Hasta La Gadget!

Though Wendy’s of course left Japan late last year they did not leave by choice — their franchisee just decided not to continue the brand — and they may, like Burger King, make a return. Burger chains, especially market leader McDonald’s, are in fact going strong, with the fast food industry enjoying a 3.1% jump in Japan last year.

Kentucky Fried Chicken had some 86.8 billion JPY ($963 million) in sales for fiscal 2008, and this winter celebrates forty years in Japan with a big, multi-media, Japanese-style campaign.

Alongside TV commercials and product offers, KFC has made a special Flash site to encourage people to “集まれ” (”get together”). Clearly this is a slogan that appeals to the Japanese market, with its group mentality (and food-obsessed) consumers. Users can post onto the site their plans to get together with friends and pop to Kentucky’s. These posts are shown on a map of Japan complete with the number of people going in the group, a short phrase (”My first KFC of the year!”), and sometimes photos.

The campaign rounds out with a lottery applied for by mobile, promising to reward forty people with a cute Ayaka Haruse doll (the actress also appears in the TV CMs).

We do have misgivings about this campaign. It is running right across February and March, thus covering both Valentine’s Day and White Day (March 14). Though getting people to gather and share their KFC love is one thing, it certainly doesn’t have a romantic vibe. This campaign will doubtlessly prove popular with KFC fans but is unlikely to capture the hearts of consumers eager at this time of year to be buying chocolates.

Get to it N97 owners. In addition to your free Ovi Maps, Nokia just let loose firmware version 21.0.045 that promises to improve call reliability and internet browsing while smoothing out the jumpiness some have seen with kinetic scrolling introduced in v20. It’s available now via a Nokia Software Update tether if you just can’t wait for it to be set free over the air. As always, let us know how it goes in the comments.

N97 firmware update v21.0.045 ready to download originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On March 11th, Microsoft will kick out its 250GB external hard drive to the good people of Japan; notable, as the first time that this 250GB drive has been sold anywhere outside of a new console bundle. The slab of external magnetic storage is set to cost ¥15,540 or about $172 should it ever ship Stateside. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn’t revealing its plans for that at the moment while conceding the need for more local storage for content such as software, TV shows, and movies downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace. In other words, you’ll get your storage bump… someday.

Xbox 360 Hard Drive accessory bumped to 250GB in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on May 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

Some of the best software available originates from open source projects (i.e. Linux, and Firefox) where peers contribute and review the software in development. These projects give programmers the opportunity to change programs to suit their needs which also opens the door for a lot of customization.

One way that you can keep up-to-date with Open Source software is a website called SWiK.  SWiK is a project of Sourcelabs, and they’re a community driven resource for Open Source software.  Users come and document the open-source software that they’re familiar with, and then everybody benefits from their knowledge.  SWiK relies heavily on the community, and without the users, SWiK wouldn’t exist.

It’s like Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, and Digg all mixed into one, but it’s just for anything related with Open Source projects. The great thing about SWiK is that it showcases all of the hard work that people have put into their Open Source projects. If you’re unfamiliar with Open Source projects and you’d like to find and discover new ones, this is the perfect place to start.

Features:

• Tags are a big part of SWiK. All of their content is organized using Tags, so it’s a key element.
• Digg-like element where people can submit stories regarding open-source software.
• RSS: Subscribe to your favorite projects.
• Feeds can be s

There’s not a lot of content that makes it to this site on a daily basis, maybe one or two new items per day. However this is nice because then you’re not over-whelmed with new content- it’s just enough.

Get involved:

Getting involved at SWiK is really easy. One way is by adding an open-source project that hasn’t been added yet.  Another option is by editing already added projects with new/updated information. If you know something that hasn’t been added, add it (much like Wikipedia)!

Another important feature is the search.  If you’re looking for new projects, you can use the tag feature to search. You can also search by Tags in a cloud-view, or just use the search box.

Wrapping it up:

While SWiK is not the most active community out there, it serves its purpose – to allow people to share information about open source projects. If you’ve come across a great project that you weren’t quite sure how to make the most of, visit SWiK and see if there’s a page for it that might give you more details.

Pages of Interest:

• Linux on SWiK
• Ajax on SWiK
• Mozilla on SWiK

Visit SWiK: http://swik.net

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Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryLinspire Plans To Release Freespire In AugustOpen Source Alternatives to Software You UseMicrosoft Shows Compassion to Open Source CommunityGoogle Sponsors Photoshop Compatibility on Linux

Controller-type devices baked into wearables have been around since the late 17th century (though we can’t seem to recall one in particular that was made before Nintendo’s Power Glove), but frankly, we haven’t seen a whole lot of innovation in this department over the past few years. Deanmark’s AirMouse is hoping to change all of that, but if we didn’t know any better, we’d say Microsoft kind of called this concept first. Anywho, the strap-on mouse — which doesn’t seem to boast any sort of price or release date — attaches on one’s wrist and fingers in order to place sensors on areas where you’d normally mouse. Naturally, the company claims that this approach helps fend of repetitive stress injuries and also enables a new level of multitasking, but until doctors start gluing these things to our hands at birth, we get the feeling that most folks will simply stick to what they know when it comes to cursor pushing.

Deanmark’s AirMouse looks more like a ragged glove, less like an input peripheral originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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