Japanese new social VR platform ambr will release open beta version on May 25

On May 25th, a new social VR platform will join the Japanese VR industry. It is ambr and accepts pre user registration. The VR HMDs it supports are Oculus Go, Oculus Rift (Rift S) and HTC VIVE.
ambr is a social VR world where everyone can transform into their favorite avatars and communicate. You can have your own room where you can interact with and go to other users' rooms. If you link your account with 3D character platform VRoid Hub, you can upload your own avatars and use it with ambr by designing your own avatar.

In addition, ambr will collaborate with VTuber, VR games, real-world companies, shops and facilities in various ways.
They conducted a closed beta test last year and have been developing it for a year. Pre-registration is required to participate in the open β version, and virtual currency points "ambr points" will be presented to users who have pre-registered as a privilege.
Please use Google Translate as the registration form is written in Japanese only. If you have Oculus Go, Oculus Rift (Rift S) or HTC VIVE, it's not bad to experience here as an early user.

The world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market 5 will be held from December

I recently wrote about the world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market. It ended in great success on May 10th, and they decided on an upcoming event date. Virtual Market 5 will be held from December 19, 2020 to January 10, 2021.

See also:
The world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 got over 500,000 visitors

Virtual Market is a creative festival in the VR world. 43 companies and 1400 general creators are exhibiting, and various virtual goods made by them are on sale. In addition, companies are promoting their real products in a virtual world.
For example, Audi Japan made a virtual version of the electric car e-tron, and visitors took a test drive with it. Real-world salespersons of high-end department store Isetan-Mitsukoshi  served customers through their avatars in a virtual store. It is a new remote work style under the coronavirus pandemic. Seven-Eleven, a convenience store, sold avatars of Square Enix's popular game "NieR：Automata" at a virtual store.

The feature of this event is that many companies have already officially exhibited. So they are convinced that VR and virtual worlds will be the new fields of business.
This is being held by Japanese startup HIKKY, but many VR netizens from countries other than Japan also came to this event. So they are aiming to make Virtual Market 5 a more global event.

The Virtual Market 5 site is already open.
https://www.v-market.work/v5/lp

Let your smartphone cool

The more time people have to stay in their homes, the more time they spend with mobile applications. Among them, the usage time of game applications is increasing. But isn't it causing your smartphone to overheat? Then, gaming gadget maker Game Tech has released Gamers Mobile Cooler, a cooling fan that supports multiple models.

 It cools your mobile up to 13 degrees with a Peltier device and cooling fan. The fan is a silent type, so it doesn't interfere with the sound of the games you are playing.
It has multiple suction cups and You can easily attach it by pressing suction cups on your mobile. Also, its size is small at 72mm x 49mm x 23mm and the weight is about 60 grams, so you can use it not only for smartphones but also for tablets and gaming terminals such as Nintendo Switch.

To use this, you will need a 5V / 1A or 5V / 2A AC adapter or mobile battery. The price is 3960 yen including tax.

Art in VR : Virtual VIVID Ilya Kuvshinov Works Exhibition

Currently, art exhibitions have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Then, how about hold them in virtual worlds? "Virtual VIVID Ilya Kuvshinov Works Exhibition", an art exhibition of popular Russian illustrator Ilya Kuvshinov is being held at VR Chat and Japanese social VR platform clister until May 31.

Ilya Kuvshinov's works are popular in Japan, and she is known to have been in charge of character design for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. This virtual exhibition is a reproduction of her real exhibition held in Tokyo, Akihabara in November 2019. However, no admission fee is required to view the virtual exhibition. Moreover, it is open 24 hours a day.

In addition, there are productions unique to the virtual world. When you go to the exhibition area of her Tokyo motif works, the crowds of town are played as background music. You will feel as you are in the middle of Tokyo.

When you stand in front of her work of snowscape, the sound of snowstorm is played as background music and snow particles come down.

Virtual art exhibitions are easier to hold in the virtual world than other events. Certainly, there are monetization challenges. However, it's a good way to get people around the world to appreciate art works. In addition, in this virtual exhibition, official goods sold at the gallery shop of the real exhibition are on sale. Mail order is good idea for monetization.

Virtual VIVID Ilya Kuvshinov Works Exhibition official site
http://vivid.gugenka.jp/

Self-care application of visualize your feelings "Awarefy"

The state of emergency imposed in response to the coronavirus was lifted in Japan except in some areas. However, we must still be alert, and it may help us with that.
Many companies are promoting remote work to prevent the spread of coronavirus infections, but as people continue to stay in their homes, more and more people are experiencing mental health problems. So Hakali has released Awarefy, a mobile application that makes it easy to self-care your mind.

It has a "feelings memo" feature that allows you to enter your daily feelings and emotional conditions into a chat-bot to interact with.

The emotional notes you continue to enter are regularly analyzed and reports generated and you can objectively see your emotions by checking these.

Besides this, it also has the feature to enter your own physical and mental conditions in the morning and night, and the trend of these data is shown by a bar graph. You can calmly analyze your worries and questions by checking this and emotional notes together.

If you are interested in mindfulness meditation, check out audio guides for beginners in it. It also has learning contents such as Anger Management. These audio guides are supervised by mindfulness instructors and clinical psychologists.

Downloading the application and using the basic features are free, and they will monetize with a paid premium plan in the future. However, the features of the premium plan are also provided free of charge until June 30. Currently they are releasing an Android version, and an iOS version will be released later this month.

Unite Tokyo 2020 by Unity Japan will be canceled

Events are being canceled one after another due to coronavirus pandemics. Unity Japan has announced that they will cancel the annual conference event Unite Tokyo 2020 in Tokyo since 2013.

Unite Tokyo is Japan's largest Unity event with many technical lectures and booth exhibitions for Japanese Unity users. This is the first time they have canceled this.
However, they are considering holding the event online and will announce more details once they are determined.
And, they will continue to support other Unity events, but these will only be online for a while, too.
They will post casual tech talks about Unity on Youtube until the coronavirus pandemic ends in Japan.
Their YouTube channel is here.

Facility for people with disabilities to become professional gamers

There are various welfare facilities for people with disabilities in Japan, but a cool facility ONEGAME will open in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture in June. It's a facility where they aim to become professional gamers in e-sports.

One-Life, a company that provides welfare services mainly in Gunma Prefecture, has originally been involved in e-Sports participation of people with disabilities. They introduce equipment for each type of people with disabilities and train by coaches. In addition, in August 2019, they held Japan's first people with disabilities e-Sports competition event using the League of Legends.
ONEGAME is a development form of these, and is a facility for continuing jobs. They not only train e-Sports players, but also event management staff and announcers to help people with disabilities become independent through e-Sports.

This is Japan's first welfare facility and a welfare project. I hope this succeeds.

Tokyo Game Show 2020 and CEDEC 2020 canceled(and CEDEC will be held online)

Of course this is due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Today, Japan's Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association(CESA) has made two big decisions. They will cancel this year's Tokyo Game Show 2020 and CEDEC 2020, the conference event for developers.

These two events are held in September each year, and autumn feature of Japanese game industries. However, CESA considers the health of visitors, exhibitors, presses, and staff, as the coronavirus infection is spreading worldwide and it is still unpredictable in Japan. So they decided to cancel.
However, they also decided to host the events online at the same time. It has already been decided that CEDEC 2020 will be held online without changing the schedule. Details such as specific contents and platforms will be announced in the near future.

It's future artists - Let's create a virtual singer with AI

Even though today's virtual artists have virtual figures, real people are in them. Even popular vocaloids are based on the voices of real-life actors. However, what if AI learns music and aims to become a singer?
EXDREAM, a company that manages music TECH schools, opened an AI Virtual Singer Lab in the online salon community operated by the crowdfunding platform CAMPFIRE.

This is a project to create and grow him/her with supporters, aiming at the music production by AI by making AI machine learn MIDI. In this project, supporters provide MIDI data, and AI learns them. The research results of what he/she composes will be shared with the supporters. In addition, the machine learning data generated by this project will be distributed, and supporters will be free to use them for their own research and studies.

Of course, he/she has shows on Youtube or Facebook like other virtual artists(VTuber). There are two monthly billing plans to participate in this project. For a monthly fee of 1000 yen, you can watch his/her show every month and read the report email magazines. With a monthly fee of 10,000 yen, you can get many benefits, but unfortunately, all support is in Japanese only.

Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised 700 million yen

The real entertainment industry is in recession due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the virtual entertainment industry is booming and the news of funding is continuous.

See also:
Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen

Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised a total of 700 million yen from venture capitalists and individual investors. As a result, their cumulative amount raised to about 1 billion yen.

They are startups of virtual performers(VTuber). Under their umbrella are women's VTuber group Hololive, men's VTuber group Holostars, and the virtual music label Inonaka Music.
In particular, they have recently been focusing on overseas expansion, starting activities in China's video sharing service Bilibili in January 2019, and starting a VTuber business in China in September 2019. They also started the VTuber business in Indonesia in April 2020 and are currently holding a VTuber audition in the English-speaking world.

See also:
Japanese VTuber Productions will expand into the English-speaking world

Their most popular VTuber Tokino-Sora. She debuted in September 2017 and their business started.

Now they have 50 VTubers, and the total number of YouTube and Bilibili fans has exceeded 15 million.

With the funds raised this time, they will strengthen VTubers support, further accelerate VTuber business overseas such as English-speaking countries, and develop new services of XR such as virtual show platform.

The world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 got over 500,000 visitors

Currently, all real-life events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, virtual world events are thriving.
Japanese VR startup HIKKY announced that the VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 they have been holding since April 29 got more than 500,000 visitors. It will be held until May 10, and they expect to eventually reach one million visitors.

Virtual Market is a creative festival in the VR world. 43 companies and 1400 general creators are exhibiting, and various virtual goods made by them are on sale. In addition, companies are promoting their real products in a virtual world. It's like a real trade show, but because it's a virtual world, the venues are ornately decorated.

See also:
The postponed movie Black Widow will participate in the VR Creative Festival

At this event, exhibitors and visitors can buy and sell various virtual goods, real clothes, PCs, etc. They can also ride the vehicles, watch the videos, walk the cities and enjoy communication. 
This is an event sponsored by a Japanese company, but users from various countries as well as Japan are visiting here. According to them, visitors say, "I feel as if I'm running around outdoors," "I can enjoy safely in a virtual world even under recent circumstances."

Exhibitors also said, "In the virtual world, customers can receive services from their homes without being affected by the coronavirus, and products are purchased." "Feedback not only from Japan but also from overseas users I was able to get it and felt the potential for a new market."

Below are the major companies exhibiting.

Audi Japan:

Visitors can test drive the virtual version of the electric car e-tron.

High-end department store Mitsukoshi

Fashion brand WEGO

Movie company TOHO Cinemas

Convenience store Seven-Eleven

Game company Square Enix

Virtual Market 4 is being held on VRChat and Virtual Cast until May 10.

Way to participate:
https://www.v-market.work/v4/access

New communication between artists and fans

Entertainment is one of the industries most affected by the spread of coronaviruses, and artists are trying to keep in touch with their fans. Bitfan, released by SKIYAKI is a mobile application that allows artists to easily create their own media for fans.

bitfan is an artist support platform with a monthly membership function and comment charge function. It can show timelines that aggregates the accounts of social networking services such as the artists' Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook pages. Also, it has automatic translation functions, it can support multiple languages.
 The platform has only artists and their fans, so there's no noise such as anti-comments and fans can check out their favorite artists' information in a cozy community. Also, when fans check out the artists' contents, play tunes in Spotify, or buy "hearts" and post to the contents, they accumulate as points. And Fans can redeem the points that they have accumulated through the support activities of the artists for various benefits.
In addition, artists can sell their official merchandise and tickets here, so they can use it even after the coronavirus pandemic is over. The application is free to download(iOS/Android).

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science opened VR museum

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science opened VR museum "THE WILDLIFE MUSEUM" to displaying 3D models of valuable stuffed mammals.

The stuffed mammals they carry are very popular, and the hall where they are exhibited is well received by many visitors. Most of these stuffed animals were donated to them by Watson T. Yoshimoto(1909～2004), a Japanese American businessman in Hawaii. There are about 400 of these, so all of them cannot be displayed, and they are usually kept in the specimen storage and are not open to the public.

Nowadays, they are also temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the popular stuffed animals' hall is closed. So they develop a VR museum on VR platform "STYLY" of Psychic VR Lab. The exterior of the VR Museum is a design that reproduces the “WILD LIFE MUSEUM” that Yoshimoto built in Hawaii at his own expense in 1992.

However, the inside of the VR Museum is a magnificent natural landscape, where 24 stuffed animals are displayed. The stuffed animals are made by 3D scanning and you can watch it from any angle. It would be fun to watch with a flashlight in night mode. This is a viewing method that is impossible in a real museum. Of course, captions are attached to each stuffed animal.

You can browse THE WILDLIFE MUSEUM on PC web browsers or VR head mounted displays (Oculus Rift · Rift S / HTC VIVE / Oculus Quest).

Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen

Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen in an investment round led by venture capital ANRI.

VARK is a platform for virtual artists to hold shows and is like a VR club. It supports Oculus Quest, Oculus Go and PlayStation VR, and the application is free to download. Every time the show is held, fans of the virtual artists will purchase virtual tickets and enter the venue of the VR world just like a real show. They held first show on Christmas Eve 2018 and have held shows for various virtual artists so far. Recently, musicals have also been performed.



They have also begun to support real-life artists who have been unable to hold shows due to the coronavirus pandemic. So far, they have held shows of virtual artists, but in the future they want to virtualize real artists and bring them to the VR world.
The funds they raised will focus on developing new features and recruiting new talent.

Local-limited Pokemon goods can be mail-ordered now

Pokemon is implementing a local economic promotion project called "Pokemon Local Act" in Japan. It is a project that appeals to the charm of Pokemon and the regions of Japan, and in cooperation with the local companies, and sell Pokemon collaboration products limited to each regions.

Usually these products are not sold online. Because Pokemon staff and local companies are hoping that Pokemon fans will actually come to the regions, feel the charm of it and buy collaboration products. In other words, this project is a tourism promotion project, and local Pokemon products are only sold in each regions.
However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, people are now unable to leave their homes. So local companies have decided to sell Pokemon collaboration products on online.
Currently, Pokemon products of Hokkaido, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tottori and Kagawa are sold online.

Products list:
https://local.pokemon.jp/info/ec2020.html

Unfortunately they don't support international shipping, but once the coronavirus pandemic has ended, please go on a trip to these regions and buy local Pokemon products.

"The local power is awesome!"