Like any busy industrialised society, the people of Japan are prone to what is rather charmingly called ‘the heart flu’ - Depression.
In an attempt to break down mental health taboos and to give people a taste of possible therapies, Keio University professors have launched a psychotherapy service for mobile phones. The service uses question and answer sessions to identify problems and suggest ways of rationalizing them, based on a form of Cognitive Therapy.
Although not intended as a replacement for proper psychological evaluation and care, the designers hope it can encourage users to seek help and provide some short term assistance.
“I think this can be helpful for people in times of need or when they feel a little blue, as a form of daily prevention against depression,” said Professor Yutaka Ohno.
Softbank - the lucky Japanese mobile carrier that landed the iPhone gig over there - has announced a new peripheral designed to make up for one of the iPhone’s perceived shortcomings in the Japanese market.
In Japan, it seems, integrated TV tuners are de rigueur at the moment and the iPhone has taken a fair amount of stick for leaving out such a crucial feature.
To help boost the handset’s chances, Softbank are rolling out a portable TV tuner that can be used with the iPhone. Interestingly, the tuner is an entirely seprate unit that uses a local wifi network to communicate with the iPhone.
Users install a TV app which displays streamed video sent from the tuner which can be kept in a pocket or handbag so as not to impact the sleek lines of Apple’s design classic.
Poor old Japan. Once a great imperial power and post-war tiger economy, now seen by many in the west as a hotbed of tentacle porn, hentai and gentlemen standing a bit too close on public transport.
It’s largely nonsense - I doubt that Japan has any kind of monopoly of sexual kinks - but maybe part of the image problem is that the Japanese are such enthusiastic early adopters of new technology. People being people, sex is always going to be high up the list of things to try with any new gizmo. It’s just like looking up dirty words in the dictionary or finding creative uses for a Polaroid camera - if there is any possible sexual use for something, someone will give it a go.
So then, to the iPhone 3G. News has reached us that the Japanese release will come with a unique, region-specific, extra. In an attempt to stop Japanese iPhone owners from taking surreptitious upskirt shots using their new toy, the phone will come with a mandatory (and extra loud) shutter noise that can not be turned off.
This is apparently becoming standard practice among Japanese handset manufacturers following complaints from annoyed female commuters who were tired of having camera phones aimed at their undergarments.
Of course, this might turn out to be racist piffle designed to reinforce the aforementioned stereotypes. We’ll keep you posted.
It is difficult, when writing for a tech blog, to avoid talking about Japan with a a mixture of astonishment and car-crash fascination.
This is not a fair representation of what is in fact a diverse and vibrant culture. Poking fun at unusual cultural quirks merely cheapens us all.
That said, come on now.. DOG RINGTONES?
Tokyo-based mobile content provider Dwango has announced a range of ringtones that are audible only to dogs.
Inu ni shika kikoenai chakushinon - “‘ringtones only dogs can hear” - will be downloadable to DoCoMo phones. That’s it. No mention of why you would want your dog - and only your dog - to know if your phone is ringing. Maybe something to do with those hearing dogs for the deaf. Maybe not.
The UK mobile operators have been offering full-track music downloads for a while now, but they’ve not quite caught on as fast as they hoped. In Japan, it’s a different story.
According to new figures from industry body the RIAJ, mobile full-track downloads increased by 91% last year, and mobile downloads overall (i.e. including ringtones) now generate more than 90% of all digital music sales in Japan.
The growth is being driven by youngsters, who got used to downloading music to their phones rather than to their PCs. However, those pesky kids aren’t doing everything the music industry wants them to – the RIAJ says that more than 400 million mobile full-tracks were illegally downloaded in Japan last year, and has started airing TV ads warning against it.
It’s the sort of thing that encourages journalists to phone up for some personal trainer time on their return to the UK, but at the 2008 Mobile World Congress, Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo was demoing a prototype of what it referred to as the Wellness handset. Yes, apparently “You too can have the perfect body,” something this phone will help with thanks to its combination of high-speed pedometer, body fat monitor, heartrate monitor and bad breath monitor - none of which you’d really want to be tested on during a tradeshow. Nevertheless, the chunky-looking slider (with healthy-looking demo girl) was on hand to remind us we’re overweight, unfit and could do with some tictacs. Thanks NTT DoCoMo.
We got wind of an Italian chap who wrote a book on his mobile a while back and were suitably impressed, just because of the sheer bloody mindedness of it all (let’s face it, phones aren’t exactly best suited to the task).
But little did we know that Japan has a bustling cellphone book culture that began all the way back in 2000 and has been thriving since 2004. Not only that but of the top ten best selling books of 2007, five of them were originally cell phone books before being reprinted for the shelf.
The phenomenon is so widespread that the New York Times recently ran a front-page feature in its Sunday edition (from which the above info was gleaned) about the trend. Apparently the books are often love stories and are comprised largely of the same sort of short sentences that are characteristic of text messages. And to think that people say technology is detrimental to culture.
(Via mocoNews)
Japan has traditionally been the most advanced mobile market in the world, but right now it’s lagging behind the US, UK, Germany and France in terms of getting the iPhone. You can’t buy Apple’s handset in Japan yet, although that could soon change.
Apple is reportedly in talks with two separate operators there: market leader NTT DoCoMo, and third-placed Softbank. DoCoMo appears to be in pole position, since its president has already met with Steve Jobs (and thus presumably encountered Steve’s Reality Distortion Field that makes giving up a chunk of iPhone voice and data revenues seem sensible).
I could be wrong here, but isn’t one of the things about Japan that the operators only run 3G networks? If so, I’m not sure what that means for the resolutely 2.5G iPhone - would Apple have to wait to launch in Japan until it has a 3G iPhone ready to go?
(via ITWire)
File this under ‘Highly speculative’, but it’s so juicy I couldn’t resist posting it. Wireless Watch Japan has a theory that Apple may choose to sell its iPhone in Japan via the soon-to-launch Disney MVNO.
Why? The site suggests that Apple’s favoured revenue share agreement (it takes a percentage of voice and data revenues from iPhone subscribers on its partner operators) won’t go down too well with the established Japanese operators, but may be appealing for Disney as a way of launching its MVNO with a bang.
Meanwhile, beyond Mickey, Donald and the rest, Disney has plenty of movies and music which could be sold through Apple’s iTunes Store for iPhone users. WWJ says it has other evidence that such a deal is likely, but has buried it behind its subscription wall, so I can’t tell you what it is.
Realistic? Apple and Disney working together would be a formiddable partnership, but one with several titanic egos involved. Furthermore, I wonder if Disney would be happy to subsume its branding to Apple’s - the prospect of an iPhone with a Disney logo on it is near-unthinkable. Still, this is one rumour to watch in the coming months.
(via Wireless Watch Japan)
Nope, your eyes ain’t deceiving you: above is the latest triple-screen, touch-interface, whizz-bang concept phone from Japan’s AU KDDI. The company built its success on putting innovative mobiles in consumers’ hands, so it’s possible that this crazy-cool piece of work could see production. And yeah, we want one.
(Via Gearfuse)
