Ged Carroll

Category: japan |日本 | 일본

Yōkoso – welcome to the Japan category of this blog. This blog was inspired by my love of Japanese culture and their consumer trends. I was introduced to chambara films thanks to being a fan of Sergio Leone’s dollars trilogy. A Fistful of Dollars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.

Getting to watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell for the first time were seminal moments in my life. I was fortunate to have lived in Liverpool when the 051 was an arthouse cinema and later on going to the BFI in London on a regular basis.

Today this is where I share anything that relates to Japan, business issues, the Japanese people or culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Lawson launched a new brand collaboration with Nissan to sell a special edition Nissan Skyline GT-R. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Japan.

There is a lot of Japan-related content here. Japanese culture was one of odd the original inspirations for this blog hence my reference to chambara films in the blog name.

I don’t tend to comment on local politics because I don’t understand it that well, but I am interested when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting the media sector for instance.

If there are any Japanese related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Makimotos wave

    Makimotos wave is named after Dr Tsugio Makimoto. Dr Makimoto is a technologist who has worked at Sony and Hitachi. He co-authored Digital Nomad with David Manners which was published in 1997 and seems to have been influential to executives in the semiconductor industry. Makimotos wave named is a twenty-year cycle between custom design components and general components.

    While GPUs could be argued as general components based on their usage in machine learning and cryptocurrency mining.

    We’re definitely in an era of custom design components at the moment in personal computing, with PCs moving to bespoke processors based on the ARM architecture.

    At the moment in mobile we are in the custom part of the cycle with the kind of silicon being created for smartphones like Apple’s and Samsung’s respective chips and we are due to see a swing to general purpose components from 2017 or so.

    General purpose components may be very different to what we have been used to before. New processes will allow new functions to be built on the chips, though this seems to be happening at a slower rate with people like Intel making chipsets. Multiple pieces of silicon in a single chip package. 

    Makimotos wave helps us understand these transitions. 

    Like Moore’s Law, Makimotos law is used as a heuristic to try and understand what is happening within the industry. Dr Makimoto discusses it in this video below.  

    More similar content here.

  • Carbon nanotubes & other news

    Carbon nanotubes

    IBM betting carbon nanotubes can restore Moore’s Law by 2020 | ExtremeTech – interesting, IBM research has been at the leading edge of a lot of semiconductor manufacturing techniques including:

    • Copper interconnects
    • RISC architecture design
    • Multi-core design
    • Strained silicon substrates

    Carbon nanotubes may join particularly as there is so much speculation about the state and future of IBM’s chip business as management moves towards a software and services based future. Is IBM preparing to sell the chip manufacturing business to the highest bidder?

    Business

    Amazon China chief replaced with another expat | WantChinaTimes – the back story is that Amazon has about 2 per cent of the e-commerce market in China

    Design

    Waterproof CD player with vocal removal function | AkihabaraNews – interesting thinking about context. Japan is still a big physical media market (they still have Tower Records) and people love to sing in the shower

    Economics

    HK’s retail sales fell in May | RTHK – its all about valuable gifts: watches, bags etc dropping by 25%

    Ideas

    The Future of the Workforce May Be Part-Time, Says Google CEO Larry Page | Re/code – utopian spin on zero-hour contracts?

    Korea

    S Korea to break away from Windows by 2020 | WantChinaTimes – interesting move: Windows 8 partly to blame, I suspect also the security decisions made around Active X made Koreans think twice before attaching themselves to Microsoft

    Online

    An Online Shift in China Muffles an Open Forum – NYTimes.com – “This is a new phase for social media in China,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. “It is the decline of the first large-scale forum for information in China and the rise of something more narrowly focused.” – the authors have positioned this as a Chinese -specific move yet it is mirrored in the west with the rise of Whatsapp, Telegram and other OTT messenger services

    Google bans porn from its ad network | CNBC – Google obviously doesn’t need the revenue, which bodes well for ongoing quarterly number going forwards

    UK’s Porn Filter Triggers Widespread Internet Censorship | TorrentFreak – The results of ORG’s new tool show that what started as a “porn filter” has turned into something much bigger. Under the guise of “protecting the children” tens of thousands of sites are now caught up in overbroad filters, which is a worrying development to say the least – interesting that some are blocking the Open Rights Group and open source software sites

    Thanks To “Right To Be Forgotten,” Google Now Censors The Press In The EU | Marketingland – once you take the 1st amendment driven angst viewpoint out of this, its a great summary of things by Danny Sullivan

    Tencent Opening Up API for Wechat Login — China Internet Watch – expect WeChat’s app constellation to mushroom outside the Tencent family. More on WeChat here.

    Security

    3 Real Security Risks Threatening Your Smart TV Entertainment | Make Use Of – make mine a dumb TV

    Technology

    CHART OF THE DAY: Apple Is Invading The Enterprise – Business Insider – there is also a credibility issue, go to a developer conference and there is a sea of silver lids, this will knock on into the enterprise

    Telecoms

    I, Cringely The Secret of Google X – I, Cringely – I think untethered balloons aren’t a smart move either

  • Umeng & other things this week

    Umeng

    Umeng have put together a great presentation on consumer behaviour and mobile in China’s tier 3 cities. Most of what you read focuses on tier one and tier two cities in China. Umeng provides insight into large yet untapped markets just below the biggest most-developed cities in China. The tier three cities that Umeng covers are the cities were China does much of its manufacturing now as places like Shenzhen and Shanghai have become too expensive

    Fukushima Happy

    This beautifully shot version of Pharrell Williams Happy done by the people of Fukushima prefecture showing everyday Japanese life and shot by Fuji TV.

    I particularly like the lucho libre masks and the winking Shibu shot. There is also a great outtakes / making of video

    Red Fuse x Colgate-Palmolive Myanmar

    Red Fuse Hong Kong’s work with Colgate-Palmolive in Myanmar to educate children about oral health (and sell more toothpaste) was a Cannes Lion winner and an inspired way of rethinking how packaging was used. The mobile toll-free number was particularly interesting given how nascent mobile phone usage is in Myanmar. There isn’t much of an online component as internet penetration is low and concentrated in richer urban areas of the country.


    Richard Feynman – The Character of Physical Law – 5 –

    The Distinction of Past and Future lecturing at Cornell University. Feynman was a great physicist but he was greater at making physics accessible to a wider range of people through his lectures and writing. Take a lunch time to enjoy this video

    Guardians of the Galaxy

    Yet another new trailer for the Guardians of The Galaxy, we get to see Rocket‘s character slightly more developed in this version and he seems brilliant in a Spaghetti Western anti-hero kind of way, if Eli Wallach (God rest his soul) had been a wise-cracking raccoon bandit.

  • Thoughtful China & other things

    Thoughtful China

    As ever, the guys at Thoughtful China have come up with some quality content. In this episode David Wolf talks about how Chinese brands are looking to go global. It’s brands but not as you know them

    Beauty

    Beauty products brand Kiehl’s outreach to men could school a lot of luxury brands. Just check out this mini-film which highlights the use of space age materials in its products with a small spacecraft sent to the edge of space

    Culture

    The Asia Society posted this presentation by MTV World General Manager and Senior Vice President Nusrat Durrani on cross-pollination of popular culture. While New York was considered to be a global city, Durrani was surprised by its cultural isolation and introspection compared to other parts of the world.

    Japan

    Lastly, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty celebrated her 40th birthday in a collaboration with Bandai to create a Hello Kitty Chogokin mecha

    More marketing related content here.

  • UC Web + other news

    UC Web

    Alibaba buys up UC Web in ‘biggest merger in the history of China’s Internet’ | VentureBeat – or really expensive deal to get on the chrome. UC Web made a web browser that was popular in China and South East Asia. UC Web has created a joint venture with Alibaba that will help with Alibaba’s international expansion

    Beauty

    How red lipstick helped win an election | CNBC – interesting involvement of oligarchs in Korean politics

    Consumer behaviour

    Seven Digital Deadly Sins – really nice build by The Guardian; some nice consumer insights

    Meet the Chinese Parents Who Go On Dates for Their Kids | VICE United Kingdom – interesting insight into Chinese marriage culture

    Ethics

    Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People – really nasty shit

    Finance

    Safaricom’s M-Pesa Turns Kenya Into a Mobile Payment Paradise – Businessweek – interesting article on how the service works from the perspective a of a neophyte

    Ideas

    Rage Against the Machine: The Rise of Anti-Politics Across Europe | The New Republic – the headline explains things better than most articles that I have seen

    Japan

    43.3% of Japanese use LINE Professionally, 29.6% use Facebook | PixelBits – interesting stats from Mona Nomura

    Legal

    Google may soon let you know when it’s required to hide something from you | VentureBeat – this could be interesting as knowledge of the void could be more damaging than the content

    Media

    The Works Recruitment – How recruiters use LinkedIn – no real surprises but handy primer

    RIAA tax filing reveals a record industry that’s less interested in paying for piracy lawsuits | VentureBeat – music industry preparing for new reality

    The truth about Paddy Power’s stunt in the Amazon rainforest | Paddy Power Blog – cutting things uncomfortably close

    Nike And Amazon Explore And Experience Big On Small Screen NKE AMZN – Investors.com – Larry Weber on social. Very much on the ongoing activity rather than campaign school of thought

    Online

    百度保障 – Baidu launches verified programme on it’s knowledge search / Q&A product

    Introducing Secret Dens — Secret Den — Medium – this sounds like an internal comms person’s worst nightmare

    Sogou Launched Wechat Search — China Internet Watch – this is big, adds a little bit of a window into the black hole of OTT messaging platforms

    No Logging Into Flickr Via Facebook After June 30 | AllFacebook – smart move by Yahoo!

    Retailing

    Amazon expands middleman role in latest online payments push | Reuters – Amazon already does payments, for instance KickStarter projects. This is about recurring payments

    Security

    Privacy As A Competitive Vector | AVC – Fred Wilson on the market for privacy. The difference that I don’t think Wilson addresses is the demand for privacy and the price people put on it. I think that there is a market, but the business model is critical as I don’t think consumers put a high price on privacy yet

    Life sentences for serious cyberattacks are proposed in Queen’s speech | theguardian.com – call me cynical, but is this is much about ringfencing GCHQ’s domestic activities or the UK governments lack of digital savvy? Park your data and services outside the UK, move R&D or quality assurance for digital services outside the UK

    Software

    A tiny technical change in iOS 8 could stop marketers spying on you – Quartz – does this you also can’t a lock out devices to a wi-fi network based on MAC address as well as password?

    Technology

    Sony tops game console sales for 1st time in 8 years- Nikkei Asian Review – Nintendo slide 31 per cent in Japan!

    A fast look at Swift, Apple’s new programming language | Ars Technica – interesting overview of Swift

    Sharp reveals concept products for new business plan | Asahi Shimbun – some of this stuff sounds really cool. Also good to see that they are innovating out of trouble rather than letting loose a bunch of management consultants

    Web of no web

    Japanese carrier Docomo wants to move your phone’s SIM card into a wearable | Engadget – this is really interesting. More related content here

    Google Now Has The Perfect Feature For Sleepy Commuters And Late Night Party Animals – smart use of contextual location based data

    Wireless

    ZTE to cut smartphone models by half | SCMP – cut half of its smartphone models available in the domestic market this year, while expecting total shipments in the world’s biggest smartphone market to remain stable, a company official said yesterday (paywall) – potentially smart move to reduce number of SKUs