nobilog returns

Web 2.0 in your pocket.

Those who has been using iPhone since 2007 are already experiencing this.

But the most notable change that iPhone (and Android) will bring would be this:

Let's say this is an example of Web 2.0, yesterday.

Then this would be the Web 2.0 tomorrow:

 

This isn't merely a question of lifestyle. It will connect the socialmedia to the real world. It would connect not only to e-commerce but to the commercial activities around you. It would be the first big step into the Augmented Reality. It would also help those non-social Internet addicts back again to the real world. I think "Web 2.0 in your pocket" is great not just because you can take out Wikipedia or facebook just when you need it, or do a google search in front of the refrigerator for tonight's recipe, but also because you can turn off the screen and put it back in your pocket so easily and help you get back to the normal and healthy real life.

doodle on the wall with your iPhone

The soon to be released ZeptoPad 2.0 will let you doodle on TV/projector screens, etc. via your Mac or PCs.

No jailbreak necessary, you will just need to know how to connect your Mac/PC to TV/projector.

I will let the developer reveal the secret themselves later on when they release it; i heard it'll be sometime next week.

They made a video for it:

Diddle on wall with iPhone from Ryo Shimizu on Vimeo.

They just made another one, but I like the first one:

ZeptoPad2.0 - Whiteboard for iPhone and more    

Japanese iPhone DOES TVs

 During their two hours special event by Softbank Mobile, Masayoshi Son [pronounced: song], the head of the Japanese iPhone operator has announced the iPhone users in Japan will soon be able to watch TVs on their iPhone.

 Mr.Son said for iPhone to succeed in Japan, there are three things that needed to be fixed.

 First is the battery length. Second is TV capabilities and third is Emoji, the non-standard cartoonish characters used on Japanese phones many people use to decorate their e-mails.

 And to fulfill this gap, Softbank Mobile has developed a self-branded original peripherals that is specifically designed for iPhone, the phone Mr. Son loves to his heart; every time, he makes public appearance, he spends at least five minutes talking how he loves his iPhone and how he stopped using laptops.

 The device simply dubbed "TV & Battery" is an 80 gram black device that would accompany your iPhone. If the user connects the device with iPhone, it will start charging your iPhone.

 On the back of the device, there is an antenna. If you pull it out then it will start streaming the Japanese ISDB-T (One Segment) television over WiFi. Softbank will soon be releasing a free application on AppStore. When the user launches this app, iPhone will automatically make an AdHoc connection to "TV & Battery" and start displaying the TV on iPhone screen; it is as simple as that.

 Emoji will also come to iPhone. Mr. Son didn't explain the detail but he said emoji will come to Japanese iPhone later this year; and we all know it means iPhone 2.2 will be released before the year end.

 In separate announcement, Softbank Mobile has also announced they will be opening up their subscription based public Wifi service called "BB Mobile" to all iPhone users for free. The Japanese iPhone users can use their i.softbank.jp e-mail address/password to login to BB Mobile Wifi service.

 When they launch this service on Nov. 4, people have to launch Safari Web browser every time they want to use the service but after December, Softbank will change the set up of BB Mobile service, so people would only have to login once after December to do the tedious id/password typing after that the Cookie saved on iPhone will handle the login process automatically.

 Many people are excited to hear this but some technically oriented blogger expects Softbank will use the MAC address login method which has Livedoor Wireless (BB Mobile's competitor) has been trying; if they did, the user won't need to launch Safari at all.

 Masayoshi Son has also announced some upcoming games for the iPhone including Crystal Defender by Square Enix, G RACER, Toaru kishidan to Maboroshi no Oshiro by HUDSON, Unotan by BBSS and Daijirin dictionary by Monokakido.

 In yet other announcement, Softbank Mobile has started Softbank Mobile Gift service; a service designed to send gifts without knowing the recipients physical address.

 The sender will basically send a e-mail with special barcode; so if the recipient bring that phone to one of local Seven Eleven stores in Japan, they can receive the item they received by showing that special barcode.

 During the two hour special event, Masayoshi Son has announced four new touch screen phones: Samsung's Omnia and htc's touch Pro and touch Diamond and Sharp's latest phone made exclusively for Softbank.

 All these phones can sport Yahoo! Widgets. As a matter of fact, Softbank Mobile will be hosting a Softbank Phone widgets contest. They also announced they made partnership with five major 'Internet partners' which would make widgets for them. The partners include MySpace Japan, Yahoo! Japan, mixi, DeNA and Niwango.

 They have also announced 12 non-touch screen phones (with lots of color variations) including Nokia N82 and E71 and a phone manufactured by Casio. Casio is known as a manufacturer with highest user satisfaction rate but until now they have been manufacturing their phones exclusively for KDDI (au). In Japan, it is such a ground breaking news that they have finally started making phones for other operators.

 Also for those living outside Japan, but visit Japan often, SoftBank 730SC might be of interest. It is a pre-paid phone without any monthly fee (or with 300 yen/mo, you will get unlimited e-mail).

 I know very soon, Apple will be working with 80 phone operators around the world, but I believe Masayoshi Son or Softbank Mobile is doing a great job giving the right feedback about what's needed for this market, etc. to make iPhone look even better in this market; if Apple had worked with the other operators in Japan, they wouldn't have treated iPhones this good and they would have never made any suggestions at all.

 However, I think Softbank could have waited a bit longer for these great announcements for iPhones  because I think the lack of stability of iPhone is something an average Japanese users won't be able to stand (and it could cause serious bad reputation).

 Right now most of the iPhone users in Japan are tech-savvy and they know how unstable smart phones are and can handle their own problem. And those tech-savvy people have already bought external batteries for their iPhone plus most of them don't watch TVs (especially on phones). They wouldn't use emoji, either instead they are used to writing what is called kaomoji using ascii characters (e.g. (^_^)  ).

 With this intro of Softbank branded external batteries and TV tuner, Softbank is seriously looking into average phone users in Japan which can be a difficult market unless Apple does an really really good job to make the iPhone OS rock solid. We shall see.

The most underrated new feature of iPod nano(4G)

I have just recently found out that iPod nano speaks.

Well, it doesn't do any on-the-fly voice synthesis but if you check the “Enable spoken menus for accessibility" on your iTunes, it does generate the voices for each and every meny on your iPod plus each and every artist and songs, so you don't need to take out you iPod to check which song is playing. 

The detail is explained here: Apple Accessibility

I have an iPhone myself, but I bought the new iPod nano just for this feature and am very happy with it ;-)

self-checkout cashier au japan

I recently found they have self-checkout cashier at RELUCK DELI &CAFE at Gate-city Osaki; the place is rather a small size supermarket with deli & cafe.

After a few minutes search, I found self-checkout cashier are found at WALMART, etc. in the US as well but what's so amazing about RELUCK is how they trust their customers:

1. the place have such wide and open exit (no doors) without anyone checking what's within the customers' bag

2. the self-check out cashier is so close to the exit

3. unlike the self-checkout cashier at WALMART, there is no machine checking the weight of your groceries as mentioned in this blog post

The system is totally trust base.

Of course, this is only possible because the store is located within Gate-city Osaki, a building complex where such well-known corporation as Sony and Adobe reside; most of the people found there are the employees of such big companies and they wouldn't risk the chance of becoming criminals.

Another cool thing with RELUCK's self-checkout cashier is that you would pay them using the Japan's famous Osaifu-keitai (i.e.  RFID application for e-wallet built into most Japanese mobile phones).

If you choose to go self-checout at RELUCK, you would...

1. place your phone on  the card reader

2. scan the barcodes of every grocery you are buying 

3. check the total price and press "OK"

that's it.

It is one of the places you should check out, if you have an osaifu keitai and a chance to visit Osaki.

checking out Posterous

When I went to visit "DESIGN BUSSAN NIPPON" today with hiratomo, he mentioned about a service called Posterous.

I am checking it out right now.

I hate receiving e-mails but I have to admit 'sending out an e-mail' is the easiest way to post things.

It's also great that you can multi-post your e-mail on several services at the same time.

I hate waiting for publishing/rebuilding.

Even worth is having a left-open windows with un-posted messages because of the server's down time.

Posterous might solve those problems.

Posted by email from nobi's posterous

DESIGN BUSSAN NIPPON: a perfect example for iPhone as an exhibition guide

"DESIGN BUSSAN NIPPON", a exhibition about Japanese traditional x modern design (will finish on Sept 1.) displays a very good example of iPhone/iPod touch as an exhibition guide.

If you have either device, you should check out the following URL:
http://designbussan.jp/

It is a bilingual guide (i.e. Japanese + English).

You will be surprise to find, how they have even optimized the size of movies.

The exhibition ends within 24 hrs. but I hope this site would remain as the model example.

the event was organized by Kenmei Nagaoka.
For more information about him:
His portfolio in English
His blog in Japanese
D & Department

If you haven't yet, don't update your iPhone to 2.0.2

If you are an iPhone user and if you luckily hadn't updated its OS to 2.0.2, don't do it and wait until the next update.
I am one of the users who is experiencing the App Crash bug.

Some say that they were able to fix the problem by installing a new app from App Store; it didn't work for me.

My friend, Matthew Skyrm told me he got to fix this problem by authorizing the computer using iTunes and sync'ing, but it didn't work for me.

The only thing that worked for me so far is to "restore" the iPhone.

But even after restoring, if you buy a new App from the App Store, it could re-initiate the problem.

Restoring is a painful process especially if you find out that your backup file is corrupted and realize that you have lost all the data (from your MotionX score to Recorder's recordings and photos and SMS and notes, of course) and that you have to start over with all the settings, etc. etc.

If you already have upgraded to 2.0.2, be careful and don't buy too many apps from App Store until the next OS update.
OS 2.0.2 seem to be working fine for a while but it seem to break some DRM info while installing/updating your apps (via App Store on your iPhone).

The second time, I got into this problem was after I purchased an app from App Store; the app didn't finish installing for a LONG WHILE. And I had to power off the iPhone while the app didn't finish installing.
After the reboot all third party apps stopped launching.

Apple Insider says SJ is promising a September update to fix this, but I think this is more serious than he thinks.
I can't say for sure if OS 2.0.1 didn't have this problem (but at least to me, it didn't).
I hope Apple will re-release OS 2.0.1 as an OS 2.0.3 update very soon.

iPhone will be launching iPhone in 20+ country today possibly with the OS 2.0.2; I hope it doesn'T evolve into a serious problem.

The 'Silent (mode)' War on the Internet

There is a silent war going on between Japan and China, Japan and Korea and Japan and Australia.
I believe most of the Japanese are healthy, happy people but those younger generation who are deeper into the web-sphere and those who would spend a few hours in the underground bulletin board systems, there are about 10 million of them, keep writing bad things about Chinese and Koreans; and from what I have heard the Chinese and Korean net inhabitants are doing the same against Japan .

I am not an expert on this matter, so I wouldn't dig deeper, but that war seem to have extended to include Australia especially after some Australian protested Japanese whaling last year.
I love whale both as a dignified animal as well as traditional Japanese delicacies.
And I mourn that so many people are using the internet to prevail hatred.

And more recently, many Japanese people found out about the English edition of Mainichi News paper that featured Japanese gossip articles.
One of the principal editor there was an Australian.
People found out that most of the articles he has written has skewed some of the quotes used in the article to intentionally spread negative image about Japan.
Many Japanese people felt very much betrayed by Mainichi News Paper.
And because of this incident, although Mainichi is one of the main national news paper in Japan, no one is advertising on them (at least not on the Internet Edition) at the moment.

Anyway, my last post seem to have triggered another battle among the Japanese and Australians.

I posted the last article because I thought it would be interesting to know that:

1. although all Apple products are made equal around the world there are some exceptions
2. to raise awareness that the phones can be a tool for spying (or tool for pervert depending on who you are)
3. how the Japanese companies just ban stuffs without deeply thinking into it
4. just enjoy the cultural difference

it was then introduced on Cult of Mac with some twist of Leander Kahney.
http://cultofmac.com/to-prevent-upskirts-japanese-iphone-3g-always-alerts-when-taking-photos/2356

Most Japanese could take it thus far.
But the article on Gizmodo Australia crossed the line:

Japanese iPhone 3G Is Perverts' Worst Friend
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/07/japanese_iphone_3g_is_perverts_worst_friend-2.html

Most reader in Japan were shocked with the vivid graphic the author has chosen.
And they felt very irritated and felt the entire Japanese population are being laughed at.
The tense relationship between Japan and Australia made them even angry.

Of course, most of the Japanese Internet citizens are happy browsing only a small portion of web-sphere where Japanese is spoken, but this article on Wired Vision let the Japanese people find out about the Gizmodo Australia article:
http://wiredvision.jp/blog/galileo/200807/200807222255.html
"We can't translate 'this' into Japanese"
(you can try using Google Translate)

Wired Vision has the exclusive rights to translate articles published on Wired News in Japan. They also seem to be translating some stuff from Gizmodo all around the world(my guess).

In contrast to the title, the author explain the article and the comments in full detail; s/he thinks the article on Gizmodo Australia had some bad anti-Japan intention.
The article points out that those discussion on the Internet can be very bad, if the writers write stuff in a juicy way.

Anyway, many Japanese also found the Gizmodo Australia article that way.
What do you think?

I just hope, with this incident people would become more considerate when they write something about other culture.
Although they are saying the same thing, the nationality of the author and the way s/he writes CAN make a big difference.

Available only on Japanese iPhones

You might think iPhone 3Gs are equal all over the world. Well, not quite.
There are something that is only available on Japanese iPhones: the shutter sound in silent mode.

In Japan, the camera on mobile phones can be as high as 5.2M Pixels and they could be used for sneak shots such as spy shots and/or dirty pictures.
For this reason, Japanese manufacturer have stopped the disabling of shutter sound in silent mode; some manufacturers have even put louder shutter sound.

Many cell phone collectors have wondered if the sound will be on on the iPhone 3G especially because they knew the original iPhone 2G killed the shutter sound in silent mode; well, the answer was 'YES' and, although quietly, the Japanese iPhone 3G would make a sound if you take picture even when it is set to silent mode.