Archived Magazine Contents

April 2001 Issue

In Touch

  From the Editor
  
 

Features

  P2P: The Japanese Angle
How the emerging P2P scene in Japan could mix with the country's ubiquitous mobile phones to create a pocket-pocket, person-to-person, impossible-to-monitor network.		  
 
Exploring the Possibilities of P2P Wireless
This idea is under the radar at the moment. It won't be for long, and the implications are huge.		  
 
  Freeing of the Press
The Net is introducing new elements into Japan's mass media -- disclosure, diversity, personalization -- and threatening to transform the world's biggest newspaper audience into the biggest online-media one.		  
 
  How It Works
(PDF-formatted file, Acrobat 4.0 or later required)
We draw out for you how: video can be delivered on demand over copper phone wires, US and Japanese stocks can be traded over a cellphone in Japan, and global expansion can save a cellular operator money. 		 
 
  DoCoMo's Java Jive-Talkin'
i-Appli -- Java on i-mode -- is the coolest thing since, well, i-mode. For developers, though, its controlled rollout was a reminder of who's boss -- and how that boss likes to operate.		  
 

Filter

  An Interface Designer Does Japan
A US-based software usability consultant shares her impressions on how Japan interfaces with machines -- and vice versa.		  
 
  What's Wrong With PHS?
Enough with i-mode, already. PHS -- Japan's neglected mobile phone service -- is in many ways better.		  
 
Idees Fortes
How about a fingerprint reader on the back of handsets for secure m-commerce?		  
 

People

  Masayasu Ariyoshi
After 10 years with Nomura Research Institute, he's heading up a product evaluation site "for the people, by the people, and of the people."		  
 

Research

  Statistics
(PDF-formatted file, Acrobat 4.0 or later required)
Japan's usage of media changes, the online content market begins to take off, and B2C gets a boost from mobile.		  
 
  Japan Studies
How Japan's aging society is perceived -- by the aged.		  
 

Investor

  Bento-Box Infotech
ipTrend sees a big market in wiring Japan's small-time shops. Simplicity, it knows, is key.		  
 
Less Share-Sharing
A new accounting standard puts another dent in corporate cross- holdings -- the glue holding many Japanese keiretsu together.		  
 
Betting on B2B
Cynomix is betting Japan's trading giants will adopt its system for automating Web-based B2B efforts -- assuming there are such efforts.		  
 
Charging into Japan
eCharge thinks Japan's consumers will take to its Net-based payment system. Question is, will online merchants?		  
 
On Our Radar Screen
This month: studybox and step.com.		  
 

In Parting

  Art Department
How an art duo called exonemo lets you engage in minor acts of technological terrorism.		  
 
  Blowfish
Japanese shoppers are infatuated with clothes retailer UNI-QLO -- and prices alone don't explain it.		  
 

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