Young Woman Entreprenuer Who Cares About Stool

I found the article which describes the story of Ms. Yoshimi Ui, who is a young woman entrepreneur who graduated Chiba Institute of Technology, founded the venture company which develop a censor to analyze stool for elderly who needs a help from caregivers. Her motivation to develop such censor came from her youth days, though she is still 24 years old, when she was in junior high and high school. Back then, her favorite grandmother started suffering from severe depression, and her all family members were really gotten exhausted to care her grandmother,

She really felt back then, that there is a limit for human being to give continuous care for years. So, she though she would be great if she could develop something that will help caregivers to reduce their workloads.

She joined Future Robotics Faculty of Chiba Institute of Technology, and went out to a lot of care facilities and repeatedly conducted  researches about what technology can really help caregivers to relief their workload.

One of the sincere request is to analyze the stool of elderly, without opening diapers. After some trails, she developed censor that can detect the smell outside of the diaper, and analyze the stool to find out if such person is in good health condition. To find out business partners, she joined couple of business plan competition and won the reward from Chiba City Business Competition, in 2012, and also awarded from the competition sponsored by Development Bank of Japan.

She might be still young to understand what the real business is. But I think it is great if she could get from experienced business leader, and her dream really come true, which is to create robots that is affordable for the caregivers for their daily operations.

'LINE' gets 100 Mil users within 15 months

Free mobile call software 'LINE' acuquired 100Mil. subsribers 15 months after its first release. The subsribers are not only from Japanese market, but also from asian countries. IT's a good momentum, because the not many software developed in Japan are not accepted in other countries.

10 workers were killed in the desert of Algeria

Finally, despite of the hope for the safe come back for the Japanese civilian workers, it turned out 10 workers at oil plant in Algeria were found killed by the muslim extremists. After the WWⅡ, this is the worst case of the murder of the civilian in other countries. I have many muslim friends, but extremist are not forgivable. Japanese Gov. special airplane (usual commercial airplane but dedicatedly leased to Japanese Gov.) is going to depart for Algeria to bring the victims back to Japan.

Cost comparison for LTE service in Japan

There are only three mobile phone service companies in Japan. There are many Wi-Fi service providers. But the number of the mobile phone operator is limited. When you want to use mobile phone in Japan, you need to subscribe one of those three network carriers.

The bigget provider in terms of the market share is NTTDocomo. However, NTTDocomo does not provide iPhone series. Now recent research in 2012 found that the number of the Docomo subscriber decreased, while subscribers of AU by KDDI and Softbank mobile increased.
 
Softbank is famous for providing iPhone service menus from the beginning that increased the marker share of the SoftBank a lot. Therefore, KDDI determined to add iPhone service menu from 2012.

Now, the number of the net increament of the subscriber comes SoftBank as No1, then followed by KDDI, and Docomo as the last. 

We have an image that SoftBank service is cheap but does not secure substantial connection speed, while Docomo is expensive but provides high quality service.

But that image is becoming outdated, since Docomo can offer inexpensive price menu. And SoftBank is heavily investing to improve its connectivitiy. In case you are in a big city area, you may not recognize the difference of the qualitiy.


1. Cost for NTT Docomo
1) Basic Monthly Fee: 1,095Yen ( Basic fee: 780 Yen. + SP Mode: 315Yen)
2) Packet Transmission Fee;
    a) Pake Hodai Lite Plan: 3GB maximum JPY 4,935/ Mon
    (For the communication beyond 3GB, the internet speed will go down to 128Kbps.)
      or
    b) Pake Hodai Flat Plan: 7GB maximum JPY 5,985/ Mon
    (For the communication beyond 7GB, the internet speed will go down to 128Kbps.)

2. AU by KDDI
* Plan for Android Smart Phones
 1) Basic Monthly Fee : 1,295Yen ( Basic Fee 980 Yen. + LTE Basic Fee: 315Yen)
 2) Packet Transmittion Fee ;
     LTE Flat: 7GB maximum JPY 5,985/ Mon
    (For the communication beyond 7GB, the internet speed will go down to 128Kbps.)

   *3GB Plan is not available like NTTDocomo
* Plan for iPhone 5
 1) Basic Monthly Fee : 1,295Yen ( Basci 980 Yen. + LTE Basic Fee: 315Yen)
 2) Packet Transimission FEE
     LTE Flat: 7GB maximum JPY 5,460Yen/ Mon)
   (For the communication beyond 7GB, the internet speed will go down to 128Kbps.)


AU's iPhone service provides more cheaper service than SoftBank.


3. SoftBank
*Plan for iPhone 5 and SmartPhone
  Basic Fee : 1,295Yen ( Basic Fee 980 Yen. + Internet Basic Fee: 315Yen)
  Packet plan; LTE Flat: 7GB maximum JPY 5,460/ Mon

*SoftBank have been keeping its speed limitation unclear with their 4GB Plan.
  From the end of January 2013, SoftBank will stop to make new contract with 4GB plan and
  will provide 7GB plan only, which is slightly expensive than KDDI plan,

New technology to create plastic out of Euglena

For the last couple of days, there came a lot of news from CES held in Las Vegas. Especially, at a time how Japanese electronic electronic maker can regain its momentum is the big concern for many Japanese, it makes quite sense that what maker announced what new product gets attention from numerous people.

But today's my post is far different from those new gadget things.

Again, it's a creature related story, which is about Euglena, microorganism that are found in fresh water near you, such as ponds, or stream etc. It makes the coloer of water looks green when the number of Euglena increases.

Then, The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and NEC announced that they could successfully created plastic made of Euglena, with adding extractive from cashew nut.

The plastic made of Euglena has a good thermal plasticity and heat resistance.

Plastic is generally made of petroleum oil, so it is limited resource.

When this new technology becomes available for commercial use, because Euglena is so easy to increase, plastic can be more easy and cheap to be created, and most importantly, it is going to be eco-friendly.

No Eat for 4 years, but Still Alive. Record is still counting

Of course, it's not a story for human being, but the one for the creature that usually inhabit deep ocean water, about 200 - 1,000 meter from the surface.

Toba Aquarium keeps two Bathynomus giganteus, the largest wood louse, that become 20cm to 40cm big in the deep water. One of these Bathynomus giganteus somehow keep rejecting to eat anything, while another Bathynomus enjoys its meal every three to four month.

The last time, that Bathynomus had a dinner was Jan 2, 2009. At that time, it ate 50g of Squid. Ever since, that was the last meal. Since then, completely for 4 years, that Bathynomus had eaten nothing at all.

On Jan 4th 2013, the breeing staff of the aquarium served a meal, but it did not eat at all neither.

When it was brought in to the aquarium in 2007, its weight was of the Bathynomus was 1,040g. Now its weight is only 12g less than before. 5 years diet, and only lost 12g is quite ineffective diet. Too bad for her.

Though it has not eaten anything for 4 years, the Bathyomus seems quite healthy. It usually stay calm in the water, but sometimes it moves vigorously with moving its feet cheefully.

The staff of the acquarium is wondering if it is not a Bathynomus but a creature from the outer space. :)

K-POPS coverd by Japanese musicians

Every Dec 31st is the day NHK broadcast big live music shows from 7:30pm to 11:30pm, which is the last music TV show programme of the year.

This year, the programme got 49.1% of view ratio, which is extremely high compared with previous years.

This year, none of K-POP musicians or groups had not been nominated on the show.

So, here is some music clips of K-POPS that are covered by Japaneses musicians.

(Gee original by Girl's Genration)




(Go Go summaer by Kara)