Hasta La Gadget!

It won’t have escaped your attention that just about every Honeycomb tablet shipping in the first half of this year features, or will feature, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 hardware. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, reception for the Android 3.0 slates has been a little underwhelming, and the company’s Chief Eloquence Officer, Jen-Hsun Huang, has had a few words to say about it. He sees the relative paucity of tablet-optimized Android apps as a weakness, while also expressing the belief that cheaper WiFi-only models should’ve been the standard shipping config rather than fully fledged 3G / 4G variants as Motorola has been pushing with the Xoom. All in all, his is a very sane and accurate analysis, but Mr. Huang loves to look to the future as much as he enjoys talking about the present, and in his opinion all these major downsides have already been “largely addressed” by “a new wave” of Android tablets. He doesn’t specify the devices that constitute said wave, but his emphasis on thinness and lightness leads us to believe he’s talking up Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 models. Hit the source links to read more from the bronzed stallion in charge of NVIDIA.

NVIDIA CEO disappointed by Android tablet sales, blames pricing and poor app selection originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 May 2011 20:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is the first column in a new biweekly series introducing newsletter content provided by our local research partners, INterRIDE Inc..

Mobile GPS apps

2010 saw several social media GPS apps join the bulging ranks of digital tools already out there for Japanese consumers. International names like Facebook’s Places — launched in Japan last September as its first market outside of the U.S. — and Foursquare were joined by the likes of local giant mixi also offering their own version of geo-fun. Mixi’s Check In was used 2 million times in its first month alone, indicating the strong potential for these services.

Japanese GPS services can currently be categorized as map-style apps (e.g. Navitime), “spot” or site-searching apps (Hot Pepper FooMoo), gaming apps (CoroPura), or the newer SNS apps (including Tou.ch).

The local growth isn’t surprising when set against the overall global advance of geo-services, predicted to continue expanding until 2014 and reach $134 billion. Advertising on GPS services was a mere $2 billion back in 2009 but is expected to increase to some $59 billion by 2014.

Last February saw another major release, RecoCheck by Recruit, which has information on over 4 million sites and integrates Twitter. It aims to be the number one service of its kind by March 2012. Yahoo!’s Loco, set for release in June, also promises to be the biggest in Japan and to push the market yet further.

However, as reported by SPiRE, GPS is still a minority interest for most consumers. In a survey of over ten thousand mobile phone users only 20% used the apps, of which the leader was the rather generic Google Map.

Lawson x GREE

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its Ponta loyalty card, convenience store chain Lawson launched a campaign with mobile game platform GREE’s virtual reality shop, Omeseya-san. Users collected digital items in order to complete their Ponta mascot-themed Lawson uniform avatar. Omeseya-san’s one million members had to get five items (including digital representations of Lawson products) to claim their prize.

Liberal Democratic Party

While last year Japan’s politicians tried to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, the Opposition Liberal Democratic Party (or Jiminto) took a different approach. In February they became the first local party to open an official Facebook page. Within four days a 1,000 people had “liked” the page; this has since grown to over 3,000. Not a lot but in proportion to the numbers of Facebook users who are LDP supporters it might be a large number indeed!

In an age where Presidents are announcing their bids for re-election via their Facebook pages this might not seem a radical move, but considering the opacity and intransigence of local politics, and the stolid growth of Facebook here, it’s an interesting development.

Osaifu Keitai for Smart Phones

As smart phone sales continue to prove healthy there will be innovations to localize them, or adapt other technology to work with them. This is especially true of popular Japanese mobile actions like reading QR codes, infra-red data transfer, and e-money functionality via FeliCa chips (osaifu keitai).

Previously mophie announced plans to create an add-on casing to the iPhone so that it could work with FeliCa readers, and Softbank more recently began selling a cruder solution in the form of “e-money stickers” that could be placed on your handset to allow it to connect with an e-money system like Waon or Edy.

Now BUG (pronounced as an acronym, not an insect) has developed the Smart Sound Touch system, where stores uses readers at the POS to allow even non-FeliCa-integrated smart phones to be scanned and read, to launch apps or connect to coupon websites. This ultimately means that smart phones will be able to offer loyalty programs and e-money services. (The readers apparently also work with FeliCa-integrated handsets too.) All the SST hardware requires now is for service providers to develop apps for consumers to download.

Following on the heels of the Ustream studio opened up last year, the mega popular Japanese video sharing site NicoNico Douga have just opened their own studio building headquarters in the heart of Harajuku. The building houses a first floor studio, a second floor cafe also with a live studio area and a third floor original goods shop.

The ground floor, closed off to the public, will be the main broadcasting location for the web channel, but the second floor 2525 cafe (2 and 5 being “ni” and “go” in Japanese) will also host regular events broadcasting directly from a small booth within the room for the public to watch.

Bound to be an attractive spot with the manga and anime crowds, the menu plays on some of the more popular regular programs on their channel. One of the more bizarre concoctions being the “Forest Fairy”, named after a character in the popular “Big Brother” series, made from a protein powder and banana mix. The staff are also dressed in a similar anime style although not quite as over the top as a traditional akihabara maid cafe for example.

There are also plenty of the stuffed mascot “Terebi Chan” lying around on the sofas to cuddle up to and some One Piece “gachapon” dispensers containing a variety of original items. The third floor shop also has a huge array of original goods ranging from Niconico fermented natto beans to Niconico umbrellas. The very cheery staff didn’t seem to mind the constant theme tune being played over and over in the shop either! The walls host some of the more famous anime designers signatures and there are a few special items on display that inspired various anime episodes.

The trend for online digital brands to open up physical third spaces is beginning to gain traction in Japan now. The spaces successfully act as a venue for fans to be drawn together and be drawn into the brand on an extra level. The cafe is located in Harakjuku and open from 11am-8pm.

Related Posts:

NicoNico Douga Harnesses Points for Tsunami Relief
Canned coffee manga for comic-loving salarymen
Station manga ad dispenses free comic book samples

Here’s a scenario: what if we told you that your next Kindle could be had for $25 less than retail? What if we told you it came from the rear of a nondescript white van? Or what if we told you that you’d first need to sign up for 842 email marketing scams? Thankfully, none of those scenarios are ones we’re looking to tell you about. Instead, we’re here to introduce you to the world’s first ad-supported Kindle, going on sale within Target and Best Buy locations for $114. That represents a gentle $25 savings compared to the price of today’s cheapest Kindle, but those 2500 pennies don’t come free — you’ll be asked to endure “advertisements on the bottom of the device’s home page and on its screen savers.” Furthermore, it sets a new precedent in the gadget arena that could very well carry over to ad-discounted tablets, netbooks, PMPs, and who knows what else. At this point, Buick, Olay and Visa will be advertising, and we get the impression that said list will bloom in due time. It’s hard to say just how intrusive they’ll be, but Kindle director Jay Marine seems to think that “customers are going to love it.”

We aren’t so sure. While it’s crystal clear that the general populace adores coupon cutting, it seems problematic to us to ship a pair of identical products that cost within $25 of one another and expect Joe Sixpack to grok the difference. In fact, we’re guessing that this will inevitably lead to consumer complaints from those who can’t figure out why their “on sale Kindle” isn’t nearly as enjoyable to read as “Bob’s Kindle… that he found during a sale.” At any rate, a demo of the new device displayed a screen saver deal “where customers would pay $10 for a $20 gift card to Amazon,” and while no ads will appear in e-books, there’s still “a clear advertisement” along the bottom of the home screen. All that said, here’s the key feature that Amazon’s seemingly overlooking: an option in the software to pay back the $25 a customer skimped on to do away with the ads on their ad-supported e-reader. Solves the buyer’s remorse problem, at least.

Update: And it’s official — PR’s after the break!

Continue reading Ad-supported Kindle to ship May 3rd: saves $25, includes lot of enticement

Ad-supported Kindle to ship May 3rd: saves $25, includes lot of enticement originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh man, is this the new version of Symbian? If so, it looks magical.

[Thanks, Jaris]

Continue reading Nokia sucks at Photoshop

Nokia sucks at Photoshop originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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