Now that Microsoft will not be supporting Window Media Player for the Mac, they are providing a free plugin to view Window Media files in Quicktime.
July 2006 Archives
CNet UK does a comparison between a new Samsung Q1 UMPC (a.k.a. Microsoft's vaunted "Origami" project) and a 10 year old Apple Newton Messagepad.
Guess who wins?
Apple Newton vs Samsung Q1 UMPC , Special Features at CNET.co.uk
Once you know who wins this contest, guess if Microsoft's "iPod Killer" will be successful?
Bourdain's famous restaurant, Les Halles, is 2 blocks from my family's house in NYC. So I've always kept an eye on his rising career as an author and on TV. Bourdain was in Beirut when the most recent fighting broke out and wrote about his experience in Salon.com.
We walked along the road leading to a cordoned-off area by the St. George Hotel, where Bardot, Monroe and Kim Philby had once played -- back when Beirut was called the "Paris of the Orient" without a hint of irony. The buildings in the area were still in ruins, a roof torn off, the old hotel -- under construction when the targeted blast that killed Hariri occurred -- still empty. The Phoenician, across the street, which had also been destroyed, had recently been completely rebuilt. A modern hotel like any other, but they were proud of that too. Because, like Beirut, it was still there. It was back.
Then, in the blink of an eye, everything went sideways: Relaxed smiles froze and disappeared. Suddenly, there was the sound of automatic weapons firing randomly in the air from a nearby neighborhood. And fireworks. Then cars -- a few of them -- teenage kids, women and adults, some leaning out the windows and waving Hezbollah flags and flashing the "V" for victory sign, celebrating what we were told, after a few quick cellphone calls, was the grabbing of two Israeli soldiers. Our fixer, a Sunni; Ali, a Shiite; and "Marwan," a Christian, who'd just minutes ago been pointing proudly at the mural -- all three looked down in embarrassment, a look of sorrow, shame and then resignation on their faces. Someone muttered "assholes" bitterly. They knew -- right away -- what was going to happen next.
At the conference today, discussion about Miss Japan winning runner-up at the Miss Universe contest came up. The joke was to have her be "SOFA Spokeswoman" for Okinawa (the discussion was about Okinawa's difficult relationship with the US military).
Someone's had some ... augmentation surgery....
I'm in Seattle this week for the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program.
Unfortunately, the conference is private and not bloggable, so I'm not sure what I can share online.
World Firefox Day
Firefox 2.0 Beta 1
Firefox 2.0 β1が正式リリース
『Firefox 2.0』の第1ベータ版公開
「Firefox 2」ベータ版、週内にリリースへ
数々の新機能を搭載した「Mozilla Firefox 2 Beta 1」公開
Firefox 2.0β1、今週リリース
Firefox 2 ベータ 日本語版もリリース，フィッシング対策など強化
Firefox 2のβ版、正式にリリース
Firefox 2.0ベータ版のレビュー
Firefox market share rising (onestat.com)
「Firefoxの世界シェアは12.9%に，ドイツでは39%」，OneStat.comの調査
「Firefox」の利用が世界中で再び拡大中──オランダのWeb分析会社
Firefoxのシェアが約13％に増加〜一部地域では4割に迫る
Mozilla Japan marketing
世界シェア13％、「Firefox」が渋谷でプロモイベント
Firefoxの普及キャンペーン「Spread Firefox」を日本でも実施
Mozilla Japan、Firefoxの知名度向上を図る街頭プロモーションを東京と神奈川で実施
モジラジャパン、「Firefox」の街頭プロモーション実施--ファン制作のビデオも公開
メイドがFirefoxのプロモーションで活躍、CD配布中
アキバや渋谷や夏の海で「Spread Firefox」
Mozilla Japan、メイドも登場のFirefox街頭プロモーションを秋葉原で実施
“メイドさん”が「Firefox」グッズを配るイベントが秋葉原で今週土日に開催
Technorati Japan plugin for Firefox
Great interview with my friend Gregg Tavares (whom I haven't seen in many, many months) on 1UP.com. Gregg is one of the few foreigners working in production in the game industry in Japan and most recently worked on Loco Roco which is the hot game for the PSP in Japan these days.
Popular Singaporean blogger, mrbrown, penned a satirical column in a major Singaporean paper, got a rebuttal from the Singaporean government, and then had his column suspended.
Now the AFP and Reporters Sans Frontieres are on this case and it's a much bigger deal than if the govt. ignored the satire.
Good luck to mrbrown!
Supporters of suspended Singaporean blogger hold silent protest - Yahoo! News
Kawasaki is sponsoring the Tour de France in 2006.
You will see other camera bikes, often big BMWs, in the reporting, but the official bike is Kawasaki.
Google now has Google Pack (with Firefox :) for download in Japanese.
Boris links to a fascinating interview with Cyrus & Joi from 1995, over 10 years ago. In 1995, I was still in university!
The 1995 Joi was talking about everything from cryptography in Japan, trends in online advertising, ecommerce, telecommunications, Japanese banking reform, women as leading consumers, the future breakup of NTT, and more.
Joi's themes these days (ICANN, Creative Commons, Mozilla, BitTorrent, weblogs, etc. etc.) are pretty different but at the same time they are all tied in some way to these themes he was talking about back in 1995.
The quote that resonated the most with me was this one:
Ito: A lot of Japanese say, "We need to protect our culture." But I say, "No, you want to distribute your culture." You want everybody to be able to learn Japanese. If you can spread it out, and find people who are really interested in keeping up with kanji, you don't have to force people to do it to protect it anymore. I know it's a difficult "sell," but if you look at virtual Japan rather than physical Japan, you don't see it diminishing because of the Internet.
That "virtual Japan" is larger than physical Japan is the reality today, especially for children the world around who enjoy Japanese manga and anime, as well as Japanese video games.
Danny Choo trekked to Akihabara last weekend to photograph Rika Shimamoto. Those of you who might be interested in young women in bikinis, enjoy!
Fascinating- gotta put this on my reading list.
"America Against the World," a recent book based on comprehensive polling data from the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, makes the point that our exceptionalism is not exceptional with particular force. While a robust 60 percent of Americans agree with the proposition that "our culture is superior to others," such self-confidence pales next to that of South Korea and Indonesia, where some 90 percent of the population assents to the idea. The book's authors, Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes, also note that "poll after poll finds the Japanese to be the most pessimistic of people, expressing far less satisfaction with their lot in life than might be expected given their relatively high per capita incomes. Yet, compared to other Asians, the Japanese are, like Americans, highly self-reliant and distrustful of government and, like Europeans, secular. It is the Japanese public, not the American public, that is most exceptional in the world."
...in our soberer, less celebratory moments, we know that there are no unilateral American solutions to multilateral problems and that most of the great challenges we face in today's world are multilateral — from terrorism to global warming, and AIDS to mass migration. In the streets of Baghdad and the deserts of Al Anbar, we have learned that optimism and self-reliance are simply not enough.
I'm not sure who the royal "we" is that is referenced here- it's certainly not the Bush regime.
It's been a number of years since I worked in the Auto industry (I worked at Toyota USA in IT) but I keep my eye on the industry.
Seems like the Japanese are still creating vehicles that US drivers want.
The Japanese handily dominated the 2006 APEAL results, garnering wins in 12 of the 19 segments - including a tie between the Lexus GX470 and Porsche Cayenne in the Midsize Premium MAV category.
Detroit manufacturers captured only two of 19 segments. Ford's wildly popular Mustang was tops in the Midsize Sporty Car segment, while the automaker's new Fusion was best Midsize Car. Significantly, Japanese makers won or tied in every single truck and crossover category, the side of the market that Detroit manufacturers have traditional dominated. On the other hand, it has been years since the Big Three were able to field truly competitive passenger cars, an area of their business Detroit makers are vowing to revitalize.
Ronny Priest from Germany has a great mix of old school dance music for download:
here's my set from the Jackin' Planets show @ mth.electro, broadcasted last tuesday (June, 13th).01 Steve Silk Hurley - Jack Your Body
02 Phortune - String Free
03 M.A.R.R.S. - Pump Up The Volume
04 Frankie Bones - The Delusion
05 Lidell Townsell - The Groove
06 Mike Dunn - Get Down Dub
07 Mr. Lee - I Can't Forget
08 Nation 12 - Remembe
09 Smokin Gang - Take It From The Top
10 Ralphie Rosario - I Want You
11 Reese - Rock To The Beat
12 Master Jack - Master Jack 2
13 Gene Hunt - Living In A Land
14 Fast Eddie - I Can Dance
15 Fuse - Substance Abuse
16 Break The Limits 01 - Fire Away
17 Armando - Snare Your Ass Off
18 Dr Baker - Kaos
19 James T. Cotton - My Zel
20 Dj Funk #1 - Follow
21 Earth People - Reach Up To Mars
22 Frankie Bones - Jack B Nimble
23 Robert Armani - Warning
24 D.J. K-Alexi - Re-Lax With Chicago Pt.2
25 Myoshi Morris - Muzik
26 Lil Louis - I Called You
27 Phortune - Can You Feel The Bass
28 The Dirty Criminals - Raiden
29 A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funky Dredd - Total Confusion (Heavenly Mix)
30 Roy Davis Jr. - 2B Or Not 2B (Dj Pierres Take Me Back Chicago Mix)
31 Adonis - H.O.U.S.E.
32 Moby - Go
33 Skyman I - Focus
34 V.D.T. - Fever
35 Farley "Jackmaster" Funk & Jesse Saunders - Love Can't Turn Around (Houseapella)
36 Ronny Pries - Bang The House (Hypno Mix)
37 Joe Lewis - Acid Falls
38 House Master Boyz - House Nation
39 Heychild - Heychild's Theme
40 Moodyman - Dem Young Scoonies
41 Suburban Knight - The Art Of Stalking
42 Brian Harris - H20
43 Robert Armani - Armani Tracks Part Two
44 Sugar - The Feeling
45 Dj Fast Eddie - Clap Your Hands
46 Space - Magic Fly
Om reports that Softbank is bringing in MySpace to Japan.
This will be interesting because MySpace is much less rigid in controls for the user than Mixi, the current leader.
I think Mixi/eMercury COULD be significantly challenged by MySpace, especially if Softbank will leverage their relationship with Yahoo! Japan (I cannot imagine a scenario where they would not.)
MySpace is also launching in Japan in partnership with Softbank. The 50:50 joint venture is expected to launch sometime in September 2006.
It will be interesting to see how quickly MySpace Japan grows and whether the platform is to the taste of Japanese youth (who are less Internet savvy than their American counterparts- i.e. in terms of customizing their pages, etc.)
EDIT: A later thought that I had surrounds Mixi and the private nature of that SNS. If MySpace launches without the privacy features that Japanese Internet users want (i.e. 90% of Japanese blogs are anonymous, etc.), if MySpace Japan is merely a UTF-8 localized version without customization for the Japanese market, I don't see them succeeding.
Japan has half the population of the US, and Mixi is less than half as large as MySpace, but it's still a formidable competitor, moreso if they get their IPO done this year.
