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Google Japan’s marketing campaign at Tully’s Coffee But Wait!

January 20th, 2010 post by hiro

Google at Tully's

Like we discussed at recent episodes of messa.tv, Google is trying to become #1 player of Japanese search engine market. To achieve the aim, Google is spending huge amount of money for marketing campaigns on TV and anywhere around us.

Even here at Tully’s Coffee which is one of Starbucks clones in Japan, I found a small card by Google. It says “Connect to Free Wi-Fi here to see Google’s Search Story”. Sounds nice because it’s quite hard to find free Wi-Fi spots in Japan but don’t have excessive expectations for this campaign. ONLY 30min a day you can use it!

Partner companies of this campaign are Wi-Fi provider NTT and cafes like Tully’s. I know they don’t want to open the Wi-Fi for a long time but the only 30min limit gives me a negative impression. I’m always thinking that Google can give us deep impressions all the time.

Tags: cafe, google, japan, marketing, tech, wi-fi
Posted in marketing, tech | No Comments »

Changes happened among Japanese kids by Nintendo DSi

March 21st, 2009 post by hiro

Nintendo DSi by HAMACHI!

When I heard about spec of Nintendo DSi and a built-in camera, I thought it’s a crap. Too low resolution to play with in this HD era. But my view was wrong. I almost forgot that the main target users of Nintendo DSi are kids, not gadgets geeks like me.

For kids, quality of the built-in camera is good enough or more like it’s not matter. Experience to take photos by their own device is the most important point.

And that made a huge change among kids right now in Japan. I saw an impressive scene that kids taking photos by DSi like young people taking photos by their mobile phones. Taking photos by gaming devices like DSi mean they use the photos to play with or share. I was born in NES generation but couldn’t imagine these kind of way to play with another kids. Amazing.

This is a good example of how technology changes our lifestyle.

Tags: culture, tech
Posted in culture, tech | No Comments »

Next Generation of The User Interface

February 19th, 2009 post by hiro

Siftables by whiteafrican

CUI for keyboards, GUI for mouse devices. What’s next? At the TED presentation, I found a new possibility of the user interface. It’s blocks.

Amazing! Multi touch UI on iPhone and Microsoft Surface are another possibilities but this one seems really interesting. Here are some videos which show you our future. (more…)

Tags: tech, ui
Posted in tech | No Comments »

Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 Review

January 24th, 2009 post by hiro

HHK Lite 2 and Apple Wired Keyboard

Happy Hacking Keyboard is known as a great keyboard for programmers and three of our team members use it. Mine is HHK Lite 2 English Black, Ice’s one is HHK Lite 2 Japanese White, Har’s one is HHK Lite 2 Egnlish White.

HHK Lite 2

I used it for the last 2 years and thought yes it’s the best keyboard ever, if you want a small one especially you use it with Emacs or Vi. Definitely, the professional version is much more comfortable but it’s REALLY expensive. Someday I want it.

OK. I said it’s great. But only one thing I can’t stand for the HHK. It’s a location of “~” mark. It’s on right top of HHK and ESC is on left top. It always confuse me when I switched from build in keyboard on MacBook Pro to HHK. To prevent this problem, I was looking for another choices but no any alternatives I could find.

Now I’m using an Apple Wired English Keyboard. This one is borrowed from Har. He has two! After this trial, I may switch to an Apple Wireless English Keyboard due to the “~” problem. This keyboard is also nice and looks cool if you use with an Apple mighty mouse like me.

Apple Wired Keyboard

Anyway, HHK is one of the best keyboard worth try if you don’t care the “~” key.

Side view of 2 keyboards

Tags: gadgets, hhk, review, tech
Posted in review, tech | 5 Comments »

The Computer/IT section of a Japanese book store

January 22nd, 2009 post by ianc

If you have wondered what technologies or computer languages are popular in Japan (circa late 2008/early 2009) this video may interest you.

I went down to the local bookstore and recorded some footage of (Japanese) IT/Computer books on offer. You’ll find out which language is the most popular, which books are translated from their original English form and there’s even a death-match fight between WordPress and Moveable Type.

I even found out there is a VB 2008 out there somewhere!

Tags: books, culture, IT, japanese, magazines, moveable type, tech, wordpress
Posted in culture, tech | 1 Comment »