JJNN 1 May 22nd, 2008

Hi everyone and welcome to my new blog.

My goals for this blog will be sharing interesting news stories from Japan as seen (and translated) through my own unique perspective. I will tend to look at technology and science news because that is what I know about (well...more science than technology really.)
Also, thanks to a wonderful podcast I have been listening to lately, (http://www.theskepticsguide.org) I will sometimes take a look into pseudoscience science with a skeptical eye.

Any way, that introduction is long enough so it is time today's first and only news story.

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20080522/docomo.htm

This story is about cell phones in Japan. I don't know if there is a version of Moore's Law that works for cell phones in Japan, but the rate at which cell phone companies in Japan come up with new things like this makes me think that there must be.

The gist of the article is that starting on June 6th users of NTT Docomo cellphones (the FOMA 902i/703i series of phones) will be able to reach into their home XP or Vista computers and grab audio, video, text and other types of files for viewing on their cell phone. I guess if I could do that I would be as happy as that yellow girl. (see below)


They are planning on upping the anty in the later part of the year by also letting people access the files that might be on their HD/DVD recorder. The screen may be small but nothing beats watching a few episodes of the Simpsons dubbed over in Japanese on the train ride home from work.

Now, from what I can tell there are disadvantages as well. For one it is 525 yen a month and a special program has to be installed onto your computer. The fact that non-windows users can't use the program might be problem for some. Also, I wonder if people would have to pay for packets while using this to watch movies and videos from one's home computer. If that is true, this is going to be truely expensive indeed.

Any way, let me know what you think. Leave comments to help me figure out what direction I should go with this blog. I am thinking of doing something like science or fiction for Japanese science articals if I ever get free time. I hope you enjoy this and see you next time at JJNN.