Kuratas; the gigantic robot that you can actually drive

ASIMO was a robot created by a scientists grown up with Astro Boy. Then, this Kuratas must be a creation of the two men grown up with GUNDAM. MANGA, or animation really affects the future technology.





This video clip may seems un-real, more like a CG. But this robot is a real one, and backed up with the most advanced computer technology. The operating system to run this robot is created by Dr. Yoshizaki.



This operating sytem enables the robot to avoid sudden fall down even its ground to stand on may suddenly move. They simply wanted to create the robot that they can ride, and looks strong apparently, but the truth is the one that is friendly and harmless to human beings. To see this type of robot is very interesting. And below is the video clip at Makuhari convention center to celebrate its debut, taken on July 2012



The pilot is cute, by the way. :)

Japanese woman journalist was killed in Syria

Japanese woman journalist, Mis. Mika Yamamoto, was shot and died in Syria, while she was reporting the area being bomed just before a half hour she visited the area. Her journalist carrier stated when Aso mountain erupted and many journalists were died because of the sudden eruption. Then, she became a freelance journalist and reported the Bagdat. She never forgot to see the situation from the views of week persons, such as women and children. Here is the last video she was shooting. At the end of this video was the moment, she was shot by Government soldiers of Syria. We lost a very precious journalist. My deepest condolence.

The Most Beautiful Woman Olympic Athlete

London Olympic has started. And because most of the games are held midnight of Japan time, we are getting short of our sleep time.

A lot of good competitions are happening, but seeing a beautiful woman athlete playing nicely is one of the funs.

So, here is some women athlete for London Olympic.

Rie Tanaka, 24 years old.




At a time the average age of woman gymnast is getting younger, her age seems too old to be selected as an Olympic athlete. As she admitted, she was not so enthusiastic to practice when she was a high school student. But later, she realized that she really loeves gym athletic. And then, she tried to very hard and has been selected as a team member of women gymnastic for 2012. She has two brothers, and both of them are alos members of man's gymnastic for 2012.  She was a same university student with Kohei Uchimura, whom I posted in my previous article.

And I becane a fan of Kanae Yagi, who is a weght lifting athlete. Regardless of the result of her perfprmance, her smile that she shows at the end of her performance is always cute.

The most expected Japanese Olympic athelete

The most gold-medal-expected Japanese Olympic athlete is by far the gymnast Kohei Uchimura.

Couple of days ago, one of the TV programme of NHK sciencifically analyzed the strength of Kohei Uchimura, and found that he can see the floor, or ceiling and get to know where his body is when he jumps and turns his body in a quite high speed, which barely can't be done by even the top gymnast.

His strength were forged when he was a little boy and played tranpolin.




He says he has no interest in winning the gold medal as individual. It's for granted.
He only has a strong desire to win gold medal as a team of Japan.

Way out of ordinal. It's very interesting to see how he plays at London Olympic.

iPhone's influence on Mobile Carriers in Japan

There are three mega mobile carriers in Japan, which are NTTDocomo, Softbank and KDDI known as brand name of Au.

Now, Docomo is the only mobile phone carrier which does not have a service line-up of iPhone.
Docomo was once used to be the most advanced mobile phone company, developing i-Mode, Wallet mobile etc.

But during this 6 months of 2012, as many as 580,000 users moved to other mobile carriers,
KDDI increased its subscriber by 348,000 and Softbank increased 240,000 subscribers.


Net new incremental subscribers of each operator during above period were;
Softbank: 1,886,000 subscribers.
KDDI : 1,370,000 subscribers
Docomo: 670,000 subscribers.

As these figures show, Docomo is struggling to increase subscribers.

At a shareholder meeting of Docomo held on last June, many severe questions were thrown to then CEO, Mr. Yamada , asking if there is any chance for Docomo to sell iPhone device?

Yamada answered clearly that at this moment, Docomo will not sell iPhone device because Apple force mobile carrier to make a commitment to sell half of new mobile device with iPhone, which is apparently difficult for Docomo to make such a commitment.

But if this requirement from APPLE inc was accepted by other two major mobile carriers, it means that iPhone will be sold quite a lot during coming years.

One of Docomo shareholders requested at the shareholder meeting that;

'Docomo's TV commercial is quite difficult to understand and it doesn't appeal to anybody. Please create more attractive TV commercials than the ones of Softbank,'.

Series of Softbank's TV commercials always rated high by many generations, casting a white dog as a head of Shirato family. Softbank successfully inserted their campaign message within the daily communications among Shirato family members.

Then-CEO, Yamada admitted that 'Oh, we can't beat a dog.'.



2008 ver for the first introduction of iPhone
 

Tokyo Univ. invented a GOD's Hand

Tokyo univ. invented a God hand that never loose at rock-paper-scissor game.
This robot arm win with 100% accuracy.



As shown in the video clip, the robot hand just determine and show its rock, paper, scissor that should win 100% just right after human showed rock, paper scissor. During this entire process, it only takes 1 millisecond. So human's eye can barely recognize that the robot arm shows its hand just right after you show your hand.

Professor Ishikaw told;
'We wanted to share the technology behind this. To develop such a ultra-second video camera, it took 20 years, and for such a quick motion control of the robot hand, it took 10 years respectively.'

It really depends who thinks worth to develop with a decade, so I don't make my comment.

But this video clip gives us a good notion, that is;
A robot can beat human-beings in a way that may conceived as fair fight due to the lack of enough capability of human-beings' natural organs, but the truth is exactly just a phony fight where a robot wins 100%.

Sweets at Covenient Store

There are three major convenience chain stores in Japan, which are Seven Eleven, Lawson and FamiliMart. Their competition is so severe that they always improve their product line up to attract more customers to come to their stores.


And Sweets (or desserts) is the one of the area that differentiates themselves from others.

Lawson went a head from others by introducing 'Premium Cake Roll' in its line-up. This Premium Roll Cake was sold more than 100 million during 18 months.

'Premium Roll Cake(Swiss Roll)''
JPY  150
*The quality of the cream gets its reputation






According to the net survey, 40.4% answered that the Seven Eleven is the most frequent convenience store the they use daily, followed by the 25% goes to Lawson and 20% to FamiliMart.

But when it comes to the sweets, 22% out of 40.4% Seven Eleven goers answered that Lawson is the best to buy sweets.

In order to change this situation, now Seven Eleven completely changed the quality of the sweets and conducting an intensive campaign since May 2012.

 

Thanks to such competition, the quality of the sweets that you can buy at a convenience store is significantly improved, and same as the one that you can buy at a famous confessionary chain store.

So, don't underestimate the sweets that you can buy at a convenience store.

I am sure that you will be able to find your favorite one.

Smart Phone Appli 'Line' is ready to go into SNS market

'Line' is the smart phone application which has been downloaded by 20million users in Japan and 45 million worldwide so far since its launch on June 2011.

This application is developed by NHN Japan, which is originally a Korean company and built its subsidiary in Japan by acquiring many famous internet startup companies in Japan, called Livedoor etc.

Now, Line is designed, developed by a team member in Japan who used to work in an acquired company,

Like Skype, the software originally was developed to provide free phone call and chat functions among the users who installed the software.

So why could they succeed despite of the late entry to the market after the domination by Skype?


According to one of the core development member, Mr. Atsushi Masuda, Chief strategy and marketing officer, reminds one episode which happened right after they started developing the software.

'When we started to develop the software, one of the software developer came and told us that such software that NHN Japan were about to develop would have no market value, because so many software like Skpe, has been out there so many years.

Then I convinced that this is the absolute chance for us, because at a time when so many software companies release various smartphone applications at any time, the software that enables users to make a free phone call is not the focused area of many software companies. And they really did not look into the reasons why general users, such as elderly people or high school students who don't have much IT knowledge, won't use Skype.'


So at a design phase, they focused on how easily the software can be set up by the users who don't know the very basic IT term like IP address etc.

(their basic ID to identify the user is ordinal telephone number, that way everyone can understand its ID without any IT knowledge, while Skype requires some basic knowledge to be set up.)

It took just only one month for the development team from planning phase until they actually released the software. This speed is also unusual for many of the Japanese software companies. Now many articles were issued by various IT media publishers, to explain how the development team worked to make such short-term release possible.

Today, NHN Japan announced the functions that will be released very soon to make line more like a communication platform and that will enable Line to go to SNS market.

Now, not many smart phone applications developed in Japan could become a well-sold global product. So, the success of this software gets the attention as a flagship software which aims at a global market from its starters.

Will the lawmaker Ozawa and his group member leave DPJ?

Given the title of this blog 'Japan Now', I have to describe recent politic scene in Japan.

As many who live in Japan, not only Japanese citizens but also foreigners or visitors in Japan now are aware of, the bills to increase comsumption tax ratio from current 5% to 8% in 2014 and by 10% in 2015, has passed the lower  house.

The tricky part of the vote by lawmakers to pass this bill was,  the legistration was passed by the alignment with current ruling party DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) and former ruling party LDP (Liberty and Decomcatic Party), although there came 54 against-vote from current DPL.

This 54 lawmakers of the lower house was led by Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, who has been the most influential member for those years.

Ichiro Ozawa has fiercely confronted literally every aspects of political issues against former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
(So, many people wonder why there are in a same party.)

If all of those 54 members leave the DPJ, then DPJ will loose its ruling party position, and no party will be a ruling party without making coalition with othe parties.

Now, roughly 70% of Japanese people are against the tax-increase law, not many Japanese support the movement Ichiro Ozawa and his group member made for during couple of days.

Mr, Ichiro Ozawa is conceived as old-fashioned politicians, like money-oriented, the leadershio that requires his followers turn-right if your boss say to do so without any questions, and conceived that he acts too politically and has no consitency the way he say and behave.

So even though he and his followers voted against bills,  they have not gotten enough support from Japanese constituents as they expected.

But since they voted against the bill, it is quite difficult to stay in the same party.

It is said that lawmaker Ichiro Ozawa will announce his decision on whether he will leave DPJ tomorrow or not, with his followers.

In any case, it is obvious that DPJ needs to allign with LDP more closely than ever, which loose the point why DPJ won the majority of the seat in the election of year 2009, beating LDP which were continuously ruling party of Japan for more than 50 years.

Now, there is no chance for Ichiro Ozawa to stay in the party, so how many lawmakers of DPJ will follow Ichiro Ozawa and leave DPJ is the point that gets attention now.

Ichiro Ozawa















Update : July 7th, 2012
Eventually, 50 lawmakers of the Lower House followed Mr. Ozawa and left DPJ.
They developed a new party and its name is the party of 'Your Life is Our Priority'.
This is the slogan being held when Ozawa lead the DPJ to win and get the majority seats of the lower house.

According to every surveys that are conducted recently show about 70% of the Japanese citizens are aginst the bill to increase the consumption ratio, 80% to 85% Japanese citizens are not supporting the movement of Ozawa group.

The political circumstances are very severe to Ozawa's new party at the moment. But he has a track record to overcome such severe situations by departing his party and creating a new party where Ozawa can take enough initiatives to his fellows.
It is conceived by many Japanese that Ozawa did the same old method that he repeatedly made to revive in the politic scene in Japan. That old method is one of the reasons that his new party is not getting supports from Japanese citizens.







 

Who were the winner of NFC?

iPhone 5 is allegedly going to equip NFC controllers in its hardware, and many people in the mobile phone industry are expecting that the era of wallet-phone will be coming just around the corner.


However it is well-known fact, but wallet-mobile phone is nothing new in the mobile scene in Japan.

Sony developed NFC chip in 1988, and named it Felica. Sony tried to dominate the digital money market by issuing its own digital money card called Edy.  Though you may be still able to see the logo of Edy at a cashier of major convenience store, Edy business has not expanded as expected.

At the same time back then, various mobile phones which equipped Felica IC chip were launched, but it could not dominate the market neither.




The most prevailed Felica card is not as a mobile phone, but prevailed as a card which is similar size and shape of credit card when railway companies issued the card.

Since then, this type of card expanded exponentially.

.


So, the real winner of the past business of NFC was a railway company, not mobile phone companies, nor the device companies.

Sony was also a winner of this Felica business because it earned huge profit from the patent revenue. But the NFC standard that is to be equipped in the future mobile phones is new standard and Sony can no longer expect the reveue from there.


What we can see from the scene in Japan is that though new NFC standard is welcomed mostly by mobile phone companies, still other social infrastructure companies, such as railway, airlines, or taxi companies may find the business chance in  NFC and dominate the market.

Can SNS Gaming companies in Japan survive?

Sometimes, various things evolve uniquely in Japan. SNS gaming is one of such cases. There are three SNS gaming companies in Japan, which are

1)GREE        founded in 2004, by Yoshikazu Tanaka

w/ 25M subscribers,   JPY 64.1B in revenue for 2011

2) Mobage (DeNA) founded in 1999, by Tomoko Nanba
w/ 39M  subscribers, JPY 145.7B in revenue for 2011

 

3) Mixi          founded in 1997, by Kenji Kasahara
w/ 15M (active) subscribers,   JPY 13.3B in revenue for 2011

Those three companies have grown so rapidly, doubling its revnue every year.
In particular, GREE's 3Q 2012 revenue alone exceeded the total revenue of GREE through 2011, reaching out to JPY 118.1B.

And the ingredient which enabled those SNS companies grow so rapidly is because of  the so called 'Comp. GACHA' system.

Those game companies provide card games to let the player collect the items, for instance as an adventurer in a quest something game.  About 95% users can play with no charge.  But if the player pay to collect the items, such item will help the player outdo, or make the player look more cool than other free-of-charge players.  Among those charged items, there are some really rare items that comes out randomly, which will help the player become super-strong, or super-cool.

It's like a loto. The problem is that the purchase is so easy because network carrier will invoice later with the monthly telephone charges. Therefore, it takes certain time for some heavy users to recognize how much they had to pay for to collect such rare items.  There came out so many users, mostly teenagers but even house-wives as well, who spent thousands of US dollars (actually JPY) in a month.

Then Japanese Governemnt Agency wanrned those SNS game companies that this Comp-Gacha infridges on the prohibition of Loto regurations.

Now, those SNS companies had to abondon the most profitable Gomp-Gacha system.

Some of the game development companies say they can come up with the similar system in a way that can avoid such regularions. But many believe that the growth rate of those companies have to be slow in a foreseeable future.

On the other hand, other gaming companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony whatever, is targeting SNS gamings. So the question is if those companies who lost such profitable sytem can survive in more fierce competition.

Note)
Mixi and DeNA(Mobage) are more of a Social Network company rather than a gaming company, while Mixi started gaming service since Nov. 2011 and DeNA started in 2009.
Mixi owns more sophysticated SNS platform, but their revenue still depends on the advertizement. It is obvious that whether the company suceeded to develp chargeable service, like gaming, apart from the advertizement model in early stage really differentiated later growth ratio.

Suit to become ASIMO

Just one year ago, I wrote the blog to describe the latest technology of Robot. (June 26th, 2011).

And my previous blog introduce the pet robot which is controllable through iPhone.

As such, the technology is evolving and new robots are coming out in various way.

Now Asimo is the famous robot developped by Honda,  because of its capability of two-legs-walking. But unfortunately, it is not sold in the market yet.

Then, the wearable suit that makes you look like Asimo is sold at Trendshop Japan, at a price of JPY 40,000 (about USD 400).  Is this expensive? If you compare with the price of real Asimo, it won't be.

Before you make your decision to buy this suit, here are some warnings from the manufacturer.

-Once you wear this suit, it is quite difficult to climb up or go down stairs by yourself, while real-Asimo can do these things by itself alone.

- Make sure that someone will be near you after you wear this suit, because you can not take off this suit by yourself. You definitely need a help from human to wear off the suit.

After considerations on those warnings seriously and still you think it is worth, please buy this suit. It's all your  money.

Tokyo International Toy Show -Toy Pet controlled with iPhone etc

The event was held during these 4 days at Tokyo Big Site at Ariake. This event has been held every year, and this year 2012, 14 toy companies got together and gathered 140,000 visitors. Among others, Toy Pet controlled by the iPhone was awarded grand prize. About 850 buyers from other country also came to this show, which is 14% increament from previous year.

Japan's most famous SNS Company are on Sale?

Some rumors say Mixi, the most famous SNS company is on sale now. According to the company's quarterly announcemnt, the most recent users of the service reached by 27.1 million users. Meanwhile, it also disclosed that 12.1 million users had never logged in to the account for a month. Rumor says that the founder and still 55% share holder, Mr.Kenji Kasahara, is looking for the candidates to sell his entire stake. The company was established in 1997 and started the operation of its SNS service since 2004. Now it is a public traded company at Tokyo Mother's stock exchange. After rumors has been spread, the stock price is going up. So, let's see if this rumor is true or not. Mr. Kenji Kasahara President of Mixi Corp.

What comes after Tokyo Sky tree; Space Elevator

With waiting for a grand opening of Tokyo Sky Tree on May 22, the ticket reservation to go up to observatory has started from March 22. For the reservation for a initial period from May 22 until July 10, it is going to be a drawing to buy actual tickets. During this period, no day ticket is available, so you need to reserve the tickets in advance.

Since the Tokyo Sky Tree is going to be one of the tallest structure in the world (634m, tallest as a broadcasting tower, second tallest after Burj Khalifa (828m) in Dubai.), the tower can be seen from various points in Tokyo.

Since we don't see visible and easy to understand No.1 in Japan for a long time, this news sounds  very exciting for many Japanese people.

The towns around this tower already have gotten many sightseers from various area in Japan.  Because of this high profile monument, the nearest rail station recently changed its name from long-historically name, narihira bashi to Tokyo Sky Tree station.

It took three and half years to complete the construction. The construction was made by one of the largest general contractors in Japan, Obyashi Corp.

Now, Obayashi Corp announced this February its vision to develop Space Elevator by 2050.  This idea is to drape the two cables, made of  carbon nanotube, from space satellite and fix them to a land station on the earth.

Once this space elevator is constructed, it will help minimize the cost to launch space ship and materialize  to carry numerous number of people and materials to space, and of course, from space to the earth.

Still, the challenge is to find such carbon nanotube that is long and light enough, (in addition cheap enough) to build out such long cables. But after the announcement of its vision, Obayashi spokesman said that they've got many offers from various technology companies and academics to help this incredibly hard project move forward.

Obayashi is well known for its challenge spirit to tackle with technically hard project, I hope this project also comes true someday near future.

Yell by Ikimono-gakari

I found the original video clip here.
Yell by Ikimono-gakari

Ikimono-gakari, music group composed by two male guitarists and female vocalist is the most popular music group in Japan. In the very segmented music market in Japan,Ikimonogakari tries to create the music that are to be loved by all generations.

Most of the music are composed by either one of of these male guitarists, Yoshiki Mizuno and Hotaka Yamashita. A few are composed by Kiyoe Yoshioka, vocalist.

The lyrics in their song is famous for their messages that can be resonated by every generations.

This "Yell" was written by Yoshiki Mizuno in 2009 and won many awards.

The lyrics starts;

J;"Watashi wa ima dokoni aruno" to, fumishimeta ashiato wo nandomo mitsume kaesu.
E:(“Where am I now?”, looking back on my footsteps over and over again, that I’ve left to date.)

J: Kareha wo daki, akimeku madobe ni, kajikanda yubisakide yume wo egaita
E;(I held up the fallen leaves with my cold fingertips on the autumn window, and embraced my dreams for the future.)

J; Tsubasa wa arunoni tobezuni irunda. Hitorini narunoga kowakute, tsurakute.
E;(I have wings, but I couldn't fly, because I was afraid of being alone, and it was too painful.)

J; Yasashii hidamarini katayoseru hibiwo koete, bokura kodokuna yumeeto aruku.
E; (We’re leaving behind the days, when we were altogether doing everything in the gentle sunshine, and we're starting walking to our lonely dreams.)

**)Refrain
J; Sayonara wa kanashii kotoba janai
E; (Saynonara is not a sad word.)

J; Sorezoreno yumeeto bokura wo tsunagu 'YELL'
E; (It’s a yell that connects us to our individual dreams.)

J: Tomoni sugoshita hibi wo muneni daite
E; (Embracing the days that we spent together in my heart,)

J: Tobidatsuyo hitoride tsugino sorae
E; (I am going to fly alone to the next sky.)


It's still teenager's song, but also move older generation's mind.

As Ikimonogakari admits by themselves, this album is one of their best album.




Recntly, one music album contains very limited number of good songs.
Unlike those too much commercialized albun, this album has many songs that are really good , such as


-Joyful
-Nakumonka (E: Never Cry!)
-Mahiru no Tsuki (E: Moon in the daylight)
-Hotaru no Hikari (E; Light of Firebug)


Other songs are also good.

the Best Graduation Songs for 2012

Now, the graduation season is coming. This week and next week will be a peak for the graduations for from kindergarten pupils to university students.

At the every graduation ceremony, students will sing a song as a final ceremony, which will extremely generate the sense of unity, and also a sense that we're really going apart.

 Now here is the top two best songs for graduation this year.


This song was composed and written by a princpal of one of the public schools in Saitama Pref. He says he wanted to give the one and only gift to his students. The tile of this song is 'for the day we depart.' It's very simple and straitforward title, isn't it? Such simpleness is the reason everyone love this song. In this clip, you can see typical scenary of a school in Japan. So, please enjoy,

The 2nd song is 'Yell' by Ikimono gakari.
Unlike the first song, this song is written and played by the professional and the most popular music group. So, I can't find the video clip played by Ikimono gakari on Youtube. So, instead, here is the one,

When Level 7 earthquake hit Tokyo

Yesterday, one of research group of the Ministry of Education and Science raised the level of the intense of the shake that may happens when earthquake happens under the neath of Tokyo area from 6 to 7.

This research group made field surveyed the geological layer beneath of Tokyo area and found out that the expected  epicenter would be 10km more shallow (closer to the surface) than expected before.

The level7 is the strongest level of the shake that meteorological bureau defines.


The difference is huge. When level7 earthquake hits, wooden pillar housing will be collapse instantly, if additional reinforcement is not done.

You can't move because of the intense shake of the ground, or building.
And furniture in house will fall or fly over anywhere. (The more light the furniture is, the more the possibility of the furniture fly. The typical furniture that is considered light is appliance like TV, DVD or bookshelf etc.)

It is said that the possibility to happen this level of earthquake hit Tokyo within coming two or three decades is over 40%.

So, lock the furniture to the wall, and put a special sticker under those appliance. It was proved that those small improvement makes huge difference.

Spa near Tokyo, or make your bath home spa

Japanese people really love spa. That's for sure. Though it is getting warmer, still we have chilly days these days.

So, where you should go. There are a lot of hot spa near Tokyo.
(Actually, super-sento in city area which dug around 1,000m to reach to a source of SPA, are becoming also popular.)

However, my recommendation is Tenzan in Hakone area.
It's just one and half hour train ride from Shinjuku and locates in deep Hakone forest.
Take Odakyu Romance-car of Odakyu Line from Shinjuku Station.

When I lived in Tokyo, I frequently visited this spa and ate Oshi-sushi, which is not with raw fish but with lightly vinegared makarel.
It was good.











And for the people who don't live near spa (On- Sen), use these bath additives, which you can find easily at convenience store, or pharmacy.

There are various type of package, typically including 5 small bags. One bag (30mg) per one use.

One bag costs about JPY 100. So, not that expensive.

Those additives add your bath water similar components of famous Hot Spring around Japan. That way, you don't need to go travel around, but you can get feeling that you've come to famous spa.

(Actual addtives are not exactly same as hot spa. It excludes the components that may hurt your bath equipment, such as sulfur etc.)