What you see above is a QR-Code (Quick Response), ubiquitous anywhere in Japan, and on merchandise produced in Japan. Although the technology's use license is ambiguous (to me), and there's a chance some corporation 'owns' it in some nefarious way or another, so far in practice QR-Codes have been easy, open, and free barcodes for public use.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a mobile phone in Japan that doesn't read QR-Codes, and they can contain anything from plain text, email addresses, phone numbers, or links to online content. They've been deployed for years and allow consumers to access extra content, interact with companies, and exchange information quickly. Anyone can make a QR-Code, and I'm told you can find them on a great deal of business cards. One quick scan, and contact details make their way into your phone, hassle-free.
Locally, StarHub licensed NTT's cellphone web platform, i-mode. The success of that endeavor aside, I've always believed QR-Codes should make their way here as well. Why then, is Singapore being plastered with THESE?!
ColorCodes are a competing technology that depend on color reproduction to work. I won't go into detail because you can read ColorZip's website for yourself, but this implementation is chiefly used to deliver simple URLs to online content. Developed in Korea, maintained by a company called ColorZip SEA, and endorsed here by Singapore Press Holdings, this technology is a shadow of what QR-Code is. Is it a competing standard for the sake of having one of our own? Is it an effort to push more expensive color pages (in SPH's newspapers) to advertisers? Who knows.
The one advantage ColorCodes have, are that they can be read by almost any crap digital camera. Unless you're in an environment with strong colored light. QR-Codes generally need to be printed larger than an inch, unless you have a cameraphone that takes close-up shots. In Japan, that's almost every phone. The argument for ColorCodes falls apart when you realize that these low-tech cameraphones need web-browsers and internet connections in order to see the content that the ColorCodes reference.
The system is closed and proprietary, and I've found no way to create one of my own. Everything goes through ColorZip SEA, and I think that's just the way they like it. They've started a MySpace wannabe called ColorZipMe.com, where you can make an ugly profile page for yourself, that comes with a ColorCode link to itself. Wanna make a ColorCode for the blog you've already got? Doesn't look like you can.
So why, just why, are ColorCodes being pushed as our nation's standard for cameraphone barcodes? The rationale for even having such a technology is because advanced mobile-data-plan-consuming nations like Japan have them. Because they push the population to become more tech-savvy, and marketing to be more effective. That's why we have free island-wide WiFi.
So why are we choosing a product built for compatibility with 20th century cameraphones? Shouldn't we just bite the bullet, adopt the superior technology, and wait for our middle-aged to renew their carrier contracts, and get better phones? This must be the first "groundbreaking" technology I've seen to target the lowest-common denominator as its early adopter. For shame!
In the unlikely event that you are as upset about this as I am, and I know there's got to be at least one of you, here's what you can do in juvenile rebellion:
1.
Download a QR-Code reader for your non-Japanese phone. I've been using Kaywa Reader. It's a Java app, and you can download it by visiting reader.kaywa.com with your mobile phone.
2.
Start making QR-Codes and put them on your business cards, blogs, flyers, posters, etc. You can make them here, or download a Windows app from the NTT DoCoMo site. A list of other apps resides here.
The blogger, Robert Peloschek, uses QR-Codes as supplementary permalinks for each post. He also has some interesting stories about the technology, including a new application for it, in motion images. They call it "Movie QR". Here's a promotional ad for it that's quite funny.
I thought it went well. Am interested in reading his book in the near future. Above all, his talk really underlined for me the end of the advertising industry as it stands today. Media can adapt, if only through more diverse investments. But advertising models have to change fundamentally. I wonder if that was just a linebreak. Mobile blogging takes some getting used to.
I don't know what to think of this bar near my office that we've only just ventured into after a year of only patronizing one place nearby. Its interior is actually not too shabby and there's an emphasis on champagne. But there's also a noisy pool table, the customers look kinda sleazy, and one gets the feeling that the upstairs area is a karaoke lounge with sensual massage services. For the record we didn't check. Only tiger beer on tap too.
I've been obsessed with getting some of this Suntory Black Oolong Tea (OTPP) since the weekend. It contains a high level of natural fat-blockers and has been a hit since it's launch in japan last year. Finally found it for the exorbitant price (expected) of $3.60 a bottle. It goes for about $2.10 in japan. Blogging this on my phone while my curry rice grows cold, so bye!
Here's more info –
The Web-Japan article that started me off: Creative JuicesSuntory Press ReleaseOolong Tea and Weight Loss
Over the weekend, I attended a performance of "Songs of the Sea", a new 'musical' feature on Sentosa that features pyrotechnics, lasers, and water effects. The music is awful, the human actors and their dialogue are awful, and the whole thing would be better off without the story.
That said, it's fantastic for the technology alone, and well-worth the 6 dollar entry fee if you're already spending a day on the theme park island.
This picture shows an image projected onto a giant spray of water above the set. Quite impressive, and easily 3 storeys high.
For anyone who's wanted a quick primer on Japanese cellphones and what they do better than ours, this wikipedia entry is perfect.
Also, Wired's How Mobile Phones Conquered Japan. The book mentioned, "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian", sounds like a good read and I'll probably be buying a copy. Amazon link.
It's a pity i-mode hasn't taken off here. Perhaps a carrier like Singtel would have done more with it than Starhub has. Or maybe they should all have teamed up to make it a standard (always the best way).
Bank transactions on-the-go would be a great thing to have, but limiting it to customers of one bank? And movie ticket booking, limited to Eng Wah cinemas? Come on.
Edit: Here's a great topic page on cellphones from the Trends in Japan online magazine from Web-Japan, which I'm happy to have just discovered.
I've seen the dance videos on YouTube, I've considered buying the silhouette t-shirt, but before last week, I'd never seen The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in its entirety. What a shame! It's as good as high-school/sci-fi/moe/existential anime gets. Its quiet, poignant moments are quieter and more poignant than others. Its art is fantastic, and based on the actual town the story is set in (Nishinomiya, Hyogo).
Examples:
Full Gallery (javascript disables right-clicks, but be sure to check the page links on top for more)
One more thing to add to our Japanese trip itinerary, a visit to the Fuji-Q Highland Amusement Park in Yanamashi. GUNDAM CRISIS Thrill Ride, 'nuff said.
In the last couple of days, I've fallen for a game which bears more than a passing resemblance in setting to a little show called 'Lost'. Just in case you didn't see it, the makers decided to go with the name 'Stranded'.
I've yet to come across a monster, but there have been allusions to something strange going on, and it can't be far off. What makes this game fun is a combination of portable pick-up-and-play design, and a sense of open-endedness.
It's an adventure game with quests to fulfill, but you could just spend all your time hunting chickens and fishing , if you wanted. Or collecting seashells and driftwood. Or cooking. Or planting seeds, cutting down trees, and trading goods. It's a sort of Animal Crossing + Contact. It's a hell of a lot of gameplay stuffed into a mobile game.
The time of day in the game matches real time (from your phone), and that affects how many snakes are out and about, what kind of fish you'll catch, and so on. And just like you'd expect from a portable game, saving is allowed at any time. Here's the official site, and in a great move, they've put up an emulated demo of the game here, so you can try before you buy.
Wired's just posted a great story about 3 kids who started an ambitious shot-for-shot remake of the Indiana Jones movie when they were 12, and didn't stop until 7 years later. They even spent 4 years making the giant boulder, and almost burnt a house down. Can't wait to see it. [Link]
The boys premiered Raiders: The Adaptation in an auditorium at a local Coca-Cola plant in 1989 and then, not realizing what they had, tucked the film away for nearly 15 years. In 2003, a VHS tape of Raiders: The Adaptation fell in the hands of Ain't It Cool News guru Harry Knowles, who played it at his Butt-numb-a-thon festival. It was a hit. Almost immediately, Strompolos, Zala and Lamb's phones began to ring.
More info at the New York Times (Eli Roth also played a big part in its 'discovery') and some fascinating trivia at IMDB. Examples:
The Cabin Scene, in which Indy (Chris) and Marion (Angela Rodriguez) have their big kissing scene - was actually the first time that Chris (then aged 13) had ever kissed a girl. They went on to maintain an off-screen teenage romance.
Raiders Adaptation was shot completely out of sequence over seven years, resulting in the casts' transformation in voice tone, hair style and body size from scene to scene. For example, in the college classroom scene, the cutaway of Indy (Chris) 's reaction to the female student's "I love you" message written her eyelids had to be re-shot because it was out-of-focus. The shooting schedule didn't permit returning to that location for another three years. By that time, Chris's voice had changed with puberty. In the final edited version, the re-shot cutaway sticks out noticeably by Chris's voice dropping several octaves.
The speed, the skillful driving and fatal collisions... Do you think that it is a racing? Far from it! Sex Xonix is the arcade erotic conundrum with smart girls for sweets lovers. - Gamespot blurb
This is the #1 most popular/wanted game on Gamespot Mobile today. Perhaps my life is headed in the wrong direction. Every day at work, I face many problems and dilemmas. Sometimes I even find myself in a quandary. And I often ask myself, "is something missing?" Now I know what it is: a conundrum. To be more specific, an erotic conundrum.
Sadly, this game is not the adrenaline-infused racer it sounds like. It doesn't feature the usual hot girls standing beside cars. It doesn't even have any cars. And worst of all, it doesn't feature bespectacled models solving Times' crossword puzzles in bed whilst wearing crotchless lingerie.
My friends, this game is a clone of SNAKE*. That's right, the game that comes with every Nokia phone, except with naked women in the background. IN THE BACKGROUND!
*I'm sure this was intentional.
First time I've seen a beatbox flute performance. Inspector Gadget vs. Beverly Hills Cop!
His Mario theme isn't bad either, but it's not as good as this:
Ok I'm over Kate Wax.
Managed to get home early for once today, and watched American Idol. I think last year's contestants were better, although Blake did a pretty cool beatboxing + Bon Jovi cover for something on a show about the death of music. Then again, once Justin Timberlake becomes known for bringing beatboxing to the mainstream, you know music never had a chance.
Also watched an episode from the new season of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, and it was fu#*ing wonderful except for local censorship of every other thing he said. I really loved that show back in the days of the first season. I do find it a problem though when he does his best to demolish the head chef (usually deserved) in front of the help, and then complains later that he isn't displaying enough confidence. Oh well. He's earned the right to be a royal asshole, in the kitchen at least.
***
I've had it with my Nokia E65. What a piece of shit the Symbian 60 OS is. A complete joke when it comes to usability. I pity everyone out there with a Nokia N series phone. Don't fall for the advertising. I fall for it all the time, and I'm responsible for some of that shit! But just say no. Don't believe it.
Years ago, when Nokia came out with their first cameraphone, you know the one, it was purple – they had a great ad for it. Lovely music by Zap Mama (Take Me Coco), and really well-shot visuals. A woman with flowing fabric, in the desert. That ad made me believe I would go to sleep one night and wake up as David LaChapelle. But if you saw the photos off that camera you'd know it was a lie. We were luckier back then. The lies were far enough away from the truth that we actually had a chance.
These days, with YouTube turning people into celebrities, yeah why not? Why shouldn't a crappy video shot on a Nokia N93i be the turning point in your life? Because the phone sucks ass, that's why, and you'll snap it across your thigh in frustration before you even get home to transfer your shitty-ass video onto a real computer. What's that? Yes, I said a real computer! Your N series phone is not a "multimedia computer"! It's not "what computers have become"! Don't falllllll for itttttt!
I'm trading mine in tomorrow for a good old Sony-Ericsson K800i. I took a lot more photos when I had my K750i. The 2mp camera on it was decent, and dependable. I've barely taken a goddamned photo in the last 2 months with this Nokia because it just makes my friends look like green shit golems. It's a fucking embarrassment. No Japanese schoolgirl would be caught dead using one, and as you should know, they are the benchmark against which my life is lived.
Looks like a big month ahead, with new albums from Bjork (love the cover!) and Tori Amos (hate the cover!). I've also picked up the new album 'Contact' from Thirteen Senses, whose debut album 'The Invitation' was pretty damn good and underappreciated. So far I think it's great.
Rufus Wainwright also has a new album out in May, as do the Manic Street Preachers. If you like that sort of thing. I can't stop thinking about these album covers. They don't make them like they used to. Rufus' looks like there's some bad photoshopping going on there, although I'm not certain. And the Manics' 2 fat women after a hen night, well. That's just a common sight in England, isn't it.
But really the whole point of this post was to mention and recommend Kate Wax. There are 2 albums in the Dark Heat Collection series, and both are available on eMusic.com. CDs are kinda rare, but if you can find any in your local HMV, be sure to try them out. She does a swirly, atmospheric sort of vocal mumblelectronica.
Half-British/Japanese talent idol Becky (Rebecca Eri Ray Vaughan) is too damned cute around animals (this includes Leah Dizon).
Here's a clip from an episode of Shimura Zoo where she lived with some firefoxes. I'm still looking for the full episode.
Also, check out the episode with 3 koalas. They jump around a lot and are unbearably cute!
Becky and Koalas at JapanSugoi.comEdit:
Becky and a giant beaver
What you see above is a QR-Code (Quick Response), ubiquitous anywhere in Japan, and on merchandise produced in Japan. Although the technology's use license is ambiguous (to me), and there's a chance some corporation 'owns' it in some nefarious way or another, so far in practice QR-Codes have been easy, open, and free barcodes for public use.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a mobile phone in Japan that doesn't read QR-Codes, and they can contain anything from plain text, email addresses, phone numbers, or links to online content. They've been deployed for years and allow consumers to access extra content, interact with companies, and exchange information quickly. Anyone can make a QR-Code, and I'm told you can find them on a great deal of business cards. One quick scan, and contact details make their way into your phone, hassle-free.
Locally, StarHub licensed NTT's cellphone web platform, i-mode. The success of that endeavor aside, I've always believed QR-Codes should make their way here as well. Why then, is Singapore being plastered with THESE?!
ColorCodes are a competing technology that depend on color reproduction to work. I won't go into detail because you can read ColorZip's website for yourself, but this implementation is chiefly used to deliver simple URLs to online content. Developed in Korea, maintained by a company called ColorZip SEA, and endorsed here by Singapore Press Holdings, this technology is a shadow of what QR-Code is. Is it a competing standard for the sake of having one of our own? Is it an effort to push more expensive color pages (in SPH's newspapers) to advertisers? Who knows.
The one advantage ColorCodes have, are that they can be read by almost any crap digital camera. Unless you're in an environment with strong colored light. QR-Codes generally need to be printed larger than an inch, unless you have a cameraphone that takes close-up shots. In Japan, that's almost every phone. The argument for ColorCodes falls apart when you realize that these low-tech cameraphones need web-browsers and internet connections in order to see the content that the ColorCodes reference.
The system is closed and proprietary, and I've found no way to create one of my own. Everything goes through ColorZip SEA, and I think that's just the way they like it. They've started a MySpace wannabe called ColorZipMe.com, where you can make an ugly profile page for yourself, that comes with a ColorCode link to itself. Wanna make a ColorCode for the blog you've already got? Doesn't look like you can.
So why, just why, are ColorCodes being pushed as our nation's standard for cameraphone barcodes? The rationale for even having such a technology is because advanced mobile-data-plan-consuming nations like Japan have them. Because they push the population to become more tech-savvy, and marketing to be more effective. That's why we have free island-wide WiFi.
So why are we choosing a product built for compatibility with 20th century cameraphones? Shouldn't we just bite the bullet, adopt the superior technology, and wait for our middle-aged to renew their carrier contracts, and get better phones? This must be the first "groundbreaking" technology I've seen to target the lowest-common denominator as its early adopter. For shame!
In the unlikely event that you are as upset about this as I am, and I know there's got to be at least one of you, here's what you can do in juvenile rebellion:
1.
Download a QR-Code reader for your non-Japanese phone. I've been using Kaywa Reader. It's a Java app, and you can download it by visiting reader.kaywa.com with your mobile phone.
2.
Start making QR-Codes and put them on your business cards, blogs, flyers, posters, etc. You can make them here, or download a Windows app from the NTT DoCoMo site. A list of other apps resides here.
The blogger, Robert Peloschek, uses QR-Codes as supplementary permalinks for each post. He also has some interesting stories about the technology, including a new application for it, in motion images. They call it "Movie QR". Here's a promotional ad for it that's quite funny.
In the last couple of days, I've fallen for a game which bears more than a passing resemblance in setting to a little show called 'Lost'. Just in case you didn't see it, the makers decided to go with the name 'Stranded'.
I've yet to come across a monster, but there have been allusions to something strange going on, and it can't be far off. What makes this game fun is a combination of portable pick-up-and-play design, and a sense of open-endedness.
It's an adventure game with quests to fulfill, but you could just spend all your time hunting chickens and fishing , if you wanted. Or collecting seashells and driftwood. Or cooking. Or planting seeds, cutting down trees, and trading goods. It's a sort of Animal Crossing + Contact. It's a hell of a lot of gameplay stuffed into a mobile game.
The time of day in the game matches real time (from your phone), and that affects how many snakes are out and about, what kind of fish you'll catch, and so on. And just like you'd expect from a portable game, saving is allowed at any time. Here's the 
Found this on digg and just had to share.
Looks like a big month ahead, with new albums from Bjork (love the cover!) and Tori Amos (hate the cover!). I've also picked up the new album 'Contact' from Thirteen Senses, whose debut album 'The Invitation' was pretty damn good and underappreciated. So far I think it's great.
Rufus Wainwright also has a new album out in May, as do the Manic Street Preachers. If you like that sort of thing. I can't stop thinking about these album covers. They don't make them like they used to. Rufus' looks like there's some bad photoshopping going on there, although I'm not certain. And the Manics' 2 fat women after a hen night, well. That's just a common sight in England, isn't it.
But really the whole point of this post was to mention and recommend Kate Wax. There are 2 albums in the Dark Heat Collection series, and both are available on eMusic.com. CDs are kinda rare, but if you can find any in your local HMV, be sure to try them out. She does a swirly, atmospheric sort of vocal mumblelectronica.
