The education ministry will issue a warning to Japan’s first all-Internet university to more diligently confirm the identities of students to prevent the use of ringers posing as students. Cyber University is operated by Japan Cyber Educational Institute, a SoftBank subsidiary established in January 2006, and began offering courses to the public in April 2007.
Japan will start licensing cellphone “sommeliers” to help guide consumers through complicated functions as mobile telephones become ever more advanced. The communications ministry said it would support a private-sector plan to launch an exam to license specialists who sell cellphones.
The CIAJ has released their annual report on cellular phone trends in Japan. This year’s study focuses on market trends in handset replacement purchases since the launch of number portability (MNP), the uses of 3G handsets, changes in viewing trends of one-segment digital tv broadcasts with the abundant availability of compatible handsets and interest in other functions, such as m-commerce.
DeNA’s Mobagatown site, which hit 5 million users with over 400 million daily page views back in May, has announced an interesting summer Yukata campaign. In co-operation with Aeon dept. store the companies have set-up a virtual avatar catalogue from which members can build, for a modest fee, their outfit based on actual products complete with best dressed contest prizes. This would seem to be a rather slick ad. campaign ultimately designed to drive purchases of the real thing just in time for the summer matsuri (festival) season. The company ran a similar campaign for Nike where customers who bought physical goods were rewarded with virtual prizes.
According to this article via the Yomiuri Shimbun, airlines are growing increasingly concerned about children bringing cell phones onto planes, as they could interfere with navigation systems. Airlines are especially concerned about the latest children’s cell phones, which contain a built-in crime prevention function that automatically restarts the phone if it is switched off. [WWJ demo video Here]
Seron over at What Japan Thinks translated a recently-published report from infoPLANT looking at access trends of blogs and SNS from both mobile phones and PC’s. Conducted between the 15th and 22nd of May 2007 3,709 people self-selected themselves to complete a public survey offered through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menuing system. 61.9% of the sample was female.
