Hearing aid with 3D sensor and AI

A hearing aid is a gadget that supports the hearing of the ear. However, Starkey's smart hearing aid Livio AI offers more features than traditional hearing aids.

It has AI-controlled hearing aids and works to reduce the noise if your surroundings are loud. It also has a health tracking function that measures your body and brain health in your daily life. Because the deafness is one of the cognitive functions, it works closely with the brain. In addition, it has a fall detection notification function, so it can be used as a watching gadget for elderly families. If you are interested in international exchange, the real-time voice translation function that support 27 languages this will help. The price is very expensive at 630,000 yen(The hearing aid itself is tax exempt). However, it also has many features like headphones, such as wireless streaming of phones, music and media, etc., and is very versatile.
The target users are mild to severe deaf people, and the warranty period is 3 years.

via https://www.starkeyjp.com/blog/2019/05/livio-announcement

Supercell's new mobile game Clash Royale holds a fan meeting event in Tokyo

Supercell does promotion activity well in Japan. They got the popularity in cooperation with Japanese advertising agencies, media and partners. As a result, they gathered many fans in Tokyo Game Show 2015.

See Also:
Supercell exhibits the decent booth and It was supported by fans in Tokyo Game Show 2015

Next, they hold a fan meeting event of their new mobile game Clash Royale in Akihabara, Tokyo on April 16 in cooperation with game community Lobi.

Lobi is the game community and chat service that Japanese Web service / contents production company Kayac runs. They started the offer of the fan meeting event held service for game developers in Lobi. Developers can announce the fan meeting event of their games in community of Lobi. Kayac supports developers, in charge of the administration of the event, live streaming, the writing of the event report article in Lobi.

Supercell's Clash Royale is the first example of this service. They invite only 80 participants by lot in Lobi. The entrance fee is free, but it is a fierce battle! The event is carried out in e- sports form and shown in Youtube Lobi channel.

event info
https://web.lobi.co/blog/news/42ff7c090327b1da67f7c9fbad6d2635c27ae6cc

LINE sticker finding new talent. Even 7-year-old kids

Japanese tech media ITmedia shows a cool episode.

LINE Creators Market is the market place that users of message application LINE can sell with own illustrations as a LINE sticker. Many housewives, students and office workers draw LINE stickers as a hobby and a side business in Japan. Most of them do not receive education about the art.

Hanaka of a 7 years old girl living in Tokyo is one in them. She draws illustrations of the cuttlefish, and it was used by celebrities and became the unexpected topic.

It will be difficult to devise the design of one set/40 kinds of LINE sticker even in adults. However, Hanaka says "it was easy". Hanaka draws illustrations well in home and a school and they are popular among her classmates and neighboring adults. Her father thinks that the illustrations of his daughter are interesting and he wanted to send them to relatives with a messenger. However, LINE Creators Market opened in this February. He knows it and thought to make illustrations of his daughter LINE sticker. He says "I only wanted to show off my daughter's illustrations. It's doting parents".

Hanaka's cuttlefish sticker was sold in LINE Creators Market on April 17. Her relatives and friends purchased it at first, but popular model Yura talked in Twitter about using Hanaka's stickers in the beginning of June. In August, popular pop singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu used these. too.

良すぎてプロデューサー本人にLINEしてしまった、、、 pic.twitter.com/cdMVw8EWkK
— きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (@pamyurin) August 17, 2014

Furthermore, the uncle of Hanaka Taisuke Fukuno(He is CEO of Japanese tech startup jig.jp) wrote an article about her sticker on his blog, and the reaction spread more.

As a result of these, she earns 10,000 yen(about 9.5USD), and bought a cool bicycle. She is full of creative enthusiasm, and she makes the octopus sticker now.

via http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1409/05/news057.html

Japanese writer carried out super cool projection mapping for ass

Japanese comedy site Omocoro always shows interesting articles. In them, the article shown today is the coolest. It is Ass-Projection Mapping "Ketsu-jection Mapping". (Ketsu means ass in Japanese slang)

Japanese writer ARuFa thought that the projection mapping had further possibility and arrived at an answer called "ass". His novel idea produced a cool work.

ARuFa writes various interesting articles in his blog and Omocoro. You might have watched the fart cannon and the beautiful girl shower head which he made.

via http://omocoro.jp/kiji/30703/

The Japanese personifies everything, even heavy equipment

Battleships, samurai swords, castles, sushi...I wrote various articles about the personification in the Japanese games(Please search "personifies" in this blog). However, a newer personification game came up. DMM(they publish personification sea fight simulation game Kan Colle) and Marvelous announced the new PC browser game "Ole Tower ～Over Legend Endless Tower～"(俺タワー ～Over Legend Endless Tower～).
*Ole Tower(俺タワー) means My Tower

Ole Tower is tower construction simulation game. Players collect various heavy equipments and tools, and build a own tower with them... but all of them are cute girls. For example...

She is a Crawler crane.

She is a Loader.

She is a Dump truck.

She is a mini-Excavator.

She is a Hammer.

Now, They accept pre-registration and Forklift truck is given as a privilege to players who pre-registered.

Paul McCartney becomes cute in LINE's virtual world LINE PLAY

Now, Paul McCartney comes to Japan to hold shows. He held a live tour in Japan a half year ago and collaborated with LINE.

See Also:
Paul McCartney cooperates with LINE in promotion

He tries promotion this time with LINE. They use avatar and virtual world for smartphones "LINE PLAY" this time.

LINE opened Paul McCartney room in LINE PLAY on May 15. There reproduces a his studio in London.

This room have an avatar of Paul McCartney, and he meets LINE users.

 Users can play with furniture items, read secret blog and try Gacha(Capsule toys vending machine).

Fashion items, musical instruments, furniture, artwork of Abbey Road etc... The virtual goods of 21 kinds are sold in Gacha. These are designed all cutely! I think that this is more effective than LINE sticker.

By the way, LINE PLAY broke through 15M users this month. They overtake Ameba Pigg(15.9M users) soon

When Bitcoin came to Japan, it became like this

Bitcoin is becoming the topic in Japan. There are a lot of blog and Web media which comments on Bitcoin, and even TV news reports it. They are few, but Tokyo has the bars which can pay in Bitcoin. Unfortunately the Japanese books about Bitcoin have not been yet published, but it will be a matter of time.
By the way, Japan's Finemotion Co,Ltd. performs the interesting Bitcoin support project. It is the Japanese proud skill "Personification".

She is Bitcoin-chan. When Bitcoin came to Japan, it became like this! :) They support Bitcoin by making free Manga, free illustrations, widget and goods. widget displays the realtime price of Bitcoin on your blog.

(C)Bitcoin-chan Project Bitcoin-chan Widget

You can watch a lot of her images in a project site.

News Flash:Japanese mobile game Puzzle & Dragons cooperates with Angry Birds

Japan's GungHo seems to be considerably interested in a Finnish mobile game market. According to the blog of Rovio, Japanese mobile game Puzzle & Dragons cooperates with Angry Birds. Well, it's their usual "Cross-Collaboration". The Angry Birds themed limited-time dungeon will be available in Puzzle & Dragons from November 18th - December 1st.

I think this to be a good opportunity and timing. Puzzle & Dragons is popular so as to break through 20 million downloading in Japan. However, in abroad, there is not the popularity like Japan. In addition, the growth rate in Japan is slowing down, too. Probably tens of millions of downloading are limits in a Japanese market of a population of 120 million people. On the other hand, unfortunately Angry Birds does not have popularity in Japan. The ranking is low and the goods do not sell, too (About the goods, probably because there are too many rivals in Japan. Like a LINE characters and Nameko). This Cross-Collaboration is carried out in global. This will be a good chance raising each other's recognition.

By the way, it is the second time that Puzzle & Dragons cooperates with a Finnish mobile game.

See Also:
Big tie-up: Japan's GungHo cooperates with Finland's Supercell by each other's games

After this, what happened to Supercell? Current Masayoshi Son can really carry it out.

See Also:
Son brothers conquered the Finnish and Japanese mobile game industry

Japanese little-known heavy metal band Ningen-Isu became the topic in Twitter triggered by Ozzfest Japan

On May 11 and 12, Ozzy Osbourne's heavy metal festival OzzFest Japan was held in Chiba, Makuhari messe. This is the first time that Ozzfest is held in Japan, and drew crowds of 20,000 fans on each day. Press release of Ozzfest is here.

Japanese bands appeared with many international bands on both days. Among them, there was the band which became the topic in the Japanese Internet conspicuously. The name is Ningen-Isu(人間椅子).

Most of overseas metalers seems to not know them. On the contrary, Japanese metalers did not know much them, too. However, they are expert bands reaching the activity 25th anniversary in this year.

They did major debut in 1989. In those days, Japan was an enthusiastic band boom, and they became in great demand for TV programs and events(besides, Japan was a panic because of prosperity in those days).



Later, however, the dark 90s came. The economy suddenly worsened, and the band boom ended with it. Record label threw them out because of the recession, they transferred to indies label and continued being active, but entered the long slump period. Overseas metalers will know that the 90s was the winter times for hard rock and heavy metal. The mass media completely ignored them, and they were not placed in even the music magazine. They became extremely poor, and the drummer withdrawal occurred successively.

However, they continued being active steadily while working part-time, released albums constantly and continued gigs. And the people who reevaluated them from the mid-2000s increased. What happened at this time? Well..., Web 2.0 movements. Their fans shared their information on various social media. Youtube in particular contributed. Their cool numbers and superior performance spread all over the world by Youtube and attracted young metalers and overseas metalers. This cover of King Crimson is really AWESOME!



They are influenced by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Budgie and other great hard rock band of 70s basically, incorporate Japanese folk music with doom/stoner sound, and write intellectual lyrics about classical literature, philosophy, Buddhism, Lovecraft Mythos, Japanese folk tale and Japanese horror tale. Their style may resemble Pagan Metal, but most people who listened to their numbers say "They are Japanese Black Sabath".  It was important that they appeared in Ozzfest in not only the career of their own but also the Japanese metal industry.

Thus, the stage in Ozzfest Japan of Ningen-Isu began. Their show was only 30 minutes, but it was really splendid! And the Twitter erupted just after that. The timeline of #OzzfestJapan(or #オズフェス) overflowed in Tweets which praised their show and it did not stop all the time. There were English Tweets of foreign audiences in them, too. Then, Ningen-Isu(人間椅子) became the trendy word of Twitter at last. It was the moment when many metalers rediscovered Ningen-Isu.

This is just after the show end that the staff of Ningen-Isu photographed.

After Ozzfest Japan was over, the praise to them continues. More than 30 news sites show their article, Tweets mentioning them still increasing, and their CDs ran low in Amazon.co.jp.
I think that this is current music industry. The fashion of the former music industry was influenced by TV, radio, magazine and newspaper. The artist ignored in them become nameless. However, social media make the fashion of the music industry now. It is democratization of the music industry. They showed the power of social media with themselves.

However, unfortunately the usage of social media of their and their label TOKUMA Japan is VERY POOR. The official site is only Japanese and does not support a smartphone. They have neither the Facebook page nor the Twitter account. There is barely the official blog, but is only Japanese. In the first place even iTunes is only Japan. They do not have social media literacy and global expansion ability. It is a serious opportunity loss. If you want to get their information and works by a language except the Japanese from the foreign countries, let's petition TOKUMA Japan by e-mail(mail form is only Japanese, too! F**K! Please use the translation tool).

By the way, They releases new album "Mandoro(萬燈籠)" on August 7. The price is 3000yen. "Mandoro" is a dialect of Tohoku , Japan, and meaning "Very bright"(Its original meaning is "10,000 lanterns") . The reservation of this began in Amazon.co.jp. Afterwards, the tour in Japan is held until from September 12 ~ 30. The tickets are not yet sold.

-Tour schedule-
September 12 Sapporo Bessie Hall
September 15 Aomori quarter
September 16 Sendai enn2nd
September 20 Hakata DRUM Be-1
September 21 Kumamoto DRUM Be-9 V-1
September 23 Osaka ROCK TOWN
September 24 Kobe Chicken George
September 26 Nagoya Electric Lady Land
September 29 Shibuya O-WEST
September 30 Shibuya O-WEST

These are the Youtube videos which TOKUMA Japan showed in a hurry. These numbers were played in Ozzfest Japan(Videos are before Ozzfest Japan).






If you like them, search "Ningen-Isu" or "人間椅子" in Youtube. Other photos of Ozzfest Japan are here.

LINE became the company name

NHN Japan, operator of Japanese popular messaging application LINE divided a company into 2 from April 1. They are NHN Japan and LINE. Well, LINE became the company name at last.

LINE Corp. set them mind to LINE, social curation service NAVER Matome and blog service livedoor blog. And NHN Japan devotes itself to a game.

This is important to LINE. NHN Japan is a subsidiary of Korea's NHN. Therefore many overseas sites introduce LINE when it is Korean messaging apps. In addition, there are the people who recognize that LINE is Korean apps, and don't use it in Japan8Unfortunately there are the people who discriminate a Korean and Korea in Japan). However, actually, LINE is developed in Japan. It is a good opportunity to appeal to them for it that LINE became the company name.

Nameko came to Oomagari, Akita!

Today, I went to huge shopping mall AEON Oomagari to meet Nameko.

I already wrote it several times about Nameko(Please search "Nameko" in this blog). His popularity is still crazy in Japan. Therefore the suit which reproduced him goes on a trip to the all over Japan.

KAWAII!!
Akita is the very poor country. First, I was skeptical about popularity of Nameko in Akita. However, it was imaginary fears.

Many people equalled a long line to photograph a souvenir photo with Nameko.

Nameko is drawn on the signboard of the shop. The staff of this shop is good at an illustration! :)

Furthermore, there was a crane game of Nameko in the game arcade, and this was extreme popularity, too. 1 time of crane game is 100 yen(about 1.1USD). Because too many people played this, the stuffed toys of Nameko have run low immediately. I played this, too, but unfortunately I have failed :(

List of Japanese social game platforms

Yesterday, I wrote that Japan had 23 social game platforms now. This post is those list.

FC2 GAME(Start: Unknown)
I don't know when this began. This is a mobile social game platform of FC2 providing various Web Service. A lot of porno social games are included in the games. Of course they are adult only.

d Game(Start: December, 2012)
It's a mobile social game platform of Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo. Only DoCoMo mobile users are available.

Bushimo(Start: December, 2012)
It's a social game platform for smartphones of Japanese Treading card and game maker Bushiroad. All games are released as a native apps.

Mobcast(Start: November, 2012)
This is a mobile social game platform specialized in sports.

Gesoten(Start: July, 2012)
It's a social game platform for PCs which a Japanese GMO group runs.

LINE GAME(Start: July, 2012)
The explanation will be already unnecessary. It's a game platform of Japanese popular messaging apps LINE. Especially, "LINE POP" is  popular, and it broke through 10M download.

Ameba(Start: June, 2012)
Ameba is the social networking service that a CyberAgent runs. It has blog service of the biggest in Japan "Ameblo" and popular virtual world "Ameba Pigg". In addition to them, they began the social game platform for smartphones more.

Yamada Game(Start: June, 2012)
Household appliance general merchandising store Yamada Denki began the offer of the social game for membership site for mobile.

moeG(Start: May, 2012)
This may be Japanese-style service. It is the mobile social game platform of the porn specialty. Furthermore, the porn avatar is available. Of course this is adult only.

TSUTAYA.com kiwi(Start: March, 2012)
Major video rental chain TSUTAYA started the offer of the social game in a membership site for mobile.

BLobby(Start: March, 2012)
This is Japanese-style service, too. It's a mobile social game platform for women, and dating sim and BL games are contributed. What BL? BL is abbreviation of "Boys Love". The details is here.

entag!(Start: January, 2012)
Originally, this was one of the social networking service for mobile. However, they performed a renewal for smartphones and made it open.

DMM(Start: January, 2012)
DMM is VoD service and video rental company, but they are known mainly in porn video. They began a social game platform for mobile, As a matter of course, the most of the game are adult only.

Colopl(Start: August, 2011)
Colopl is first Japanese geolocation mobile social game that started on 2003, but the mobile social game platform started, too. All the games that a third party developed are geolocation mobile social games.

WAKUWAKU Mail(Start: May, 2011)
Originally WAKUWAKU Mail was a dating  messaging service. However, they became the social networking service for mobile and made it open more.

NICONICO Appli(Start: December, 2010)
This is a social game platform for PCs of popular video sharing site NICONICO DOUGA. Users can play a game while watching video.

pixiv mobile(Start: November, 2010)
This is a social game platform of the popular illustration social networking service pixiv mobile ver. This is available only in futurephone for the moment.

Yahoo! Mobage(Start: September, 2010)
This is a social game platform for PCs which Yahoo! Japan and DeNA run jointly.

Hangame(Start: July, 2010)
Hangame was the well-established online game portal site which NHN Japan ran, but transformed myself into a social game platform. By the way, NHN Japan runs LINE GAME, too. How will these be discriminated in future?

aima(Start: July, 2010)
aima is unique service. They bring a social game platform into various sites.

GREE(Start: June, 2010)
The explanation will be already unnecessary. However, unexpectedly CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka said in CEDEC 2009, "GREE does not accept the games of the third party. Because quality control is not possible in ourself." Flexibility is necessary for a leader.

Mobage(Start: January, 2010)
The explanation will be already unnecessary, too. Originally Mobage was game portal site for futurephones. The origin of the title is "Mobile(Mobairu) and Game(Gemu)". However, themselves developed all games before becoming the social game platform.

mixi(Start: April, 2009)
mixi became the social game platform for the first time in Japan. However, unfortunately it was overtaken by Mobage and GREE. Where would they take the wrong way?

There is big characteristic on a Japanese social game platform. Those most support mobile. Furthermore, most of those are specialized in mobile. Only Yahoo! Mobage, NICONICO Appli and Gesoten do not do mobile support at all(But it may be said that Yahoo! Mobage is a PC ver. of Mobage). In Japan, it becomes the common sense to play the social game in mobile. However, it is too a red ocean. Of these, how many will it be the number of to survive 3 years later?

I made "Nameko" figure

I wrote articles about Japanese popular smartphone game apps "Nameko Saibai(Mushroom Garden　a.k.a. Funghi Gardening Kit)" several times until now.


Japan is filled with the goods of Nameko now. However, we must make the thing which we want with oneself heartily. Therefore I made figure of Nameko.

Named "Miso soup of Nameko". The wooden bowl is genuine. Nameko is made by epoxy pate, and the miso soup is made by epoxy resin. The tofu which is in the miso soup are made by paper clay.

The articles of all making are placed in my blog media "vsmedia".

No.1
http://vsmedia.info/2012/10/02/nameko_figure1/
No.2
http://vsmedia.info/2012/10/08/nameko_figure2/
No.3
http://vsmedia.info/2012/12/11/nameko_figure3/

All of they are written in Japanese, but you may understand a process if you watch photos.
Here is the photos of all processes. Here is the photos of all processes(The thing which I did not use for articles are included).
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.497018096994212.125632.195197613842930&type=1&l=e28897ed22