digidenki Japan Digital Lifestyle

When Japan Rail East introduced its contact less IC card called “Suica” in 2003, a small cartoon penguin became the main endorser of the product. The main idea behind this was to give the new technology a more warmer feel and maybe also to make user less worried about the fact, that their travel and even shopping behavior can be monitored every time they use the card. (The Suica card can serve as a replacement for a commuter ticket and can also be used as a payment card for normal train rides and for purchases done at shops close to train stations)

Designed by a Japanese writer and artist, the little fellow turned into a well known character over the years. Be it in TV spots, on posters, stickers or even as an inflatable puppet, it is very hard to avoid Mr. Penguin when traveling with JR East in the Tokyo region.

Starting from the end of 2005 a whole range of paraphernalia can be found in shops: Limited edition color prints, picture books, puppets, posters and even special designed plates and dishes.

Another wonderful example of how powerful characters in the Japanese market are for driving brands and services.

Today I came across a very interesting product at the Venture Fair 2006 in Tokyo. It is called the “Flower Speaker” produced by Lets-Co Corporation. Using this device it is possible to turn real flowers and plants into speaker systems for audio players. The company offers different versions. One even includes a FM radio tuner so the flowers can “pick up the waves”. The basic system sells for 5,000 Yen. Actually the sound quality of the tested flower arrangement was not too bad.

Takara released a mobile brain trainer console called the “nousapiens” (brain-sapiens) last month that sells for 26,000 Yen.

The device should serve as a memory trainer and cartridges with new training programs can be bought for 6,200 Yen each. Takara promises that a person can increase his memorizing speed by 4.5 times through the little gadget. The device features a 32BIT CPU RiscOS processor running at 20Mhz and has a 240×160 dot display.

In the last 6 month brain games had been booming in Japan. There are several titles available for game consoles and handheld consoles. (PSP, DS, GBA)

When will a mobile phone come out that features a brain activity measure unit and some brain trainer games? Or even some brain tamer applicatiosn to overcome stress?

Bandai came up with a new reincarnation of the Tamagotchi theme: The Digimon Mini.

Digimon is a famous Animation series by Toei Animations and also well known outside of Japan. In the last years there have been various new ideas for the Digimon merchandise from Bandai.

Digimon Mini lets the user hatch its own digital monster, pebble it, level it up and later find another Digimon Mini owner to start a battle. By connecting two devices the two monsters can fight against each other determining who will win the fight and take the all the glory (and valuable energy points for leveling up).

The small game comes with a strap and can also be attached to a mobile phone. Cost is around 1,300 Yen.

Would even be more exciting to see this game INTERGRATED it into the mobile phone and battle others via IR or Bluetooth or even using GPS creating real battle arenas.

Japan Scientific Management launched a nice software application, which enables normal web cams to read 2D barcodes.

2D barcodes can be found everywhere in Japan. On business cards, posters, magazines, on TV, products and also t-shirts. Nearly 80% of all Japanese mobile phones have embedded 2D barcode readers.

A 2D barcode can store the link to a web address, a persons contact data and phone number or it can even automatically launch a phones mail application to send a predefined text to a set mail address. (automated newsletter sign ups for example). Instead of typing in a complicated URL on the mobile phone the user just needs to scan in a barcode and can directly access the mobile site.

What works for over 60 million mobile phone users in Japan now also works on normal PCs. The software called HOOP can scan a 2D barcode using a normal web cam. It can also automatically add 2D bar-coded RSS feeds to its integrated RSS reader.

2D barcodes –or QR codes as they are called in Japan- became an essential part of mobile communication and ease of access. It will be interesting to see how other parts of the world (especially Europe and the US) will embrace this technology

I talked to some people at Techfirm Japan today and I was amazed to see that Felica, the mobile phone digital wallet system from bitwallet has already reached a penetration rate of nearly 10% this month.

The contact less IC chip which can be used for online payments, e-ticketing, identification and also normal shopping is now embedded in more than 8 million mobile phones in Japan. DoCoMo introduced the first Felica phones in summer 2004. In the last 2 month the installed base grew from 6 million to 8 million users. This is also due to the fact that DoCoMo introduced its new 902 series and KDDI au introduced its first Felica enabled phones. From January 2006 Felica can also be used as replacement for commuter tickets for Japan Rail East customers (integrating the current SUICA card).

One important note: these numbers just reflect the owners of a Felica enabled phone but this does NOT mean that these person are also actually USING it.

Nevertheless I firmly believe that systems like Felica are the biggest innovations in the mobile service field. What we see now is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still enough room for a lot of new ideas on how to use Felica. Not to mention the money that could be made with those ideas.

Japan is one of the biggest market (if not the biggest) for collectible figures. Five monthly magazines are devoted entirely to this hobby. Not to mention the dozen of other hobby magazines partly covering the topic.

The natsukashii (retro) boom of the 80s is still big. Celebrating its 2005 Mario anniversary Nintendo released some “new” goodies this month:

6 new versions of the collectors 3D dioramas of famous games. They will start selling from this December for 525 Yen a piece.

I expect them to be sold out pretty soon.

After a weekend of strolling through Tokyo’s biggest Electronic stores one point became eminent: more and more shops are saying “goodbye” to PDAs. Big chain stores like Biccamera or Sakuraya up until a few month ago had a wide range of PDA offerings from Palm, PocketPC to Zaurus models. Now they are only displaying the Zaurus line of PDAs. All other products have disappeared from the average showroom. A small discussion with shop staffs revealed the following: “We stopped selling those products. The Zaurus is still there because it is more like an ultra small Laptop than a PDA. If consumers need PDA functions they can find these in the mobile phones we sell here at the shop.”

Almost all Japanese phones already offer QVGA displays like normal PDAs as well as address book, calendar and note taking functions. Some can even display and edit office documents.

The assumption of the mobile phones being the PDA killer has been around for long. Now reality proves it right.

It will be interesting to see how smartphones will perform in the Japanese mobile market in the long run. As of now DoCoMo (Motorola using Symbian), Vodafone (Nokia using Symbian) and soon Willcom (Sharp using WM 5.0) offer smartphones. More are expected in 2006. Given the advanced state of normal mobile phones in Japan (they are already rather “smart”) finding the right way to market these “smarter smart phones” will be a big challenge.

ChoroQ is playing with the well known Japanese lunchbox idea (bento).

In Japan special lunchboxes are sold at train stations and are called Eki Ben (train lunchbox). Maybe some of you already heard of “eki ben”.

Now toy and model car manufacturer ChoroQ launched a very special kind of “eki ben”: a lunchbox that contains 8 toy trains and that is even packed like a real lunchbox.

It will start selling from 10th of January for around 6000 Yen.

The whole concept is a real nice idea but better keep this away from kids or they will eat it.

While portable gaming devices like Gameboy and PSP are bestsellers in Japan, there is one device that outperforms these platforms: the mobile phone. The reason is not only because more people in Japan own a mobile phone than a Gameboy or PSP.

Talking with some gamers and colleagues I found another reason. And this one lies in the place where people in Japan use to play mobile games: on the train while commuting. Commuting times of one hour or are quite common in the Tokyo region.

This is a perfect time for recreation activities like reading a good book, the newspaper, sleeping, writing mobile mails or playing games. There is just one problem: space. Trains are usually packed during peak times and passengers have to stand while the train is driving.

While holding on to the handle with one hand (to make sure not to stumble over others when the train stops) there is only one hand left for other activities. This already eliminates the possibility to use a Gameboy or a PSP.( Not even to mention the tricky usage of a Gameboy DS in a crowded train while standing.)

Here the mobile phone is the perfect single-hand gaming machine. Games like Street Fighter for example have been modified for the mobile phone to enable special move combinations by just pressing a single button on the phone. The user can even select a right-hand control or left-hand control from the in-game menu depending on if he is holding the phone in his right or left hand.

An interesting example of how the usage of consumer electronic devices is shaped by its environment and also a small inspiration for future train savvy game machines.