine form, combining advertising with “premium content”. → Read More
Fresh from Japan we have the Eye Slack Haruka, a $131 skin toner designed to reduce unsightly bags under your apparently pre-teen eyes. The kit is powered by two CR2032 cells and runs in two modes – “hard” and “soft.” “Hard” mode sends tiny jolts of electricity into your eyes, ensuring your eyes will get a sufficient amount of energy while soft vibrates your eyes gently, which sounds like a real treat.
I personally just love the image of the lady getting her eyes zapped. → Read More
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Brenden Mulligan, entrepreneur and creator of Onesheet, who is currently traveling around the world meeting startups with his wife and IDEO designer Elle Luna. You can follow him on Twitter here: @bmull.
Before coming to Japan, we asked everyone we knew for advice on how to connect with the startup community in Tokyo. Every recommendation pointed at the exact same place: Open Network Lab.
Open Network Lab (“Onlab”) is a Japanese startup incubator in the same vein as Y Combinator or TechStars. The incubator provides startups with mentorship, office space, and a small amount of cash in exchange for a piece of equity. This model is popular in the United States, and leading Japanese internet company Digital Garage (investors in Twitter, Path, and more) wanted to try it in Japan. Onlab is currently in its second year of operation has incubated three batches of startups. Even though it’s a young program, they are already making an noticeable impact on the Japanese startup community. → Read More
In what marks its first expansion abroad, Hulu is now available in Japan. As expected, the video streaming service will offer both TV shows and movies across various devices for a subscription of about $20 a month (1,480 Yen).
Unlike in the U.S., where there are both free and premium versions, in Japan the service will be subscription-only. And it will cost more than twice as much as Hulu Plus does in the U.S (which is only $8 a month). Is Hulu charging so much because it thinks it can get away with a higher subscription fee in Japan or did it have to pay through the nose for international licensing rights and has no other choice?
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The Japanese version of iOS 5 will have a special notifications widget: a setting to turn on instant messages from Japan’s earthquake early warning system. The system is so sensitive that it could reduce your battery life as it polls the warning servers constantly.
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Danny Choo, culture hound based in Tokyo, visited a service called CloneFactory where he had his head scanned, printed, and stuck onto the body of a Storm Trooper.
The service uses multiple DSLRs to take snapshots of your head, render it in 3D, and then print it out in plaster using a 3D printer. Hair, make-up, and coloring are added and then your head is stuck on a little plastic doll. You can then take said doll home and, I presume, stare at it until it starts to move.
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Sony is discontinuing yet another format: after killing the cassette Walkman last year and deciding to stop producing MiniDisc Walkmans just 2 weeks ago, the company today announced [JP] in Japan they won’t be supporting the 8mm video format anymore. Sony was one of the several Japanese and American (i.e. Polaroid) tech powerhouses that established the format format back in the 1980s.
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Japan’s mobile carriers are currently releasing a number of interesting handsets, which are all part of their summer 2011 line-up. While smartphones, the iPhone and Android in particular, are taking over the Japanese market, there are still some cool feature phones coming out, too. → Read More
Michael Jackson may have passed away two years ago, but he has always been especially big in Japan. So big, in fact, that he now gets his own social game. Dubbed “Michael’s King Of Pop” [JP], the title is exclusively available on Japanese mobile social gaming platform Mobage.
The goal of the game is to make Michael Jackson the No. 1 entertainer on the planet. Players manage Jacko’s career, but they can also take dancing lessons as him, organize concerts, complete missions etc. → Read More
The idea of translating spoken language from cell phone to cell phone isn’t exactly new, but the mobile simultaneous translation system NTT Docomo is currently working on looks really impressive. Japan’s biggest mobile carrier says it uses the “best technologies” for voice recognition, machine translation, and voice synthesis out there for its solution. → Read More
The world’s most advanced mobile nation, Japan, sees more than 100 different cell phones each year. Market research firm Gfk Japan [JP] has analyzed which the best-selling models in the first quarter of this year were and recently published its findings in the form of a top 10 chart. → Read More
It turns out the leak we blogged last month is true: Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo today officially introduced the Fujitsu LOOX F-07C as part of its summer line-up, and the device actually does dual-boot to Symbian and Windows 7 OS (not Windows Phone). Hardware-wise, the LOOX is pretty interesting, too. → Read More
Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo today announced it will develop with Twitter a set of new mobile services for its domestic customer base of 58 million. Under the deal, Docomo plans to integrate a “touch and follow” app into NFC-equipped feature phones, allowing two users to start following each other just by placing their handsets together.
Read the rest on TechCrunch. → Read More
It’s not the first 3D smartphone from Sharp, but the AQUOS PHONE SH-12C big S unveiled [JP] is much cooler (if you think 3D in a phone is really necessary, that is). The company simply seems to have squeezed in everything they have into the Android device. → Read More
One of the largest chemical companies in Asia, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. in Japan, has formed a partnership with San Diego, Calif.-based Genomatica, a sustainable chemicals startup, the companies revealed today.
Genomatica converts sugar from corn wet mills, sugar cane and sugar beet — among other sources — into butanediol (BDO), a chemical used to make everything from the plastics in consumer electronics and cars, to the spandex and foam found in athletic shoes and apparel.
The chief executive and founder of Genomatic, Christophe Schilling, explained… → Read More
We’ve all got iPhone mania in the Valley, never mind that Apple tracks our every move and won’t explain why or that AT&T users can’t actually make calls.
But in Asia– and much of the rest of the developing world– the anticipated mobile giant is Android. Android phones are just starting to hit Japan and China, and a flood of cheap new models are expected to come on the market within the next year. Expect a flood of new apps to follow that, particularly in China where venture capital is flowing like water.
The rise of Android is as close to a no-brainer prediction as you can make with always volatile and uncertain emerging markets. Combine the market size of countries like Japan, China, Indonesia and India with cheap, increasingly-sophisticated devices and a massive base of gamemakers and hackers and someone is going to make a lot of money. → Read More
When disasters of scale happen, like the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan and sent tsunamis rippling across the globe last month, one of our first reactions is to immediately try to establish contact with those we care about who might have been affected. By phone or by email, by whatever means possible, we scramble to get in touch.
Of course, natural disasters often wreak havoc on our lines of communication and, with many people simultaneously attempting to reach loved ones, cellular networks quickly become overloaded. I, personally, will never forget the anxiety of struggling to find and reach relatives in Lower Manhattan immediately following the September 11th attacks.
Unfortunately, the disaster in Japan was no different. Phone lines were either down or those that were available quickly became overloaded with calls, and many people had to spend anxious hours waiting to find out if loved ones were alive and safe.
Yet, while technology sometimes has the tendency to abandon us in moments of need, it is also a tool that reunites us. We learned today that, TekTrak, a mobile tracking and security app, provided one Japanese family with this very ability following the March 11 quake. The family (who asked to remain anonymous) was unable to locate their daughter in the disorder, who was at school over an hour from where they lived — or to reach her on the phone. → Read More
The Nintendo 3DS isn’t selling quite as quickly as Nintendo may have wanted. Media Create, which is sorta like a Japanese NPD, says that Nintendo has sold 836,000 units since its release in late February. The New Normal would have liked to see at least 1 million units sold, particularly since Nintendo shipped 1.5 million units out of worldwide total of 4 million to Japan. What gives? → Read More
