Name Kingdom - Free browser game that battle by the family names

Japan has about 300,000 kinds of family names, and this is the second place of the world(By the way, the first place is US and the third place is Finland). Therefore the big data inflection entertainment TV program "Data Navi" of Japanese public broadcasting NHK released the free funny browser game "Name Kingdom" using the big data of Japanese family names. You can play this by both of PC and smartphones.

This is casual game that players fight against enemy characters of each Japanese prefecture by power of own family name.

At first we input own family name. You can input an imaginary family name if you don't like inputting the real name. But it must be a kanji(漢字), and only kanji four characters can input.

Then, we choose own native prefecture. Each prefecture have characters associated with the area, but all of them are funny.

This game displays the number of the family names every each prefecture by ranking. In addition, the family names express regionality in Japan. For example, Okinawa(沖縄)'s general family name is rare in other prefectures, because originally Okinawa was an independent kingdom called Lewchew(Luchu or Loochoo: 琉球). The family names established for the kingdom era are used in current Okinawa. We can know the regionality of family names in this game. By the way, Akita that is my native prefecture was a place of banishment of nobles in the Heian era(平安時代), and escape of loser warriors in the Sengoku era(戦国時代). So there are many family names in conjunction with them. My ancestors were loser warrior, too, but the detailed data did not come out because unfortunately my family name "Komoriya(籠谷)" was too rare and was the minority.

In the battle, we put kanjis together, make family names and hit them on enemies. The majority family names of own prefecture   have strong power and can give enemies much damage. It is a key of the victory whether you choose what kind of kanjis before a time limit, and you make what kind of family names. We can see data of the family names that each other used for attacks during battles.

This is an interesting inflection example of big data. If you learn in Japanese, in particular kanjis, this is a pleasant casual game. You will come across many Japanese strange family names here.

Amazon.co.jp delivers Buddhist monks to families holds memorial services

Minrebi, Japan’s end-of-life startup, started service to dispatch a Buddhist monks to families who holds Buddhist memorial services. Its platform is Amazon.co.jp.

Funerals and memorial services have various complicated traditions. In former Japan, any families had a temple in the neighborhood, and were close to monks. Therefore they could ask them the tradition of funerals and memorial services lighthearted. However, after rapid economic growth, urbanization advances and nuclear families increase, the village communities declines, and the bond of families and temples was lost because of them.

Minrebi dispatches monks to families without the interchange with the temple in flat rate. If monk only recite a sutra in home, cemetery or ceremony hall, the rate is 35,000 yen(about $280) in any location in Japan.  Furthermore, rates are 45,000 - 65,000 yen by service contents of monk. Ex, monk recite sutras in plural places, and  grants a posthumous Buddhist name to the deceased. Buddhism has various denominations, but even if families are any denominations, they can invite monks corresponding to it.

It is still rare that a manpower dispatch service using Amazon is offered in Japan. This is very interesting service. Even if a bond of families and monks is cut off, the new Internet business can tie it again.

Sakezemi- The apps that can learn correct knowledge about the Japanese liquor

Nihonsyu(日本酒: means Japanese liquor in Japanese) is called Sake(酒: means General liquor in Japanese in foreign countries, and Unfortunately its correct knowledges are not known to foreign people. Sakezemi may change the situation. Sakezemi is a mobile apps that can learn correct knowledge about the Japanese liquor. Originally this was the media which sent charm of the Japanese liquor to Japanese young women. However, the substantial columns which it had attracted users except women also. Therefore they started English support for the first of their global expansion. You can know how to drink Japanese liquor more than 160 brands by changing language setting of the apps to English. Download is free(iOS/Android).

COMIC CON goes to Japan in 2016. The promoter is Steve Wozniak

COMIC MARKET、WONDER FRSTIVAL...etc... Japan has a lot on events for Otaku, but a new event add in 2016. It is COMIC CON. Steve Wozniak, the promoter announced that they held TOKYO COMIC CON 2016 at Chiba Makuhari Messe in December 3~4, 2016.

In TOKYO COMIC CON, panel discussions and talk show about Manga, Anime, Cos-Play, Movie are performed. In addition, the sale of collector's items, photo sessions, and the autograph sessions are held, too. Furthermore, they pay attention to the field of contents production technology, and tech-related companies and celebrities such as robots and smartphones participate in it. TOKYO COMIC CON seems to be fusion of Otaku event and the Tech event.

The wedding bouquet which the colors are changed to by apps

Japanese startup digifla announced wedding bouquet "LED Designable Wedding Bouquet" which could design colors by mobile application.

The bouquet has LEDs, users can control them using application and Bluetooth and change colors. It is available for the illuminations design that change of colors, for example, in the case of dress change, users can change the color of the bouquet to the color of the dress. Furthermore, it is available as interior of the new home because it does not die like real flower. Application can save the color designs and can use them repeatedly. They start the sale of this on February 8, 2016. In addition, they offer the production kit of this for flower designers and companies also.

Let's operate toys with dry cell-shaped IoT gadget

Usually, we cannot operate minicars, railroad models and stuffed toys working in dry cells. However, it is enabled if we use this dry cell-shaped IoT gadget MaBeee.

It has a shape of the size AA battery and can attach it to toys by setting a size AAA battery. It links to iOS application and Bluetooth, when users shake the iPhone/iPad and incline them, toys begin to move. We can operate toys by buttons displayed on mobile screen, volume of the voice, and distance with toys also. This is crowdfunding project and have already collected development costs 8 times as large as an aim. It still have two months until the deadline and you can reserve this for 3,888 yen~. It is released in April, 2016.

Halal Japanese food recipe site for Muslims

Japanese startup Tsutau opened recipe site HALAL RECIPES JAPAN of the haral Japanese food which Muslims can eat.

All the Japanese food recipes introduced in HALAL RECIPES JAPAN are arranged for Muslims, and of course pork and alcohol ingredients are deleted. Brief snacks, home-cooked meals, meat dishes, vegetable dishes, fish dishes, noodles, rice dishes, soup, dessert, etc... recipes of the most dishes which are generally eaten in Japan are placed. Furthermore, it has soup stock, miso, the sleeve notes of basic seasonings such as the soy sauce. Users having allergies can search recipes without the wheat flour, milk, and egg. It is a site written in Japanese, but you can change it to Arabic, Indonesian, Thai, Tamil, French, Bengali, Malay, English, Chinese by an automatic translation function of Google translation.

Unfortunately there are few Muslims in Japan, and halal foods are not common. Tsutau aims at spreading understanding to halal foods in Japan by opening HALAL RECIPES JAPAN.