Pirated copies of Windows 7 on sale in China
Microsoft’s Windows 7 went on sale in Japan yesterday. When FTV filed a report about the product launch, they felt the need to inform everyone of the shocking fact that pirated copies of Windows 7 have been on sale for some time in China.
Even as this post was being written, their morning news shows were also announcing the sale of pirated copies of the OS in China as if it was as newsworthy as the product launch itself..
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Categories: Japanese TV
J Thang rap video
Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang transformed into a tribute to life in Japan:
[hat tip to Richard]
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Categories: General Japan
More info on the Amazon Kindle in Japan
The Japan Times has a good article up about the arrival of the Amazon Kindle in Japan and the condition of Japan’s e-book market:
Mikio Amaya, CEO of Papyless Co., which is a Tokyo-based e-book provider, said Japan has more publishers compared to the United States, so it is hard to gather content.
U.S. content-providers can collect a lot of content if they can convince five or six major publishers to work with them, Amaya said, adding there are more than 2,000 publishers in Japan, including about 50 major ones.
Despite these numbers, Japan’s e-book market has been growing.
According to Impress R&D, a Tokyo-based market researcher, Japan’s e-book market in fiscal 2008 saw sales of ¥46.4 billion, which is a 31 percent increase from the previous year.
In fiscal 2004, the market posted a mere ¥4.5 billion in sales.
Amaya, whose company sells more than 127,000 books, also pointed out that computerizing Japanese documents is both time-consuming and costly.
“The optical character-reader can read English better,” said Amaya, adding that Japanese has more characters due to its kanji system so documents have to be carefully checked by humans.
While Amazon seems confident about bringing Kindle to Japan, the device itself is not Japan’s first choice for reading e-books.
Impress said 86 percent of e-book sales went to cell phones in fiscal 2008, while much of the rest went to personal computers.
Amazon says it is hoping to convince Japanese publishers to star selling digital versions of their books. In the meantime, it would seem that the Kindle is unable to read Japanese characters. Testing has found that the existing unicode font hack for the Kindle 2 does not work on the new Kindle 2 International, although an updated hack will probably be released soon.
BlogKindle.com is reporting that Kindle International users in the UK have found that they are able to browser Wikipedia without any problems. Someone in Sweden has found out that they too can use the Kindle International to browse Wikipedia, but they are prevented from accessing anything other than English language Wikipedia articles.
Folks in Japan who pre-ordered the International wireless version of the Kindle should be getting it in the mail sometime in the next couple days. If anyone has already received it, please leave a comment on this post and share your experiences with its wireless browsing features!
Update: I Just noticed this comment in an Amazon.com discussion thread. A new Kindle owner in Japan says that he can avoid the international book price mark-up when browsing from a U.S. IP address:
I can now buy US content and choose to pay transfer fees or not – the key is my purchasing IP address. If I try from my home PC it will not work, if I use a computer from work (where our Internet Connection is routed via the US) it does work. So my assesment is that the CC billing has little to do with it, it is where Amazon think you physically are that seems to be key. The interesting thing now would be for a true US user to try placing an order from overseas and see if they get US or ínternational ‘pricing’. I will have to check with a friend on that.
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Categories: Books, Technology
Japanese get a chance to see dolphin hunt documentary
“The Cove” got its first screening in Japan the other day at the Tokyo International Film Festival. How did audiences react?
According to the AP, there were “mixed” reactions from Japanese viewers:
Junko Inoue, a resident of Saitama, north of Tokyo, said she found the final scene, where dozens of dolphins trapped in a hidden cove are speared by fishermen, turning the water blood red, “shocking.”
But she didn’t think the hunt should be stopped entirely. “There are a lot of cultural differences in people’s eating habits,” she said.
“Westerners say it’s OK to kill and eat cows, but not dolphins,” said Hiroshi Hatajima, a 42-year-old office worker from Tokyo. “That kind of special treatment isn’t going to register with a lot of Japanese. We have to eat animals to survive. It’s a cultural clash.”
The film, while well-made, “comes across as somewhat propaganda-like,” he said.
In an article about threats of legal action from the Taiji fisheries cooperative, the AFP also mentions some reactions from Japanese who attended the screening:
Comments in a question-and-answer session varied from revulsion at the graphic scenes of the dolphin slaughter in a secluded cove to a spirited defence of Japanese traditions and fishing and food habits.
“Although it’s a difficult issue as it involves fishermen’s jobs, it’s also difficult to argue that all Japanese traditions have to be maintained,” Makoto Iwahashi, a 19-year-old student, told AFP after watching the film. “I think if we find something wrong in our tradition, we should correct it.”
The Hollywood Reporter also has a brief description of the Q&A session that took place after the screening:
Local media questioned the filmmaker’s highlighting of the dolphin hunt while greater numbers of other animals are slaughtered around the globe.
Psiboyos responded by claiming the central message of the movie was the mercury levels of the dolphin meat, both as a health hazard to consumers, and as an indication of the poisoned state of the oceans.
Despite stating that the animal rights argument was “unwinnable, and leads only to stalemate,” he made a number of passionate pleas to stop the killing of the “sentient and intelligent” dolphins, and of whales, which Japan continues to hunt.
The makers of “The Cove” are hoping to find a Japanese distributor for the film. However, given the graphic content of the film and the fact that it was not much of a financial success in other countries, it is unlikely that it will be widely shown in theaters across Japan.
Related video: Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett traveled to Taiji a few days ago, finding that fishermen are still hunting certain types of dolphins. Locals were not pleased with the presence of cameras:
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Categories: Japanese Food, Politics
Meggings: leggings for men
Apparently leggings for men (“meggings”) are this year’s hit fashion item for Japanese men in their 20′s and 30′s:
The leggings-wearing men who are interviewed say they like meggings, but most women don’t seem to find their choice of clothing to be very manly. Of the 100 women interviewed, only 62 did not think men look cool when they wear leggings.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Hatoyama’s approval rating cape
The FTV news graphics team gives Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama a cape so he can reveal the results of some approval rating polls:
Their poll shows a 60.9% approval rating for the Hatoyama cabinet, down 7.8% from the last poll. Issue-specific polls give high ratings for the Hatoyama’s personality and the cabinet’s handling of bureaucracy, but only 36.2% think the Hatoyama cabinet is going a good job with measures to improve the economy.
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Categories: Politics