episode #002 – Japan's NetFlix Clones, Vocaloids, Free iPhone Japanese dictionary show notes

We started the show with teiten.org which just captures images from your webcam and uploads it to a web site for everyone to view. If you want to see Japanese people (probably web designers) working at their desk, check out the site. None of us at messaliberty are on their (yet).

Then we talked about the Japanese Netflix clones Tsutaya’s Discas and DMM.com
We wondered how long it would take to get online streaming video services here in Japan where 100Mbit broadband is common and 1GBit home connections are available.

And then we discussed the digital tv transition which is due to take place in 2011. We aren’t sure if we will get digital convertor box coupons, but Hiro is probably going to buy a new TV before then. Maybe the government is counting on us all buying new tv sets before 2011.

The next topic was the newest netbook on the market, the Sony P series. A very thin and light netbook that looks like it was designed from the ground up and not just resized to a netbook form factor. Hiro noted the highlight? of the initial marketing campaign being that you could put it in your back pocket. And we talked about the other computing devices that you could do the same with :p

Although not strictly a computing device, the Kindle2 was our next topic. And how we could in theory use it in Japan (or any country outside the US) just without whispernet.

Nico video and vocaloids and the culture behind making music and music videos using vocaloids. We compared it to Microsoft’s songsmith which is a music generation program but which approaches it from a different angle.

We ended the program with some fan mail from Andreas who recommended a great free iPhone dictionary, Kotoba!