Christopher Kobayashi: Mobile

WinkSite Sidebar

Thu, 15 Jan 2004 13:59:33 GMT

Got my WinkSite moblog into my sidebar. I guess it looks painfully obvious.

Kewl thing is it's a Javascript (or I should say ECMAScript) that writes an iframe tag that calls a ColdFusion page. The WINKsite emulator then reads my Radio RSS feed and spits it out. So my blog calls the WINKsite moblog, which calls stuff from my blog again.

WINKsite UPDATE

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 17:58:34 GMT

OK, the great people at WINKsite (Wireless Ink) have got their service viewable on JPHONE!! Subscribed to Joi Ito and Gen Kanai's RSS feeds. I named my moblog site Ore No MoBuloggu. Here are access methods:

URL : http://winksite.com/chriskk/mobuloggu
WINKsite ID #2510

Keitai RSS reader

Mobile FeliCa

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 17:49:16 GMT

Got an update from Lars (Wireless Watch Japan) about NTT DoCoMo's "Felica" integration into some handsets. See the Wireless Watch Japan's article w/ links to streaming video clip.
My Previous posts:

Keitai RSS reader

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 07:42:58 GMT

A couple of posts ago I made a todo list, which included coding a Keitai RSS reader. I was gonna do it in ColdFusion, of course. WINKsite beat me to the punch and in ColdFusion too!

I tried out their service, but unfortunately I can't access it from my Vodafone keitai. Normally I wouldn't have tried again and probably forgotten about the site, but an interesting thing happened. When I signed up I mistakenly entered my email address as chriskk @ NO S P A M pixic. om, whithout the N O S P A M portion. A company rep emailed me using pixi.com and explained that I might've mistyped my address. WOW, great service! It made me feel like they wanted me as a user. A valued customer!
Now they're helping me so that I can actually see their service through my keitai.

They're also a ColdFusion house. Another major plus.

Some links to help with getting my Sanyo J-SA05 Vodafone (formerly known as JPhone) work with their services:

CGI variables of my unit
List of keitai phones with browser version, supported image formats, and colors supported.
Official Vodafone spec of Sanyo J-SA05

Another interesting note is that Adam Greenfield of V-2, the organizer of the 1st International Moblogging Conference (See previous blog post, and google search), is now on WINKsites' board of advisors (See v-2, and Wireless Ink PR page 12-30-2003 Announcement).

eMoney = iMode Suica

Sat, 27 Dec 2003 17:39:09 GMT

A post by Yuichi of KoKoRo blog regarding iMode Suica. I briefly posted about Suica in April,and at that time it seemed like this Suica DoCoMo thing was going to happen very soon. As the artcile that Yuichi linked to mentions, the service might start within a year or two. This could be the start of eMoney's success in Japan.

Suica is soooooo convenient. I would love to purchase quick items using either the Suica card or my keitai. Things that would be useful for me as a quick purchase at the stations are: can coffee, breath mint/candy, and Newspaper/magazine. Another thing I might like is to dump my keitai photos to another media or online service, and pay for it w/ the Suica-Keitai eMoney.

Photo source from ZDNet Japan Mobile.

GEEK To Do List Before the New Year

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 17:45:36 GMT

Some peronsal projects that REALLY need to be pushed forward:

Wiki - Here's a link to what kind of Wiki I'm thinking about.
Wiki Blog - learn how they work together. Base technology behind them.
moblog - view by category, date, time ... and maybe someday by mobile photo color. This is an idea I picked up from Andreas Schneider. Note: I bet he's got the first moblog w/ GPS on the planet!
Keitai RSS reader - I would love to read RSS feeds on my commute to work on the train. This could be a web-based keitai site, or something that gets emailed.

The Birth of Keitai Lights at Concerts

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 04:12:49 GMT

I got to go to a MTV sponsored Sean Paul concert last month and witnessed an interesting twist to lighters at concerts. One of the opening bands, a Japanese reggae group, mentioned that the facility asked the crowd not to hold up lit lighters so he said use your keitais instead. It wasn't a huge concert, so I couldn't get a full effect, but I would imagine this would be pretty kewl in a stadium full of people.

I couldn't imagine a rock band from the states saying this though ...

au design project

Mon, 06 Oct 2003 19:06:12 GMT

At the Wireless Japan 2003, Au showed some style w/ the concept phones by Marc Newson. Checkout these new Infobar phones. The Nishikigoi, Ichimatsu, and Building. My vote's for Building. Sexy phones ... definitely. You can shoot movies, GPS, Java Brew, built-in flash for the digital camera, 144Kbps data, and make phone calls. These phones will be available in November. Now here's the dilemna ... new DoCoMo 505i series phone or the AU Building.
We got one month to think about it.

Wireless Japan 2003 - AU by KDDI

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:33:18 GMT

OK ... last campaign grrrl. Thanks to the overwhelming support (2 comments .. thank u gentlemen), I had to post the final pic.

AU's phones seem to have a *KEWL* factor. It's the influence I got from the designer phones they had showcased. After touching and feeling the units from so many manufacturers .. u get numb. But the designer ones look sooooo SEXY. The feeling I get when I play around with the new iPods. Designer is Marc Newson. Here are more shots .. site in Japanese.

AU's really pushing GPS. I forgot to pickup their pamphlet's, but the word GPS was plastered everywhere. GPS in the workplace. Find your friends. For moblogging w/ GPS AU's the carrier. Tokyo Tidbits' using AU.

Wireless Japan 2003 - NTT DoCoMo

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:30:47 GMT

The DoCoMo campaign girl .. I know, I know, stop u stalker. Couldn't help it! And I did it for the guys. Help me out here fellas.
DoCoMo's booth was half 505 series demos. The other side was FOMA (3G service), and business solutions.

Telematics doesn't excite me. It was neat playing with the system making the headlights come out, but SO WHAT. It's probably cause I don't drive in Tokyo. Avoiding traffic, and trying to find parking doesn't even enter my mind. I can imagine if I drove I would love to have a way to get information fed to me audibly. Being able to navigate by voice would be the safest. What kind of standards would this follow? What kind of usability?

One of the 'killer apps' for the 3G FOMA phones is videoconferencing. The problem with this is that both ends need a FOMA phone. Here's a shot of a service that will make the 3G phones mainstream. See your AIBO's point of view from your FOMA phone. Uh ... yeah. These toys of the near future are definitely KEWL, but how much can you spare for them?
Some 505 series models come w/ QR Code readers built into the keitai camera. Checkout this gadget blog for a brief on QR Code and DoCoMo's strategy. The KoKoRo blog is by a P2P guru in Japan and helps runs Jnutella.

Wireless Japan 2003 - Vodafone

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 01:31:40 GMT

Wireless Japan was an 'eye opener'. Especially the campaign girls. Geeks looking for the newest mobile gadgets, and beautiful women in costume play outfits. What a combo!
No sign of the JPhone brand. Vodafone all the way. Ton of money to rebrand themselves. RED RED RED. Booth blocking the entrace to the conference. They out did DoCoMo.

The above mobile device is NEC's V-N701 (More info). It's a sexy gadget that's got 'TV Call' function, which is basically videoconferencing. This phone is part of Vodafone's Global Standard Line-Up. 'Global Roaming'. Doesn't work in the US and you can't videoconference with someone without TV Call. Back to the drawing board. More photos here ... site in Japanese.

That's right ... control your TV, VCR, and DVD player from your phone. Why!?! Any case it's an awesome phone. Ladies and gentlemen , let me present the J-N51 by NEC (info in Japanese). Japanese only user interface (NOT bilingual .. too bad :(), Java apps (MEANS DOWNLOADABLE GAMES!!!), QR Code reader (advanced form of bar codes), and even a light for the 310,000 pixel built-in camera. Should we call this a mobile phone, digital camera, bar code scanner, PDA, or remote control? That's the equipment manufacturer's next dilema. Stuff it all in one or specialized gadgets.
QR Code (Quick Response Code) - it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the m-commerce space. Will Mail order catalogue companies use this technology? How about the consumers? Is it easy enough to use? hmmmm. Vodafone's got two phones with this technology built-in. Docomo also has some phones lined up, will AU be next?
The photo is of a mobile phone's screen with a coupon and QR Code. A QR Code scanner can scan the phone's screen. Basically, a person sees an ad in the train or magazine. This ad has a message like for more info email moreinfo@ thiscompany.com. When the person does this from their keitai, the system auto replies w/ more info and a link to the coupon. The person clicks the link and is sent to the coupon page perhaps with the QR Code, which they can take to a store. A service provided by Maido Coupon (site in Japanese).
** UPDATE: The QR Code could be scanned by the phone, which translate it into a URL or email address. The reason I think there is a scanner at the store is the demo shows the QR Code w/ the coupon as shown in the photo above.**

Moblog of a Moblog of a Moblog

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:38:16 GMT

Tokyo Bloggers Party(was Meetup). It was nice to see the regulars at The Pink Cow and to connect with new dots. Had some pretty interesting talks w/ Mike of Hunkabutta and the gentleman of (Ack ... forgot your name!?!) Antipixel. Something along the lines of the migration of Japanese people and heart that goes into wedding ceremonies.

Paul and Mie had their creative engines going thinking of new and crazy ideas for MoBlogging. It was kinda neat to see Paul use our keitais to Moblog of a Moblog of a Moblog. Reminded me of that effect you get when you put two opposing mirrors. They're starting some *TOP SECRET* MoBlog project ... gotta get my spy gear out ;)

www.oreno.org

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 20:35:05 GMT

Finally got an Alpha of the top page for my new personal/work blog + calendar + photo album + etc. It's at www.oreno.org. I got it XHTML 1.0 Transitional valid, but I'll need to play around a little more to get the CSS to validate. I didn't use any tables for the layout, but coded Div tags and CSS Absolute positioning. It's my first attempt at both XHTML and CSS so please bear with me until I get a decent Beta out.

Next step is to code a RSS reader to grab my Radio blog titles w/ their respective dates .. then recode my moblog, create RSS generator for it, and finally the RSS reader for the moblog to add the most recent photo to the top page.

First International Moblogging Conference

Sun, 06 Jul 2003 08:55:20 GMT

Yesterday was the First International Moblogging Conference. It was AWESOME! I hadn't slept for over 30hrs, but when I got there I was re-Energized.
Left photo is the stamp - like getting branded .. we're just cows.
Right shot - an underground club was the perfect setting for this event. Most of the audience were casually dressed. Initially seemed like a very relaxed atmosphere, but when the 1st coffee break hit ** SO MUCH ENERGY ** So much brain waves flying through the air. To bad my brain's dead !?!

The left photo is of Justin Hall - bumped into him and Jane of Game Girl Advance on the way to the event. All of us were pretty lost, but found the spot just in time. Both are gamers and writers.
Middle shot is of Kevin Cameron of MFOP fame .. and now MFOP2.
Right photo is a shot of "Why MoBlog" session. Interesting story - the reason I took it is I found a moblog event called 24, through a post by Gen Kanai on the Japan Bloggers mailing list. I wanted to participate and emailed the guy in charge, Raphael Grignani, but was too late. I mentioned the 1IMC to Raphael and he said he's not gonna make it but look out for Jan .. the first person listed on the 24 site. Jan so happened to be sitting next to me and asked me to take a shot of the panel. He said see the 1st guy on the site .. that's me. It was trippy! ... sorry if that was long, but I had to get it out there.

Centralized vs Decentralized :: Daiji's and Kevin's MoBlog systems allow you to hold the photos and posts on your own blog (mainly Movable Type) a decentralized model, while Phlog and HipTop Nation uses a centralized model. Seems like people who are technically savy like the decentralized way (again Movable Type types) and people who don't have time or don't care about the why/how like the centralized approach. Pretty obvious I guess. I've been thinking about a hybrid mode, where you can use an easy centralized host, but customize the output by calling it via WebServices .. kinda similar to the BlogRolling approach.

Here are other posts about 1IMC:
Tokyo Tidbits - 1, 2, 3
Joi Ito - blog post, another, wiki
SyncWorld - 1
Pete's Eats - good notes here
moblog.oreno.org - finally got me a simple moblog up.

Here are some notes of the event in OPML format (1imc.xml). Made using OmniOutliner on OS X 10.2. The extension's set as .xml so that the browsers don't crap out when they try to read it, but you can change this to opml if your outliner needs it in that format.

Left is a shot of the Early Adopters panel - Justin moderated it, Mie from Tokyo Tidbits, Carsten of Based on a true story, and Stuart of stuartwoodward.com. Go Tokyo MoBloggers!
Right is Adam Greenfield of v-2 and the organizer/host of this great conference. Awesome job Adam!

Macromedia Flash Conference Tokyo 2003

Sun, 06 Jul 2003 07:19:53 GMT

Got to checkout the Tokyo Macromedia Flash Conference on June 20, 2003. It was the first time I visited any Flash conference. Different type of crowd than what I'm used to. The small Microsoft seminars in Hawaii drew the average everyday geeks .. Micro$erf geeks .. and sys admin types. The WWW2002 was all educational, research, scientific, standards worshippers, and programmers .. bleading edge-types .. not entrepreneurial in the sense of this'll sell, but very future minded people. The Flash people are visual creatives ... designers everywhere. Animators, UI, and experience designers. Made me feel like going out and designing stuff. That's the beauty of events .. the ENERGY .. New mantra for myself 'You're a designer' 'ohmmmmmmm' 'ohmmmmmm'

Left photo is of the Docomo campaign girl .. ooh la la
Right photo is a dude w/ a Segway. There was a Jan-Ken game to ride one and got to the last 10 people, but lost. 2Bad. Here's a Quicktime Movie of him making 8s.

I didn't know how much of a Flash god Yugo Nakamura (www.yugop.com) was until this event. Got to see his worshippers.

Other Notes:
A kewl tool coming out is Flash for programmers. Royale. Info from Corfield's blog. No, not 'Royale with cheese' from Kahuna burgers.
Flash Lite on the Docomo iMode 505 series of phones. An interesting question from a developer went something like "As a developer I feel that Flash Lite doesn't work well, are you folks at Macromedia happy with the new Flash Lite?". Flash Lite is scriptable using ActionScript from Flash 4.
Other sessions that I didn't get to attend were on Rich Internet Applications, and working Flash on TV.

iCal, Outlook XP, Web based, and Mobile

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 01:27:39 GMT

Started to play around w/ iCal. Easy to use and really slick UI. Very Mac like. Trying to figure out a good way to have a work and personal calendar .. that has client app pieces on either XP or Jaguar. Needs to be viewable through the web and portable (iPod and JPhone/iMode). Here are some links to stuff that look promising:

iCal World - Your Complete iCal Hub
iCalShare - Share Your iCalendars!
iCalViewer - The aim is to display a user's events in a pleasing, compelling, and useful fashion.
Burnout Menu - BurnoutMenu lets you track items in multiple categories at a glance.
iCalMaker - iCalMaker is an easy to use program for the rapid creation of vCal diary appointment files for use with iCal and other such applications (screen shots).

PSP Playstation Portable

Wed, 14 May 2003 03:51:14 GMT

Article on Asahi (in Japanese) regarding SCE's (Sony Computer Entertainment) announcement of a portable Playstation by the end of next year. Next year :( Seems like they're planning on launching it simultaneously around the world. As we all know Nintendo's the only player in this space and Sony wants a piece of this pie.

Article on ZDNet Japan (in Japanese) w/ the specs:

Game media will be on Universal Media Disk (capacity of 1.8GB) with size being around 2.5 inches diameter.
4.5" TFT display w/ resolution of 480x272
Support of 3D polygons, MPEG4, 3D Sound

NOTE: It's already been slashdoted.

* UPDATE *
Mobile/Handheld games .. I haven't explored this space, but intend to pick me up a Gameboy Advance soon. The Final Fantasy Tactics would be my game of choice. I got it for my PS2, but haven't gotten around to finishing it. Maybe I'll accomplish this while on my train commutes. Better do this before the Ultima Online Mobile comes out, then move on to making a game .. eventually.
This area of gaming will grow, starting with Japan. I think of it as short experiences .. like smoking a cig. Relax the mind for a bit.
What's funny is how I started into gaming .. I remember playing Nintendo games on these small business card sized handhelds back in the early 80's. The classic game I remember is the one where there's a burning building on the left w/ people jumping out. You had to bounce them to the ambulance on the right. Moved on to PC and consoles .. and now I'm going back to handhelds. Maybe riding trains is affecting my gaming lifestyle.

Ultima Online Mobile

Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:19:08 GMT

Is this the world's first MMMORG (Massively Multiplayer Mobile Online Role Playing Game)? Can we call it 3MORG instead?

(Photos borrowed from Dwango's Press Release without permission: 505i screen shots, pre-release shots - disclaimer saying might be different from actual release.)
A company called Dwango has a press release in Japanese about Ultima Online for iMode. If I'm translating this correctly, part of the title says something to the effect of "Be the first to play this game by using the new 505i series phones". The release continues stating that Electronic Arts and Dwango have agreed on working together in distributing the mobile version of this game. Dwango has acquired the license for the distribution of the mobile (for cell phones) version. Dwango will start the distribution of the 'Ultima Online Mobile' service to DoCoMo iMode 504i, 504iS, and the new 505i series of keitais. They are planning to launch this service after the 505i phones are released (which should be mid-May - see my last post). The PR goes on about when UO was established and mentions that as of March, 2003 there are over 100,000 users in Japan.
There's more , but I'll let you translate the rest.

Some features of the mobile version of the game:

save your pet or monster into the cellphone wallpaper appli. The pet/monster will be affected by various factors such as the amount of battery life, and signal strength. (only available through the 505i phones) Like depending on the battery life, the pet will have different equipment or if the phone is out of range the pet won't be able to heal/maintenance.
mentioned that chatting won't be available, but exchanging of goods will be part of the game

DoCoMo 505i Series and Macromedia Flash Lite

Thu, 24 Apr 2003 16:07:48 GMT

Check out these features for the new 505i series of phones coming out mid-May:

Macromedia Flash Lite (Flash: the Future article | Wireless Developers Network | Macromedia Flash Lite Content Development Kit)
i-appli DX
1 to 1.3 MegaPixel digital camera/video
Memory Stick Duo and miniSD memory cards
InfraRed (since 504i series) possibly used for remote control for TVs, VCRs, and karaoke machines
Fingerprint authentication

For details goto DoCoMo's official site, mouseover Current Information, click on What's New, click on Apr 17, 2003 Introduction to 505i series terminals now online, and then click on 'Click here for the introduction' link.
Another article on 505i's launch on Wireless Watch Japan.

Sony Ericsson's SO505i model looks wicked (photo borrowed from ZDNet Japan, more photos there). More photos at Mobile Burn. I gotta switch carriers. I'm currently on JPhone, but these 505i phones makes me wanna switch. I've been manipulated by mobile feature envy. I'm not the only one .. checkout the voting results for the new keitais.

Macromedia is pushing Flash as THE NEXT UI: PC Browsers, Mobiles, and Game Consoles (PS2). They're at an advantage, because most content providers already use Flash. Java is the closest competition, but programmers are expensive. Where's Microsoft? In the automobiles ...

Suica (JR East / Sony)

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 16:17:15 GMT

I got myself a Suica card yesterday. Currently the Suica cards are used as passes for JR railways in Tokyo. The Suica card system will eventually be installed in many stores in the stations to pay for various goods/services. Docomo iMode phones will support this system by the end of the year "Docomo Suica". Instead of having an IC card, the technology will be inside the keitais. The technology behind Suica is by Sony and is called Felica. Hong Kong's rail/subway/taxi systems also use the Felica technology.

Here are the multiple ways of paying for the JR fares:

Buy a ticket from a machine. Usually you would look at the rail map above the machines to see where you want to go to check the price.
Get a Teiki, which is a prepaid fixed destination pass (i.e. Teiki between Ogikubo and Yotsuya, you can get on and off anywhere between these points as many times as you want). (1st photo of the light green pass)
IO Cards are prepaid passes, but unlike Teiki the destinations aren't fixed. The fares are the same as buying tickets except the advantage is you don't have to buy tickets everytime you want to go somewhere. (2nd photo)
Suica cards! This is an IC card that can function as both a Teiki and IO. When you travel between your usual set route it knows not to subtract any amount, but when you need to go somewhere else it'll automatically subtract from the IO prepaid amount. (3rd photo)

(click to see larger photos)

Here's a video taken today of how fast the Suica card is:
- Suica (Windows Media 240x180 stream from Playstream)

Some links to Suica info:

Suica - The Smart Card! (japan.box.sk)
Tokyo smart cards challenge cash (BBC News)
Mobile phones to be used as commuter passes, prepaid cards (Mainichi Interactive)
Sony Felica Case Study of Suica (Sony)
High Number of Electronic Cash Transactions in Hong Kong Octopus System (ePSO Newsletter)

Nooper

Tue, 08 Apr 2003 15:43:33 GMT

mobile content services.
from Nooper in Japan. Mailing list, mail checker, date reminder, rain alert, website update watcher are some of the services offered free of charge. You only pay for the data/packets...
[IN-duce]

Just signed-up for this free (well, pay for the data packets) service through my J-Phone. Gonna use Nooper's service to check my work email and have weather info mailed to me. WEATHER info .. never had that in Hawaii! Better watch my phone bill .. check how much it costs to receive email.

First International Moblogging Conference

Sat, 05 Apr 2003 03:37:41 GMT

Moblog Conference.
"It's official! The moblogging conference will happen on Saturday, July 5th 2003 at SuperDeluxe..."
[Based On A True Story]

I decided that I need to get more involved with all the kewl events going on in Tokyo. You can share online experiences, but actually meeting people and sharing ideas is "mo bettah".

MMMORG ...

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 05:43:02 GMT

Howz about the Massively Mobile Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. What would the mobile device be though .. maybe a iMode/FOMA clientside piece connecting to 'the world'? Or even better, the N-Gage? Would I have the time to play something like this ... depends on how well the game is built. What would be key features of a MMMORG other than the fact that it's now mobile? I mean the games .. what would be a KILLER game. Not another version of Ultima Online or Everquest .. but something that hasn't been created yet.

U.S. Set for Mobile Game Invasion

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 11:12:53 GMT

U.S. Set for Mobile Game Invasion.
A common sight in Europe and Japan -- cooler-than-thou teens and pinstriped businesspeople jabbing madly at their cell-phone keypads as they play mobile games -- may soon become standard in the United States. Elisa Batista reports from San Jose, California.
[Wired News]

So many things to do, so many things to learn, so many things to PLAY WITH!!!
God .. I love games, gadgets, and technology. I haven't figured out why .. or to tell you the truth haven't even stopped to think why. Do you know why? Is it the actual STUFF that's exciting .. or is it the idea that it's all just VIRTUAL STUFF .. a game is an experience .. so is most gadgets. Gadgets are useful sometimes, but to me it's the new experience .. that moment. Like when I first started my XBOX and booted up Splinter Cell. I'll never forget it. I payed attention to every details .. the sound of the XBOX booting .. the actual whirring of the machine. The starting cut-scene.

N-Gage

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 11:08:21 GMT

(Nokia's Mobile Game thing)
One of the reasons I would go back to the states for. This phone/gaming device looks frikin rad.