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.

  • Dorothy & things that made last week

    Dorothy

    Dorothy by iStrategy Labs is a really interesting use of haptic for discrete navigation information. Glanceable interfaces are important for smartphone devices and wearables to work in the next world. Haptics allow this to be taken to the next level, encouraging glances only when needed, or not at all in some circumstances. Technology mediated behaviour would become much more fluid, indistinguishable from a human with no technology, but perfect contextual knowledge.

    A very simple example of this would be the Jæger-LeCoultre Memovox alarm watch from 1950, that relied on a mechanical self-winding (automatic) watch movement.

    Kovert Designs

    Kovert Designs seem to be taking a similar approach with their jewellery; as does Casio with their BlueTooth G-shocks. BlueTooth LE (low energy) dramatically changes how the technology can be used, making wearables to wireless tags a much more practical proposition.

    William Gibson

    I am really looking forward to William Gibson’s new book and this interview with American magazine Mother Jones shows that he has not lost his edge in telling truths from the future. The scope of his   William Gibson: The Future Will View Us “As a Joke” | Mother Jones

    Porter Tokyo collaboration with Isaora

    Porter’s collaboration with Isaora are always interesting, but I have really fallen for the Filo pack, with its digital smoke print. Porter Tokyo have built the bag out of Cordura to create the kind of burley design you’d expect from more tactical vendors. The digital smoke pattern is ideal for urban living including hiding the grime of everyday commutes. Unfortunately I can’t justify buying it because I have a perfectly good Mystery Ranch bag.

    Physical interface design

    I really like this physical interface designed for use on iPads. The pictures under glass interface has its limitations which this design draws attention to.

    This design takes the best of software and physical design and melds them together. Of course, how this can be commercialised is another matter of finding the killer application.

  • Ontheroof & things that made last week

    Russian crew ontheroof took their skills to Hong Kong, hacking one of the city’s iconic electronic billboards mounted on the top of an unfeasibly tall building. Ontheroof have attracted sponsorship from large corporates despite the illegal nature of their work. They’ve worked with brands like Huawei and Canon cameras.

    Their risk profile would preclude many western brands from collaborating with them. I was surprised that Canon did a deal with them.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if they were weren’t demonetised on YouTube due to their risky and illegal behaviour. Even if landlords were open-minded, their insurance company certainly wouldn’t be. It isn’t about getting ontheroof to sign a waiver; but all the unintended consequences:

    • They could fall off and hit someone
    • The building could be sued for damages due to the trauma of watching one of them fall of a building to their death

    If they used safety harnesses their content would lose its appeal as they are competition with other crews looking to ever more extreme footage.

    Not too sure if the swiftly added disclaimer would be enough to stop the lawyer letters coming through the letter box with this ode to Invisalign braces. When does parody become slander.

    Wee Scottish travel agent Thorne Travel put together a unique YouTube advert. I am guessing that it go nowhere near a legal team before it was uploaded on YouTube. Not too sure that they have permission from David Guetta for the soundtrack or Disney for the appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse – which probably explains why it got taken down. I thought that the N.W.A. soundtracked remix of the video was inspired. It also provided material for The Poke.

    The Poke have remixed some of their videos including a Halloween themed one with Michael Jackson’s Thriller the soundtrack and strategically placed pumpkins.

    Warner Brothers are pushing out to Western audiences Black Butler, a Japanese live action adaption of a Faustian manga tale. If you like anime like Death Note, you’ll like Black Butler.

    Finally, Agence France Presse put together a really good animation on how Ebola attacks the body, surprisingly it was hosted on DailyMotion.

  • Privacy setback + more things

    Google Suffers New Privacy Setback in Japan – WSJ – similar ruling to the landmark privacy setback ruling in Spain that set up the European right to be forgotten

    FireChat Wasn’t Meant For Protests. Here’s How It Worked (Or Didn’t) at Occupy Central | TechPresident – interesting critique on FireChat as a technology platform

    Network service providers in China ordered to provide user data | WantChinaTimes – brings law into line with US, UK, Australia, Sweden etc

    DRS Unveils Very Small SIGINT Sensor « Breaking Defense – interesting commercial applications

    Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline – here we go again…

    Gates and Ballmer NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS – report | The Register – this is a bit sad, I think Gates was right about not buying Nokia though

    “PR should punch above its weight in the mix,” says WPP chief Sorrell | PR Week – interesting piece from Martin Sorrell. I feel that there is substantial dissonance between what he’s said and the reality

    How China’s anti-umbrella propaganda failed in Hong Kong | Quartz – interesting consumer media consumption patterns. A smart government would use this data and adapt their approach accordingly

    Surging Mac sales put Apple among top five global PC vendors for first time, IDC says | AppleInsider – ok there are issues around the sales figures collected by the analyst houses

    HTC’s Desire Eye wants to be the king of selfies | The Verge – interesting move, is it a fad?

    Stealth, countermeasures, and ELINT | CIA – interesting early history on stealth

    Unilever, BT Group, Coca-Cola, Marks & Spencer and Carlsberg have founded a new online media on sustainable living—Collectively.org – interesting that they are banding together, says a lot about the media industry

    囧司徒每日秀中文网 Daily Show – Chinese fan curated content of John Stewart’s Daily Show

    Facebook Readies App Allowing Anonymity – NYTimes.com – we’ll see, I am sure that there is an angle somewhere on this

    iOS 8 Adoption Stagnates Just Two and a Half Weeks After Launch – Mac Rumors – the comments section is particularly interesting. More related content here

    CAN at the Moscow International Festival “Circle of Lights” (11/12 October 2014) – this looks amazing

  • Walmart + other things

    Walmart online to offline retailing

    A really interesting video with Walmart that looks at the interface between online and offline retailing. Particularly interesting take on mobile payment form factors. Amazon presents an existential threat to the Walmart business. Walmart isn’t going down without a fight. It has innovated in the past on using technologies like data mining. More recently Walmart has been making strategic purchases across the online retail realm. 

    More retail related content here

    Water resistance

    The reality of watch water resistance is that it is usually measured in a pressurised laboratory rig. Five years ago Casio took their Frogman model from the G-Shock range and did the test in open water off the coast of Japan. It shows the reality of the watch being exposed to a depth of 200M. The two most disappointing aspects of this video are:

    • It hasn’t got as much viewer love as it deserves
    • They failed to come across any diakaiju during the dive and we don’t know what Japan’s beloved son Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira) thinks of the G-Shock range

    Name generator

    Citizenfour the Edward Snowden documentary launched this week, which prompted a lot of NSA product name silliness including too much time spent on the NSA Product Name Generator

    Mascots

    The people at Rocket News have come up with a new take on the Japanese mascot meme with Hard Ku**mon. More here. Japan seems to have mascots for everything as a way to engage consumer attention. The mascots can build up to be big business in their own right and gain international attention. 

    NASA apps

    Finally I have been working my way through NASA’s collection of iPad and iPhone applications, more here. NASA has an amazing range of content. I would also recommend checking out their flickr accounts for high quality imagery.

  • On smart watches, I’ve decided to take the plunge

    I have long thought on smart watches as a possible useful device. So I have decided to take the plunge into wearables. My previous attempt with the Nike Fuelband didn’t go very well as I seemed to break them with frightening regularity and never really learned much from the experience apart from Nike can’t build hardware.

    I haven’t gone with Samsung wrist watch, or the better looking Sony one. I will not be rocking a pre-release device from Apple. Instead I have relied on smart watches pioneer Casio, who gave us the Data Bank in the 1980s.
    blue G-shock
    Casio has built a low power Bluetooth module into a G-Shock that gets up to two years on a lithium battery and is still water resistant to 200 metres. Realistically I would be happy if I got 12 months out of it. It uses its Bluetooth skills to give you basic notifications around email, incoming calls and alerts across Facebook, Twitter and Weibo.

    At the mid-point in the price of G-Shock watches, it means that the upgrade path isn’t exactly painful. The G-Shock strikes the right balance between robust hardware and disposability required for technology improvements.  In fact, I’ve worn a G-Shock before when travelling to span timezones and as a timepiece that I won’t get too attached to if it gets stolen – the smart watch G-Shock has the advantage of my phone being on view less often, ideal for the crime-filled streets of Shepherds Bush or Shenzhen.

    I think the smartest thing about the watch is it’s deliberately limited scope to provide notifications. I don’t think that Casio has it perfect, in fact I can see how the power-saving function on the Bluetooth module is likely to miss messages; but I think that they are on to something with this approach – and so I am willing to give it a try.

    I am surprised that these watches aren’t being sold in Apple stores around the world given G-Shock’s brand presence in the street wear community. Maybe Casio hasn’t got their act together, or Apple aren’t particularly keen on the competition.

    Oh and I won’t look-or-feel like a complete dick wearing it.

    More information

    “Generation 2 Engine” Bluetooth® v4.0 Enabled G-SHOCK | Casio – yes their marketing sucks with a naming structure only a Microsoft product manager could love
    Comparison Chart of Mobile Link Functions – Casio