Sign of the Times
Sign of the Times

Sign of the Times

Security Robot with Mobile Ads

Tech-On has a great article on the digital future of robotic security services, with this An9-PR on display by ALSOK sporting an impressive laundry list of gadgetery. Aside from range of LCD touch panels, we’ll get to that after the hop, it touts a face-recognition camera, embedded FeliCa RFID functions, human range sensors and WLAN connectivity for positioning and reporting. Standing 160cm (about 5ft) tall and tipping the scales at 200kg this real-life cousin of R2D2 comes with a hefty price tag of about $150k and will be available for monthly lease of about $3,000 including on-going maintenance fees.

Japan Mobile Market Growth in 2008

According to the Nikkei, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecomms announced the mobile contents and services market results in 2008 increased by 17% YoY to reach 1.35 Trillion JPY (approx. $14 Billion usd), mobile advertising not included. The mobile commerce market, including mail orders and stock transactions recorded $9B, up 19% while airline and hotel reservations, in the same segment, increased by 25%. The mobile contents category, lead by music, games and e-books, gained 13% to about $5B. Do the math on a mobile population of 106M contracts!

The Android Magic Launch in Japan

DoCoMo rolled-out the very first Android powered device in Japan today, labeled as the HT-03A, with somewhat less fan-fare than other product launches (cough-cough: iPhone) we’ve seen in the past. Besides the obvious absence of long line-ups full of eager gadget geeks, we find nothing on Google News (strange considering who runs that show) and very little so far on the main Japanese tech sites. Basically, Abracadabra – Boo! – it’s surprisingly quiet here on the eastern front.

Custom QR Code for Marc Jacobs Japan

Those talented and hyper-creative folks over at SET Japan keep cranking out the stylish QR codes with the un-veiling of their new creation for Marc Jacobs Japan. According to this announcement the latest design is a hand-drawn feature of the company mascot – Miss Marc – and will be used to drive traffic to their newly minted mobile website which launches today. Talk about style meets function.. Nice One!

QR Code Book with Twitter Feed

You just gotta love this simple yet effective innovation. An online bookstore in Brazil launched a campaign using a new exclusive book with only QR Codes inside.. so far so cool. However, the ‘never ending story’ routinely pulls keywords from Twitter feeds to keep updating the content! The first edition is already sold-out and they are looking at this platform now for future concepts as well. No doubt the good folks over at Denso Wave would be thrilled to hear about this one.

Girls Mobile SNS to Farm for Boys

CyberAgent introduced an unusual mobile SNS platform last month, sensing spring was in the air, targeted at women shopping for a husband. The angle appears to be that ladies create an account, adding portrait profiles of all the guys they know, to share details within their ‘hopefully growing’ network of like-minded girl friends. The twist here – in cute icon loving land – is that the boys are represented as lambs, cows or horses depending on their flirty, lazy or agressive nature.. can you imagine! Any bets on how long until someone comes up with the jungle version of this dude ranch?