Japan - page 5

Heads up. Steve Jobs will be the subject of a new Japanese manga series by artist Mari Yamazaki of Thermae Romae manga fame.

When Apple launched its new Maps app with iOS 6 last September, one of its headline features, Flyover, only supported a handful of big cities. But the Cupertino company has been hard at work in the background to extend its reach, adding support for additional locations all over the world.

In the past few months, Apple has brought Flyover to an additional 16 cities, plus extended its coverage in 14 of the cities already supported.

https://youtu.be/gW2D_Votd2Y

It is often said that Japan is a weird country.

Case in point, can you imagine any other country in which Domino’s Pizza Japanese president Scott Oelkers would make a commercial in which, over the course of a two minute period, he shills a new iPhone app featuring a virtual anime girlfriend named Hatsune Miku who “exists in a software called Vocaloid which enables you to create songs” that Hatsune Miku then sings.

Not that the Domino’s app does any of this, mind you. It just allows you order pizza online and listen to Vocaloid songs written by the wage-slavers who heat up your pie. You can also, apparently, insert Hitsune Miku into photos of your choosing, the perfect way to simulate the experience of having a cartoom girlfriend who will do whatever you want.

“Have fun with Miku!” trills Scott Oelkers with wild, manic eyes. If you choose to do so, you can download the app here (Japan only).

Via: MacGasm

Sharp has this morning announced a ¥10.4 billion ($112 million) investment from Samsung that will provide the latter with a 3% stake in the company. It makes Samsung the biggest individual shareholder in the Japanese display maker, and secures its access to Sharp’s LCD panel supplies.

The investment comes at a time when Sharp has been struggling. The company received a $4.4 billion bailout from the banks in October 2012, and its iPad display orders from Apple were recently cut as consumer demand shifted to the smaller iPad mini, which Sharp is not involved with.

Apple has released an update to iBooks with improvements for Asia. The iBookstore now sells books in Japan, and more support has been added for Asian languages.

It takes no more than about 30 seconds to run a cloth over your smartphone or tablet display and free it from greasy fingerprints. But if you’re just too darn lazy to do that, check out this tiny little autonomous robot that does it for you. From Takara Tomy, the Automee-S is a 2.75-inch Roomba-like device that (slowly) makes its way around your smartphone or tablet display and gives it a good clean.

Apple celebrates the Chinese New Year by offering its fans in Asia one-day “Red Friday” deals, similar to the Black Friday sale it holds for customers in the United States. And the Cupertino company has today begun teasing the event via its online store with a big red advert that promises “great gifts for everyone on your list.”

The iPad may be the king of tablets in some markets, but Apple’s device cannot compete with the Nexus 7 in Japan. Its premium price tag is causing tablet buyers to opt for Google’s 7-inch slate instead, despite its smaller display and lack of a rear-facing camera. One survey of Japanese electronics stores has found that the Nexus 7 has claimed 44.4% of the tablet market.

Apple’s iBookstore is reportedly heading to Japan this year, finally delivering its popular e-book store to the ever-growing number of Japanese iPad users. The Cupertino company is said to be in the process of negotiating deals with a “handful” of Japanese publishers to supply a local version of their titles at launch.

In the Western world, Santa Claus and Christmas rule the holiday season, but in Japan and other parts of Asia, it’s all about Fukubukuro or Lucky Bags, the annual New Year’s tradition where merchants distribute grab bags full of mystery contents at a huge discount to crazed shoppers.

This year, like every other year, Apple is taking part in the Lucky Bag phenomenon, allowing shoppers to spend about $400 for an Apple-certified Lucky Bag.

Usually, these bags have lower ticket items in them, like iPod touches and t-shirts, but every once in a while, some lucky S.O.B. gets a MacBook Air or a top-of-the-line iPad. There’s only a limited number of them, so you need to line up hours ahead of time. Anyone wish Apple did Lucky Bags over here?

Source: Apple

South Korea has asked Apple to remove the Japanese names of the Dokdo islets from its new Maps app in iOS 6. Both Asian countries claim ownership of Dokdo, which has long caused tensions between the two. In iOS 5, when Maps was powered by Google Maps, only the Korean name for the islets was used, and that’s how Korean officials want it to stay.

Square Enix has revealed that it may reconsider its pricing structure for mobile games following critical feedback from users in Western countries. While the Japanese developer is well-known among iOS users for its awesome RPGs, such as Final Fantasy and Chaos Rings, it’s also famous for its hefty price tags, which can often be as much as $18 per title.

When console-quality games are going for less then $5 these days, those prices are a big problem for some.

Imagine that you are chatting to somebody on your iPhone. Now imagine that — at the touch of a button — you can cause a fragrance to squirt from their iPhone and into their unsuspecting nostrils. Amazingly, there is a device which will make this nightmare scenario real, and — of course — it comes from Japan.

SoftBank, Japan’s third-largest carrier, has this morning announced that it will acquire Sprint in a deal worth $20.1 billion. The company will purchase $8 billion in newly-issues shares from Sprint, in addition to $12.1 billion in existing shares — giving it a 70% stake overall.

Japan’s third-largest carrier is reportedly in talks to buy control of Sprint, according to two people familiar with the matter. SoftBank wants to snap up two-thirds of the company with a stake worth “more than” 1.5 trillion yen ($19 billion), and it’s also eyeing Sprint’s partner, Clearwire, too.

There’s not a lot I need say about today’s Best Thing Ever, so I’ll keep it brief.

Manga Camera does exactly what its name suggests, and it’s no surprise that it’s a sudden huge hit on the iOS App Store.

Waiting in line for the latest iPhone is by no means a pleasant experience. Sure, Apple often hands out free coffee and cakes, but I’d sooner stroll into the store and straight back out again and pay for my own coffee on the way home. But for millions of us this morning, standing in line is the only way to secure an iPhone 5 on launch day.

That is, if you’re a law-abiding citizen. If you’re not, you might consider breaking into a local carrier store and stealing more than $100,000 worth of iPhone 5 units — just like thieves in Japan did today.

Gadget Holders on your belt = dorky. However, awesome leather quick-access camera-holder on your belt = super-cool. Yes, somehow the laws of nature have been temporarily suspended to make this Japanese hand-made leather fanny pack into a desirable and stylish item.

The iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S’s Retina Displays are already ludicrously pixel packed at 326 ppi, but even so, that’s only enough pixels to make it so that the human eye can’t resolve them when the phone is held twelve inches away from your face.

Apple can do better, and maybe someday they will, thanks to Japan Display’s new technology which squeeze 651 pixels per inch into an LCD screen. Their latest display has a resolution of 1280 x 800, the same as the existing 13-inch MacBook Pro, but is only 2.3 inches across.

That’s just one ppi from a true pixel doubling, which Apple has done for iOS devices to maintain backwards compatibility amongst apps and UI elements. If Apple picked this technology up, they’d finally have a display that was “retina” in the truest sense of the term… albeit, at four times the impact on the GPU.

Source: Tech-On
Via: Gizmodo

Forget nano-coatings that render the individual components oin your iPhone waterproof. And forget bulky underwater cases that make your svelte phone look like something Nokia put out ten years ago. What you need for total iPhone protection is this amazing Japanese condom.

Apple and Samsung are neck and neck when it comes to U.S. smartphone market. In Japan, which represents roughly 5% of the global smartphone market, however, the iPhone is significantly beating Samsung’s range of Android handsets. Apple, in fact, has a more than 20% lead over Samsung in Japan – significantly higher than its current 5% lead over Samsung in America.

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that his girlfriend and Steve Jobs were the inspiration behind a new, “life-saving” Facebook feature that allows users to share that they’re an organ donor with their friends via their Timeline. The social networks hopes that the new feature will help spread awareness for organ donation, and encourage as many people as possible to donate.

Apple has been forced to pay a couple in Tokyo, Japan, ¥600,000 (approx. $7,400) for medical fees and pain and suffering after their first-generation iPod nano spontaneously burst into flames, causing burns to the hand that took more than a month to completely heal.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tN6jFuuQFVY

You might look pretty dorky these days if you make a frame from your fingers and start sizing up the world around you. But it’s actually a surprisingly good way to separate out parts of the landscape, especially for artists using pencils or paint who may not be carrying a camera.

But what about combining the two? That’s just what the nerds have done down at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Japan. The Ubi-Camera is a tiny digicam which uses your fingers as the viewfinder, and even allows you to zoom.

Foxconn, the company that assembles almost all of Apple’s devices —- plus plenty more for the likes of Amazon, Dell, Microsoft, and Sony —- has confirmed today that it has secured a 46.5% stake in Sharp’s giant LCD plant in Sakai, Japan. The deal is expected to help Sharp improve its performance, and could make low-energy IGZO displays a possibility for future iPads

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