Thumbs Race as Japanâs Best Sellers Go Cellular
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In Japan, cellphone novels have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.
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Manga sales in the United States have tripled in the past four years. Titles like Fruits Basket, Naruto, and Death Note have become fixtures on American best-seller lists. In the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church is using manga to recruit new priests. Yet in Japan, its birthplace and epicenter, manga's fortunes are sagging. Young people are turning their attention away from the printed page and toward the tiny screens on their mobile phones.
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Just a few years ago, Japan&#39;s lead in all things digital was easy to see. Japanese consumers could buy new domestic gadgets from companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic, often a year or two before they hit the market in other countries. But now things have changed. With gadgets increasingly coming out at the same time around the world, it&#39;s no longer the hardware that makes something cool, but what you can do with it.[Note: To see some of the technology and services described here in action, watch PC World&#39;s video,&#160;&quot; Made in Japan: Future Tech Today.&quot;]Mobile Digital TVTake OneSeg, Japan&#39;s mobile digital TV system. The entire electronics industry, TV broadcasters, and the government all agreed on a single broadcasting standard,&#160;eliminating the technical competition that&#39;s holding back such services in the United States&#160;and Europe.The result is a popular service that features all the regular terrestrial channels at no cost. Already, 14 million cell phones with the service have been sold, and the sight of people watching TV is becoming more common on trains and in cafes across Japan.The latest phones also allow you to record TV shows. And if you&#39;re in a public space but forgot to bring your headphones, it&#39;s no problem. A couple of button presses brings up the subtitles so you can enjoy the show with the volume turned down.&#160;In addition,&#160;a companion data service provides information about the current show, promotions from the broadcaster, and, often, a link to the TV station&#39;s mobile Internet home page.Mobile Wallet ServiceSomething else that&#39;s popular in cell phones these days is the &quot;Osaifu keitai,&quot; the mobile wallet service. Phones have smart cards embedded inside, and&#160;these cards let you&#160;add applications like electronic money, your commuter pass, an airline mileage card, or a credit card just by downloading some software.The strength of&#160;Japan&#39;s mobile wallet&#160;system is that the industry has settled on a single smart card, Sony&#39;s Felica. Once a person&#39;s phone has this hardware, he or she can add more functionality with software.NTT DoCoMo, Japan&#39;s largest cellular carrier, gives all its customers an electronic credit card application called DCMX Mini. It has a 10,000-yen ($94) credit limit, and charges appear on the phone bill. Big spenders can apply for more credit and use it just like a regular credit card. All you have to do is bring your phone within an inch of the reader, and the transaction can be completed.Electronic money--something that was tried many times but failed during the dot-com bubble--is now becoming very popular, thanks to &quot;Osaifu keitai.&quot;Of the electronic money systems in Japan, Edy from BitWallet is the market leader, accepted in more than 71,000 convenience stores, bookshops, and coffee chains&#160;as well as at&#160;vending machines. More than 37 million cards and cell phones&#160;that support Edy are on the market, and the network handles close to a million transactions per day on average.Connected CarsIn Japan, car navigation systems have been a must-have accessory in&#160;automobiles for years. Streets in cities like Tokyo often don&#39;t have names, so a navigation system can really save you time. But the latest systems, offered by companies like Nissan, come with something extra.Hook your navigation system to your cell phone, and you have a connection through which you can get the latest road and traffic data. The navigation system already knows where the nearest gas station is, but with the network link, it can also tell you where the cheapest&#160;station is, thanks to daily updates on&#160;gas prices.When you&#39;re driving, the phone can connect you to an operator who&#160;will help you on your journey and even remotely reprogram your navigation system so that you never have to take your hands off the wheel.About 10 percent of streets are covered with sensors that provide information on traffic. Nissan is experimenting with a new service that collects data about the roads you&#39;ve driven and the speeds you&#39;ve achieved, and feeds it to a central computer that adds the information&#160;to the traffic database for a more complete picture of jams.High-tech is also being employed in car safety systems like the Round View Monitor. The video from four cameras around the vehicle is processed and brought together into a single image so that you get the illusion of seeing your car from above. It makes backing into tight spaces really easy and is a big-step beyond the single cameras now found on some large cars&#160;and trucks.Warning of the Big OneOne area that&#39;s taken very seriously by people in Japan is earthquakes and disaster prevention. The problem is&#160;you never know when a quake could strike, right? Well, not necessarily.A new warning system has just gone into operation that seeks to quickly detect the weak but fast-moving primary waves from a quake and use them to estimate when the slower-moving but destructive secondary waves will hit.The system won&#39;t help people living at the epicenter of an earthquake, since both kinds of waves arrive virtually simultaneously. But in the event of a major quake, warnings of anywhere from a few seconds to up to a minute can be supplied almost instantaneously.That&#39;s enough time to halt trains and&#160;bring factory equipment to an emergency stop, and for homeowners to switch off the gas. Most deaths in the Kobe quake of 1995 were from fires that started after the quake, so preventing flameups is important.RobotsNo discussion of cool tech in Japan would be complete without robots. Japanese researchers are leading the world in robot technology, and humanoid bots like Honda&#39;s Asimo are especially impressive.The latest version of Asimo can serve drinks on a tray and has gained the ability to work intelligently with other Asimo robots in the vicinity to get jobs done faster. Two of the robots have spent most of January working at Honda&#39;s Tokyo offices, bringing tea or coffee to guests--and almost certainly entertaining the visitors at the same time.Rival car-maker Toyota has a clutch of robots, including one unveiled in December that plays the violin. (It follows a trumpet-playing robot created&#160; a year earlier, so perhaps a robot orchestra is in the making?) The company also has Robina, which is intended to serve as a guide in a public space. Toyota put it into use last year at a public hall in Japan and expects robots like Robina will be commercially realistic in the middle of the next decade.Taking on a much more serious role is Twendy One, a home-help robot developed by Tokyo&#39;s Waseda University. It can do many of the basic tasks that a frail person may need help with, such as&#160;assisting people out of bed and serving up toast and drinks.The robot is still under development but could have a bright future. Japan&#39;s population is aging fast--already, 22 percent of people are over 65--and the birth rate is slowing. That likely means a future shortage of workers. It&#39;s one of the reasons money is being poured into robot technology in this already technology-saturated nation.
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Japanâs once vaunted electronics industry has downsized to survive global competition, and is inadvertently setting off a brain drain.
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Anti-virus protection will ship later this month with some new phones in Japan, a harbinger of cellular threats to come. Security products are already available for handheld
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The total number of mobile telephone subscriptions in Japan topped 100 million for the first time in January, a telecommunications association said.
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Motorola, No. 2 maker of mobile telephones, and NTT DoCoMo, the world&#39;s second-largest wireless carrier, will jointly develop handsets to attract business customers in Japan.
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Apple Inc  is playing mobile operators NTT DoCoMo Inc  and Softbank Corp  against one another on selling the iPhone in Japan, where it would vie with some of the world's most advanced phones.
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India has become the fastest-growing cellular market in the world, adding 5.9 million subscribers in August and outstripping ChinaÂs increase of 5.19 million subscribers.
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Young Japanese people are evolving a new lifestyle for the 21st century based on the cellphones that few are now able to live without.
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It seems there&#39;s no end to Japan&#39;s love of handheld gaming these days. With Nintendo selling big with its hugely successful Nintendo DS launch, Sony have begun the counter attack with queues of up to 1500
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MAKUHARI, Japan  - Japanese game makers, faced  with a shrinking local market and increasing competition from  overseas rivals, are pinning hopes on mobile platforms such as  handheld machines and cellphones to stir up demand.
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Japan&#39;s top mobile carrier has begun marketing a cell phone that can make Internet calls over Wi-Fi wireless networks in addition to regular ones.
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I found this news piece a bit interesting when sifting through the press wires this morning; Technorati Japan has worked on an amazing study which shows how Japanese bloggers are writing about and communicating with companies via their own personal blogs.  One fascinating aspect of the US and Japanese blogging markets is that there is [...]
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The number of mobile phone subscriptions in Japan tops 100 million for the first time, a telecoms association says.
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(InfoWorld) - The surest sign marketing hype surroundingÂ Apple's iPhoneÂ has outdone itself is that a small island on the Pacific rim is abuzz over the device, despite the fact it won't be on sale here until next year at the earliest. Part of the reason for the excitement is the number of technology savvy users in Taiwan who want to get their hands on one. The most popular Internet auction site on the island, run by Yahoo Taiwan, boasts six different iPhone sellers. One auctioneer is offering the smartphones at NT$32,000 (US$975), on pre-order. At a rival Web auction site, Ruten.com.tw, one seller has a 4GB iPhone for NT$25,000. Most of the sellers are up-front about the fact users may not be able to use the iPhone for phone calls in Taiwan, for now. "You may only be able to use the camera and music player function of the iPhone," writes one seller. That may not deter buyers. Not only is the iPhone viewed as a status symbol, many Taiwanese often travel to the U.S. for business, and a number of people own second homes in places such as California. They could sign an AT&T iPhone service agreement on a trip to the U.S. The popularity of the Apple product is easy to see every day, in newspaper headlines and on the cover of magazines, including Business Next, which says a lot about the other reason the handset is so popular in Taiwan. Taiwanese companies play a vital role in the production of the device, and rumors of which company is making what component on the iPhone are moving stock prices daily in Taiwan. Apple is sourcing a number of parts from the island, and has asked iPod manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.Â to assemble the iPhones in China, analysts say. In fact, the stock market boom that has taken hold in Taiwan recently has been attributed partly to iPhone hype. Stock traders hope the iPhone sells millions of units, because companies on the island stand to win from every handset sale. Largan Precision Co., for example, supplies camera lenses and modules for the iPhone, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Taipei. Foxconn Technology Co.Â is a provider of metal casing for the handsets, while Unimicron Technology is supplying printed circuit boards for the device and Cheng Uei Precision Industry is making its chargers and cables, the investment house says. The stock prices of many of these have soared in the months leading up to its launch, but are in a holding pattern now as investors wait to see how the iPhone fares in the market. Estimates of iPhone sales vary widely. Citigroup Research, a division of Citigroup Global Markets, estimates iPhone sales will reach 3.5 million in 2007 and 8.5 million in 2008. That's ahead of Apple's own prediction of 10 million over the same period. Deutsche Bank is even more positive about the iPhone. The investment firm expects 7.5 million of them to ship this year and 12 million in 2008, according to a report dated June 22. An even more optimistic forecast comes from financial services company Credit Suisse, which predicts iPhone shipments will reach 5 million this year and 15 million next year. "Apple's iPhone, expected to launch at AT&T on June 29, is clearly the most widely anticipated product the industry has seen for many years, potentially ever," wrote Credit Suisse analyst Michael Ounjian, in a June 5 report on the device. Lehman Brothers offered a more conservative estimate, saying Apple's own 10 million figure "may be difficult to reach" but that the figure "is achievable" in a June 21 report. The investment house believes Apple will start offering the iPhone in Europe sometime in the last three months of this year, and that it will begin sales in Asia in 2008. Apple has not said when it will start shipping the iPhone overseas. The iPhone, a smartphone with built-in iPod music player functions, goes on sale in the U.S. at 6 p.m. Friday. Apple is offering two models, a 4GB model costing US$499 and an 8GB model at US$599. Users will have to sign a two-year contract with AT&TÂ for phone service. Â
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Marketers are about to aim at the third screen: the one on the cellphone in your pocket.