July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The next time you enter a tiny Shibuya noodle bar, you could end up paying with one of Square’s payment technologies.

The startup announced today that it’s launching in Japan, its second location outside of the U.S. (it hit Canada in October 2012), and its first market outside of of North America. Square partnered with Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation (SMCC) to make the move, the same company that helped bring Visa to Japan.

Square’s mobile credit card reader and apps will be free to us, and it’s charging a 3.25 percent transaction fee (slightly higher than the 2.75 percent fee it charges in North America).

It makes sense for Square to target Japan next — it’s a country that’s been heavily dependent on mobile technology long before smartphones were big in the U.S.. Square’s founder Jack Dorsey has also been a big proponent of the Japanese design philosophy wabi-sabi, which focuses on the beauty of impermanent and imperfect things.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

A number of Western developers I advise are interested in launching their apps in what they call “the Asian smartphone market.” The goal is quite understandable, given that geographic area’s high growth rate in recent years.

But I sometimes fear that term is too broad and can lead to confusion. There are many large countries within Asia, and for various cultural and infrastructure-related reasons, they can have widely varying mobile usage and ownership patterns. To illustrate this, here are five facts about this market that aren’t generally well known by many of my colleagues in the West:

Japan is where mobile apps monetize best

In gaming, Japanese mobile publisher GREE has an ARPU (average revenue per user) of $11.21 per month, while Zynga’s monthly ARPU is 33 cents, according to the Wall Street Journal. We see a similar pattern in non-game apps.

Take LINE, for example, a messaging app from NHN Japan that’s  extremely popular in Asia (it has 100 million total users). Ten percent of its active Japanese users monetize around $1 or more per month. (LINE users purchase “stamps” — cartoon characters they can insert into their text messages.)

There is a very good reason for this high monetization rate: Japanese mobile users have been accustomed to paying to use their apps since 1999, when top mobile carrier Docomo created a market for applications — basically an app store — and charged its users for these apps, many of which provide services most Western phone owners take for granted. When Docomo rolled out email access through mobile, for instance, it charged customers 300 Yen (more than $3) per month to use it. Despite those fees, the service became very popular. In fact, most Japanese first started accessing the Web on their phones, not a PC. So there are very different cultural assumptions in Japan around mobile payments — and consequently, much higher revenue.

Japanese e-commerce is ruled by mobile

Major online retailers such as Amazon and Rakuten see about 60 percent of their purchases come from mobile in Japan, generally much higher than rates in the West, especially the United States. Again, this is related to Japan’s unique conditions. As I noted, most Japanese first began to access the Web on mobile and so are accustomed to shopping via their phones.

Different usage behavior is also a factor. Unlike in United States, most Japanese commute to work via trains and thus have much more leisure time to shop on their phones. Since most Americans drive to work, they are less likely to shop with their phones during their commute. (At least I hope so, if they’re driving!)

Mobile diversity throughout Asia

As I said, to speak generally of “the Asian smartphone market” is somewhat misleading. Consider how the ownership rates and app usage behaviors vary widely from country to country.

For instance, in Japan, about 40 million of the country’s population of 127 million own a smartphone — roughly one fourth use iOS, and three fourths use Android. Korea counts about 20 million smartphone owners among its population of 50 million.

However, app usage is much greater in Korea. For the apps by our portfolio companies (we count about 75 million total users on our platform), a typical distribution rate in terms of downloads from the most active countries is 40 percent from the U.S., 10 percent from Japan, and 20 percent from Korea.

So while the Korea smartphone install base is much smaller than the U.S. or Japan groups, app usage is proportionally much higher in Korea. This is probably because smartphone adaptation in Korea started earlier than either country, and Korea’s data infrastructure and Internet connection speeds are much higher. And as a smaller country by geography, it’s easier to establish broad mobile coverage in Korea. For these reasons, 4G in Korea is cheap and very fast, making it much more appealing to download and use apps.

China: The biggest, most slippery fish

By now, most Westerners know China has surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s largest smartphone market, with an install base of 240 million to the U.S.’s estimated 120 million. Some analysts even forecast China will grow to have half a billion smartphones by the end of this year.

Less well known are all the barriers that currently exist for Western developers who want to enter that market. Beyond the obvious language and cultural barriers, not to mention problems with IP rights protections, there’s no Google Play in China. Amazon Web Services has not launched thereyet, and there are literally hundreds of app stores vying for customers.

To be sure, Apple’s App Store in China has gained significant traction in recent years, but the iOS install base in China is dwarfed by Android.

Then, of course, the Great Firewall makes many apps that depend on cloud servers and social networks outside of China virtually unusable. Facebook and Twitter are blocked by China’s government, and Chinese users turn instead to local social networks like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.

Japan’s unique social media culture

When LinkedIn attempted to launch in Japan, the social network had difficulties gaining users, for cultural reasons, in Japan, resumes are considered highly confidential and not widely shared. To be sure, many Japanese do use LinkedIn, but they tend to be those who work outside Japan or regularly deal with U.S. and European firms.

For similar reasons, game developers have experienced difficulty using Facebook Connect as an account creation method — Japanese usually fear that professional contacts in their social network will think less of them if it’s revealed they are playing online games.

Instead, Japanese prefer using another social networks for their leisure activities, such as GREE (with a focus on mobile games) and Mixi (with a focus on entertainment and user avatars).

Conclusion

Despite all the challenges Western developers face when dealing with Asia’s many mobile markets, it’s exciting to watch them start succeeding there anyway. One of our developer partners, Atlanta-based Metago, turned its ASTRO file management app into a service with 55 million users, a very large percentage of whom are living in Asia. I’m certain many other Western developers can gain as much success across the Asian market. And when that happens, developers won’t need posts like this that cover little-known facts about Asian mobile — because knowing those facts will already be an integral part of their job.

Masanari Arai was cofounder and CEO of Synclore Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, which merged with Servo Software to become Kii. He has more than 15 years experience in the mobile software space in Silicon Valley and Japan. He joined Intellisync in 1995 as one of the original members of the company, where he served in various positions such as VP product marketing, VP business development, GM for Asia, and President of Intellisync Japan. Prior to Intellisync, he was at IBM where he was the product manager of original ThinkPad 700 Series.

Ramping up production in June and July will stock Apple’s shelves for a late summer or early fall launch, when Apple typically sells millions of devices in just a few days. That timetable is in line with Tim Cook’s statements during Apple’s last earnings call, in which Cook warned investors not to expect any major new product launches this summer:

“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014,” he said at the time.

Japan Display and LG have long made screens for Apple’s smartphones, while Sharp was added just late last year as Apple continues to diversify its list of manufacturers in an attempt to ensure adequate production capacity — and to limit reliance on any one particular partner.

The most critical point in the report?

The liquid crystal panel of the next model “iPhone (iPhone) 5″ Apple, specification is close to the current and the “iPhone 5.”

In other words, the 5S is the same size and shape as the 5, which means that this particular product is not the iPhone Mini or iPhone Maxi that have recently been rumored. Which doesn’t, of course, mean that Apple is not sourcing components for those potential products from other manufacturers.

According to the report, the factory Sharp will be using has a production capacity of 600 million units a month. Apple will not even need even a reasonable fraction of that, and the factory has been chronically underutilized.

This is good news for Sharp, Japan Display, and Japan in general. Electronics manufacturers in Japan have seen Korean companies like Samsung take their lunch and eat it, too, and have had to cut staff, offload underperforming business units, and cut back expenses.

It’s also good news for Apple fans who are looking forward to some juicy new iTech.

Image credit: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

In an effort to get American startups interested in the Japanese market, Yahoo Japan announced today that it has invested $20 million in Softbank Capital’s “Technology Fund ’10″ for early-stage startups.

The investment comes on top of the $100 million Softbank Capital has already raised for the fund. Softbank Capital also announced a separate $250 million “PrinceVille Fund” a few months ago, which is focused on helping later-stage startups bring their business to Asia.

Indeed, it’s easier to try and grab a piece of the startup pie from the U.S., rather than wait for the entrepreneurial trend to take off in Japan. According to a recent Forbes piece, Japan’s traditional business culture hasn’t been very friendly towards young startup.

Softbank Capital and Yahoo Japan are aiming to invest in just about every hot sector — mobile apps, online ads, gaming, e-commerce, and more — according to a press release. Yahoo Japan has also named a new head of U.S. operations, Toshiaki Chiku, who will be based out of Softbank’s office in New York City.

Photo: OiMax via photopin cc

The Xbox 360 has been leading video game hardware sales here in the U.S., but in Japan, the console hasn’t been so fortunate. Microsoft is now determined to get more gamers interested in the machine before the next one launches.

The company is challenging Japanese gamers to set aside their other devices and play more Xbox 360 — for a million hours. In return, Microsoft is promising complimentary Microsoft Points to all Xbox Live members (both free and Gold subscribers), according to a report on Siliconera. The 1 Million Hours campaign will run between April 20 and June 19, or for roughly two months.

The event is largely skewed in Gold members’ favor. Once gamers clock 300,000 hours, Microsoft will reward paying subscribers with 100 MSP and free members with 10 MSP. If they reach 500,000 hours, they’ll receive twice as much — 200 MSP and 20 MSP, respectively.

At 1 million hours, Microsoft will dish out 400 MSP to Gold members and 30 to free Xbox Live users. Note that the value of MSP is different for the two countries; it’s not a simple yen-to-dollar conversion. Gamers in Japan have to pay more to obtain the same amount.

Microsoft is also only counting hours logged in 20 specific games (listed below). Players must also be online and enrolled in Xbox Live Rewards to participate.

Sales in Japan have dropped so low that many stores have stopped carrying the console and its games altogether. Some developers, like Keiji Inafune, the creator of the upcoming action-role-playing game Soul Sacrifice for PS Vita, attribute its lack of popularity to the competition: Sony’s PlayStation, which is a domestic brand, unlike the Xbox. American brands have traditionally struggled in other markets as well, like the automotive industry, as Japan tends to support domestic goods over foreign ones.

This is a big marketing push from Microsoft. Analyst Jesse Divnich of video game research firm EEDAR told GamesBeat, “Microsoft’s Japan promotion is quite unique, but without being able to drop price on its software or hardware, Microsoft has few options to correct their Japan performance. Microsoft could have simply increased its marketing and retail presence. Large media companies tend to throw money at their problems, so I admire Microsoft for at least speaking directly to gamers in Japan.

“The promotion is likely to increase Xbox 360 engagement in Japan, which should trickle down into sales, but given PlayStation 3’s five-times lead over the Xbox 360 in Japan, I doubt that this promotion will shift the tides anytime soon. But from Microsoft’s point of view, it is certainly worth the effort.”

Dvinch says the promotion is achievable. Each Xbox 360 owner in Japan would have to play 40 minutes to hit the overall goal.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for more information and will update accordingly.

The 20 games under this program are:

Battlefield 3
Forza Motorsport 4
Forza Horizon
Halo 4
Dance Central 2
Skyrim
Gears of War: Judgment
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Bioshock Infinite
Borderlands 2
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil: Revelations
Resident Evil 6
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
Caladrius
Dodonpachi: Saidaioujou
Child of Eden
Monster Hunter Frontier G or Monster Hunter Frontier

Image source: MSN

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Great news for Japanese developers: Twilio has been working with Japanese telecom giant KDDI, and today, the two entities are co-releasing a new API just for communications in Japan.

Twilio for KWC* gives developers the full Twilio bag of tricks, now with full integration with Japanese carriers and telecoms. And yes, all the documentation has been translated into Japanese, too.

*KWC is a wholly owned subsidiary of KDDI focusing on cloud technologies. Up until today, KWC had offered developers a product called boundio, a communications API that the company shut down yesterday to make room for the new Twilio partnership.

Twilio started offering multi-language support last summer; Japanese language support was part of that launch. Japan was also a major part of the company’s internationalization plans announced late last fall.

Twilio was founded in 2007 and is based in San Francisco. To date, the startup has taken around $33.5 million in venture capital over three institutional rounds.

Image credit: Twilio

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

No more unauthorized lock screen access for you!

Apple has released iOS 6.1.3, an update to its mobile operating system that squashes a nasty lock screen bug that could allow unauthorized access to your iPhone, and improves Apple’s much-maligned Maps app.

The lock screen, which is supposed to increase security, was hit with two recent bugs that could allow people in possession of your phone access to your contacts, voicemail, and photos. The first was fairly complicated and the second was simpler, but both involved initiating an emergency call and then canceling it.

In any case, both should be impossible now (I’m sure Apple engineers have their fingers crossed).

Apple also updated its Maps app via the system update, saying that the app would now be better in Japan. That’s a little strange, as most improvements to Maps recently have been server-side, not requiring an app update — and certainly not requiring an operating-system-level update.

In the past few months, Apple has been feverishly updating Maps with new flyovers in 30 global cities including Berlin, London, and Rome, new 3-D building imagery for Milan, Barcelona, Dublin, and nine other cities, and new Chinese maps.

Updating the iPhone’s mapping capability via a system software update, however, suggests that Apple is tying Maps deeper into the base operating system itself. Apple’s Map Kit Framework Reference already enables embedding maps directly into third-party apps, as well as supporting annotations, overlays, and reverse-geocoding lookups.

Perhaps this update will precipitate a few new capabilities for app developers.

The update is available immediately, and was only 18.2 MB for me.

There are horrible, terrible ways to advertise a new iPhone app. And then there is this new YouTube ad by Domino’s, which has become a viral sensation because it’s so amazingly bad.

Domino’s Japan President Scott Oellkers tries his best to read a script about how exciting the company’s new iPhone app is, and it falls flat. It doesn’t make much sense that Oellkers is the one introducting the app, considering it heavily features Hatsune Miku, a popular anime character who helps sell music software.

What’s sad is that Domino’s Japanese app does do some interesting things. On top of ordering pizza from it, you’re able to take pictures with Hatsune Miku and even watch an augmented reality performance by Hatsune Miku on your phone.

One thing to keep in mind: Perhaps the ad is more palatable to the Japanese market than it is with Americans. If you can’t understand what Oellkers is saying, the ad may not be as terrible.

The ad has attracted more than 230,000 views since its debut on Wednesday.

Fresh rumors out of Japan suggest that the next iPhone will have a larger screen than the iPhone 5, be made of cheaper materials, and retail for about $330. Rumors of cheaper iPhones continue to come out the woodworks, most frequently from analysts who wish Apple would make one and expand its addressable market.

These rumors suggest a 4.5-inch display, which would compete with frequently larger Android phones and the emerging fablet class of devices, and a slightly thicker body made out of the same polycarbonate that Apple once used for entry-level plastic Macbooks.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated that a cheap iPhone is “not in Apple’s religion,” referring to making crappy products at a low price point just to push unit sales. ““Our North Star is great products,” he said in early February. “We wouldn’t do anything that isn’t a great product.”

Morgan Stanley has estimated that a cheaper iPhone would triple Apple’s China market share, and Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has also said — repeatedly — that Apple will be forced to release a cheaper phone.

An odd detail in this rumor says that Apple will include a dual light-emitting diode flash in the phone to improve low-light photos. According to the Japanese blog, the phone will not hit the market in 2013 but in 2014. And, in a final fun stab in the dark, the site says that Apple will at long last offer multiple colors.

(That would actually be pretty cool.)

It remains to be seen if this is something Apple would view as a great product or if indeed it is anywhere near Apple’s actual production line.

Hat tip: AppleInsider

That’s not surprising: we know Apple sources a lot of product — in fact almost all of its products — from Asia, where the company has had significant challenges with suppliers maintaining legal and ethical labor standards, in spite of efforts by CEO Tim Cook and others to improve working conditions.

But it is interesting to see the breakdown. Here’s a partial list of the countries Apple sources product from:

• Mainland China: 331 suppliers
• Japan: 148 suppliers
• United States: 76
• Taiwan: 35 suppliers
• Malaysia: 27
• Singapore: 25 suppliers
• Philippines: 23 suppliers
• Thailand: 17 suppliers
• United Kingdom: 7 suppliers
• Israel: 5 suppliers
• Austria: 4 suppliers

I guess that’s the definition of a multination corporation right there. Overall, with 88 percent of Apple’s supply chain in Asia, only 11 percent of Apple’s suppliers are in its home country of the United States, and even fewer — seven percent — of Apple’s suppliers are in Europe and the Middle East.

Apple has planned to bring some manufacturing back to the United States. Tim Cook announced last last year that Apple would be spending over $100 million to bring some manufacturing back to the U.S., a move that some have derided as a mere publicity stunt.

A bit expensive for a stunt, perhaps.

That manufacturing appears to be for Apple’s desktop lineup of iMacs, a product category that makes up a tiny fraction of its overall $55 billion in sales last quarter. In contrast, iPhone, iPad, and iPod account for over three quarters of Apple’ revenue — 76 percent, in fact.

But it does represent a start. And one that American workers probably would appreciate.

Image credit: Google, ChinaFile

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Why bother starting a race you have no chance of winning?

That’s BlackBerry’s thinking when it comes to Japan, which may never see BlackBerry’s new phones.

“Japan is not a major market for BlackBerry and we have no plans to launch BlackBerry 10 devices there at this time,” a BlackBerry spokesperson said in a statement to AllThingsD. 

The confirmation comes as the BlackBerry’s Japanese market share has shrunk from 5 percent to 0.3 percent — a woefully bad piece of the pie. BlackBerry, it seems, doesn’t have much faith that it can fix the situation, so it’s giving up on Japan entirely — at least for now.

Besides sales, the other concern is the cost of translating BlackBerry 10, which are too high for BlackBerry to justify investing in, reports Japan’s Nikkei. I don’t particularly buy that explanation and something tells me BlackBerry would feel a bit different had its new phones actually stood a chance in Japan to begin with.

Fortunately, BlackBerry says that it will continue to offer support to existing BlackBerry owners, which certainly means a lot to the three or so Japanese people who still use BlackBerrys. 

With its new $250 million investment fund, the venture capital firm wants to make it easier for growth-stage companies to make headway in counties like China and Japan, which expansion is often tough.

SoftBank Capital’s Matt Krna, told me that SoftBank is in a unique position to give companies the edge they need.

“We can do everything from give introductions to help companies work out strategic partnerships with Asian companies that actually make sense,” he said.

That focus on Asia is an obvious one given SoftBank’s status as a Japanese company, but Krna says there are macro trends behind the move as well. While companies have traditionally made Europe the first step in their international expansions, they’re increasingly skipping over the continent and targeting high-growth Asia first.

The problem? Asia is a very different kind of beast from Europe, and growing companies often have a hard time adjusting.”The business climate over there can be quite different,” Krna said.

SoftBank Captial itself is coming off a particularly strong year. Investments in Buddy Media and OMGPOP paid off big time when the companies were acquired by Salesforce and Zynga.  More recently, Twitter picked up Bluefin Labs, which SoftBank helped invest $12 million in last January.

Obviously, SoftBank aims for its new fund to add to that track record, only more internationally.

Photo: Flickr/MIKI Yoshihito (´･ω･)

The insides of computer systems are often portrayed in science fiction movies as vast arcologies of virtual structures, with whizzing electrical impulses flashing through them. As it turns out, our brains might not look very different from our dreams of artificial computing entities.

For the first time, Japanese scientists captured video of a thought being formed, and it looks pretty much like miniature lightning tracing its way through a meshed structure of neurons:

Of course, this is not a human brain that mad scientists exported from a skull and sliced up in the pursuit of scientific information. Rather, this is a the brain of a baby zebrafish — and it wasn’t even harmed in the experiment. Researchers chose this creature because in their embryonic and larval states, zebrafish have the wonderful property of being almost completely transparent.

The adult of the species is not, alas, transparent

The scientists dosed the baby fish with fluorescencing agents that glow when neurons are activated, then induced a paramecium — a tiny protozoa about 200 micrometers in length — to swim by, causing the zebrafish to perk up and think about a snack.

That caused neural impulses to be fired off in the zebrafish’s “optic tectum,” a region of the midbrain. Which the Japanese researchers then captured video of, and, naturally, uploaded to YouTube, solving once and for all the perplexing question: what do fish think of?

Mostly, it appears, lunch. Which is not too different from humans, perhaps.

Image credits: D o m o n k o S via photopin cc, Akira Muto, Masamichi Ohkura, Gembu Abe, Junichi Nakai, and Koichi Kawakami, hat tip: Gizmodo

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Asia loves apps, apparently. Especially if they’re games.

According to App Annie’s January app store report, Japan passed the U.S. in October last year as the top nation in the Google Play revenue charts, with Korea not far behind. And with China jumping up to sixth place by revenue in the iOS app store charts, it’s clear that a sea change is occurring: Asia is starting its almost inevitable domination of global smartphone and tablet app stores.

See also: Google Play revenue growing 10X faster than Apple’s iOS store

“The U.S. has always been the largest app store, but especially for Google Play, it’s shifting,” App Annie senior analyst Shelene Chang told me yesterday. “This is not just app economics … this is all economics. Asia is showing its strength, and that is going to have an impact on app publishers’ international strategy.”

With 1.6 billion phones shipped in 2012 and 75 percent new cellular plans sold in Asia and Africa, Asia is clearly a key market for both Apple and Google.

When Apple released its Q1 2013 results last week, CEO Tim Cook said the region (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) was now Apple’s third largest by revenue, and the fastest growing. That’s evident in the app store as well, where China has moved from eighth to sixth in overall country revenue in just three months.

“Publishers have always known that Asia is big, but the question has been whether you can monetize,” App Annie’s VP of marketing, Ollie Lo said yesterday. The answer now, is definitely yes.”

But Asia’s fast growth is nowhere as evident as in Google Play numbers. Japan now exceeds the U.S. in terms of Google Play revenue, and based on growth rates, Korea is not far behind:

Source: App Annie

Google Play app revenue by country

Interestingly, while smartphone platform app sales are generally dominated by games, this is especially true of Google Play, and most especially true in Asia.

While 78 percent of Google Play revenue from the U.S. came from games in December, 2012, the equivalent number in Japan was 88 percent. And in South Korea, an astonishing 95 percent of all Google Play revenue derived from the games category.

That’s very evident when you see the list of top Google Play publishers by revenue. Korean and Japanese publishers dominate, with South Korea’s NHN Corp. leading four Japanese publishers, including GREE, in the top five:

“A lot of countries — non-Western and non-English-speaking countries — are still dominated from app publishers from the U.S. or Europe, App Annie’s Lo told me yesterday. “But China, Korea, and Japan are dominated by local publishers. They have a big enough domestic market and big enough tech scene to sustain that, which has always been the case, including in web, with Tencent and other companies.”

I wondered out loud, when seeing the results, if the heavy games orientation in Asian countries was a factor of demographics — age of smartphone users — or something in how Japanese, Korean, and Chinese consumers use their phones. Lo wasn’t able to speculate on usage behaviors in these countries and whether they differ from American or European usage behaviors, but he did say that it’s not just the young demographic that plays games in Japan, China, and Korea: Smartphone owners of all ages play games quite frequently.

Which is something that app publishers will want to keep in mind when targeting games — or other apps — to the growing Asian app markets.

photo credit: johncatral via photopin cc

While 4K Ultra HD televisions were everywhere at this year’s CES, 4K Ultra HD content was not.

“4K” is a buzzword for video content with four times the resolution of current 1080p high-definition displays. It’s beautiful, hopelessly expensive, and so far supported by just about zero content.

The Japanese government, however, is looking to fill that void. The Asahi Shimbun reports that Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications could launch the world’s first 4K broadcast as soon in 2014 — two years ahead of initial launch estimates.

That’s big news for Japanese companies like Toshiba, Sharp, and Sony, all of which have been heavily pushing the new video format. Getting 4K content out there is key if these companies want to give consumers reasons to actually buy 4K displays.

The first broadcast would come via communications satellite, and would be followed quickly by satellite broadcasting and plain old wired digital, the Asahi Shimbun reports.

No amount of 4K content, however, can solve the problem that currently plagues the format: It’s too damn expensive. 4K Ultra HD televisions run for roughly ten thousand dollars — and that’s on the low end. And you’d need to buy a television as large as 80-inches just to see the 4K difference. Hello, impracticality.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Have you got that loving feeling? Investors seem to. That is, when it comes to Korean relationships app Between, which just received $3 million in its first round of funding.

The app connects you with your significant other and gives you a place to chronicle your relationship. You can add pictures, events, and little status updates onto a timeline of your love. If you break up, the company keeps all of the data alive in its servers for one month (just in case you get back together) and then fully deletes, assuming you guys are really through.

Between hit one million downloads in July 2012 and has since been growing in its country of origin. The company, according to Korean tech blog BeSuccess, has over 2.35 million downloads today, 1.6 of which come from Korea — a country that is no stranger to relationship apps. Edward Lee, the company’s “value innovator,” says people think of Between as a sign of commitment, similar to a ring in the United States.

While it’s expanding its user base, Between is still figuring out a business model. It may one day include printed photo books, and advertising.

Lee explained to me in a previous interview that Between is going to push into the Asian markets before it heads to the U.S. This is plainly because the team believes relationships and mindsets in Asia are more interested in this kind of display of affection. Following through on this, Between is focusing on the Japanese market next, where Lee hopes the country’s penchant for digitizing relationships will lead to big growth.

Then, the team will take on the U.S. market, competing with apps such as Y Combinator’s Pair, and, on a much simpler level, Facebook.

The funding was led by Stonebridge Capital and KTB Network, with participation from Capstone Partners and Softbank Ventures. The company launched in March 2012 and is based in Seoul. It previously received $1 million in a seed round provided by Softbank.

Between team image via Between

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Will the iPhone 5 be coming to China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers? Apple needs this, sure, but make no mistake: China Mobile needs it just as bad.

China is the world’s largest market for smartphones, edging out the U.S. in July of 2012 to take the crown. But the country’s biggest carrier, China Mobile, does not yet officially carry the iPhone, despite the fact that probably tens of millions of its customers have purchased Apple’s smartphones elsewhere, jailbroke them, and are using them on its network.

But the need to jailbreak an iDevice to get it to work on China Mobile may soon be over, as Tim Cook and China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua met today to discuss “matters of cooperation,” according to Reuters.

And both companies need each other. Badly.

Apple needs to grow, and while it has had a great past few months domestically — rising over 50 percent market share stateside — global market share is another matter entirely, as 75 percent of all new phones are being activated in Asia and Africa. China is the world’s most populous country, buys the most smartphones, and has the most cellular subscribers, and China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers could easily become tens of millions of Apple customers — if Apple can do the deal.

Meanwhile, China Mobile might be the queen of carriers right now, with that massive subscriber base, but the company has its own issues.

China Mobile’s share of the most lucrative customers is dipping, with a seven percent 3G subscriber market share loss in 2012. The company’s situation is analogous to Japan’s NTT Docomo. Docomo, long the digital darling of mobile carriers and Japan’s premier mobile telecom, is losing subscribers at a record rate due to its easily-solvable lack of iPhonicity.

Simply put: iPhone subscribers are the most valuable segment of telecom markets. By missing out on this segment, China Mobile is hurting its own profits and benefiting its competitors, who do carry the iPhone.

But 700 million subscribers is a very nice little cherry indeed, and it sounds like China Mobile will not do a deal without significant concessions from Apple — possibly including a share of app store revenue, something Apple has never done before and is unlikely to do today.

These two companies have been talking since 2009. Now is the time for both of them to do a deal, for both their sakes.

Even if we haven’t wanted to admit it, we’ve all known for quite some time that the days of abundant Japanese console role-playing games are behind us. If you’re like me, you kinda secretly hoped a few breakout titles would swoop in and save us from this seven-year drought we’ve been living through.

I believe we will see the number of high-quality JRPGs on major consoles continue to decrease as this generation comes to a close and the next one begins. We must accept this reality if we’re to make peace with the void that’s been left since the PlayStation 2 generation ended. Developers and publishers have tried to make JRPGs work in recent years but have found the task difficult. They’ve tried and often failed to deliver deep, engaging gameplay while attempting to create audio-visual blockbusters. Some have seen significant success; however, that has often come at the expense of the traits that made us fall in love with JRPGs in the first place.

It has to be damn tough for a publisher to ignore the financial successes of the Call of Duty and The Elder Scrolls series. Interestingly enough, the elements that make these two killer franchises so addictive are the very same components that originally made JRPGs so wonderful. I’m of course talking about exploration and leveling as well as developing and customizing characters. Hell, even Madden NFL let you do this in excellent ways until Madden NFL 13 came and ruined everything. If these elements have made games in other genres so great, why have JRPGs been forced to live out the rest of their existence on mobile devices and handheld consoles?

The iOS port of Final Fantasy IV marks the game’s seventh release in the U.S. since its original drop on Super Nintendo. Three of those drops have been on mobile devices, one was a PlayStation title, and the other was a Wii Virtual Console release. Why can’t this game find an audience on Xbox Live Arcade? I was told by what surely had to be a gaming industry expert on Reddit that “dudebros don’t play RPGs; that’s why you haven’t seen them ported over to XBLA.” Given the success of the Xbox 360 in the U.S. and the fact that most of the 50 or so friends I have on Xbox Live are not whatever the hell a “dudebro” is, I have to believe there’s a large enough market to make a Final Fantasy IV port on the platform at least a measurable success. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the dudebros and Microsoft’s issues with Japanese publishers and the Japanese market in general are enough cause for concern to publishers like Square Enix. Maybe that’s why Final Fantasy XIII and all it’s weird spin-off children are more interactive movies and convoluted storytellers than expansive JRPGs with loveable characters and memorable plots.

What did we major-console players do this generation to piss you off, Japan? Whatever it was, I apologize on behalf of the lot of us.

But I have to ask … .

Was it the sales of early entries like Enchanted Arms, Blue Dragon, and Eternal Sonata that put you on the path to believing the genre might not work on 360 or next-gen at large? If so, I have to remind you that sometimes sales numbers come to light because the product is shit. None of these games were horrible by themselves. However, I’d agree to run buck-naked down I-95-South if you could manage to convince any significant number of gamers that these titles could even sit in the same room with the likes of Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, or Star Ocean: The Second Story. My point is that developers tried to set the JRPG tone for this generation with shitty games compared to what most of us had experienced in generations past. But as loyal as we are, some of us still bought these mofos to support you guys.

Or maybe it was Sakaguchi-san’s Lost Odyssey not pushing enough units here in the States that set Japan off. Heaven forbid the master of all things JRPG sell under a million. As decent as Lost Odyssey was, it still does not measure up to what many of us consider to be the greatest of its kind. At that point in the generation’s lifecycle, we were two years in without a system-selling JRPG.

As a matter of fact, I would argue that the U.S. did not see a system-selling JRPG until August 26, 2008. I not only think was Tales of Vesperia our first, but also have adamantly argued that it’s the best semitraditional JRPG this generation. However, if I have the story right, Microsoft cut a deal with Namco Bandai to make Tales of Vesperia a temporary exclusive on Xbox 360. So Namco Bandai dropped an extremely niche if excellent JRPG on a system that had already racked up several (arguable) losses in the JRPG sales category with no marketing to speak of. So is it our fault, Japan, that you sold less units than you would have liked? If your answer is no, you sure had a funny way of showing it since the PlayStation 3 version never came out here in the States. The roughly 270K-plus sales in the States shouldn’t really be seen as a failure since it accounts for half the sales of the best-selling Tales game ever, Symphonia. Not too shabby for a system monopolized by dudebros, right?

So at this point in the story, PS3 was on the scene. Less than three months after Vesperia’s release, we saw a little gem called Valkyria Chronicles. I’ve never played this game, but I’ve heard many a gamer rave about its awesomeness. VGChartz shows it sold just under 700K units. So maybe this was the great white hope we were all waiting for — the game that would prove developers could create a JRPG this generation and have it sell well at the video game box office. Unfortunately, while PS3 owners were basking in the glow of a great JRPG, 360 owners were watching Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant flop in the sales department.

It was no coincidence that this generation’s Star Ocean was subtitled The Last Hope. It’s almost as if Japan was telling us, “This is it, America! If this one doesn’t win you over, you’re basically assed out and destined to have Square Enix pimp you with a gang of bastardized Final Fantasy titles.” Yes, I’m being overly dramatic, but damn if that’s not how things have been going for the most part in recent years. Star Ocean: The Last Hope swooped in and took home just under 500K units sold across both platforms in the U.S. Again, not bad for a JRPG in the States.

Besides the lousy launch JRPGs, I believe Japan made another crucial mistake in their approach to this generation. JRPG publishers had their developers focus too heavily on visual presentation. Given the small profit margins of JRPGs, with budget and time constraints, I believe that focus cost us a great deal in the gameplay department. I don’t know of a single JRPG that’s been nominated for the proverbial greatest-of-all-time award because of its graphics. While some of them are beautiful in their own ways, what earned them their stripes was their excellent gameplay. The magic lied in deep leveling and customization systems, gripping plots, and worlds large enough to get lost in. That, my friend, is what made and what still makes our best RPGs the best.

This focus on HD visuals and “epic” presentations caused you Japanese developers to lose sight of why we loved you in the first place. I love The Elder Scrolls. But I love her for different reasons than I loved your games, Japan. And truth be told, it’s because of you that I was ever able to love The Elder Scrolls in the first place. So stop trying to mix her photorealistic graphics into the formula that already makes you beautiful. And that’s not to say you can’t mix it up. I love Dark Souls, and I heard Dragon’s Dogma was actually pretty dope. But don’t completely leave your roots behind while chasing the latest hotness. Side note: You really could take a lesson from The Elder Scrolls and stop producing games with effing save points though, Japan. If you want to copy anything Western developers got right, please make save-anywhere systems the new norm.

I know some of the moves you’ve made were appropriate given the market shift to handheld gaming in Japan. However, I also believe you let your early failures this generation convince you that we Americans wanted you to start following hot trends. That’s where you dropped the ball. That said, isn’t it funny how all these retro games with old-school graphics and nostalgic sounds are the cat’s pajamas right now? Remember when you used to make games like that?

Oh, wait! You still do make games like that, Japan. Unfortunately for me, I don’t want to play games on a mobile device. So I guess I’m destined to play bastardized Final Fantasies (because let’s face it, Versus XIII is never coming out), and occasionally you may throw us a Ni no Kuni or Dark Souls bone. But it’s like I said earlier: the days of having too many great JRPGs to play on our major consoles are gone. I’ve accepted this reality.

If you are reading this, fellow American gamer, I advise you to do the same.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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In an unusual twist, Japan’s top science students are applying to make ice cream and yogurt rather than work for tech companies such as Sony, Panasonic, and Sharp.

A report from Bloomberg indicates that two of the three most popular companies for science students applying for jobs in 2013 are makers of food products.

The top company on the list is Meiji, a supplier of ice cream and other diary products, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural chemicals. Number two on the list is Toshiba, a tech company that produces TVs and computers. Number three on the list is Kagome, a company that makes culinary sauces and condiments for restaurants. Sony, once at the top of the list, is now fourth.

During the past decade, Japan’s electronics titans like Sony and Sharp have been taken down a few notches due to increasing competition from Apple, Samsung, LG, and other non-Japanese tech companies.

“Japan’s top manufacturers are being replaced by food makers in the rankings because the food business is considered stable,” Takuya Kurita, a researcher at Tokyo-based Mynavi, told Bloomberg. “[Science students] care about building a career at a stable company where they can work as researcher for a long time.”

With more Japanese students preferring food over tech, this could hurt Japan’s increasing flailing tech stature even more versus other Asian countries.

“The gap between Japanese companies and Samsung, LG, and Chinese or Taiwanese competitors may only widen if the Japanese can’t hire excellent young talent,” Yoshihisa Toyosaki, an analyst at Architect Grand Design, told Bloomberg. “New products can only be born from new brains.”

It certainly doesn’t help that Sony, Panasonic, and Sharp aren’t hiring like they used to. In the late spring, Panasonic plans to hire 350 university grads, Sony plans to give 180 jobs, and Sharp will hire 130.

By comparison, Samsung plans to hire 9,000 university graduates in the next year.

Ice cream via Kim Woodbridge/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Remember when Japanese carrier NTT Docomo was the darling of the wireless world, could do no wrong, and was the subject of every adoring U.S. report on how mobile in Japan rocked in every possible way?

Japanese hipsters watched TV, gamed, bought stuff, chatted, flirted, and paid for groceries on their advanced mobile devices, while mobile over in the U.S. basically sucked — according to the self-flagellating reports — and we got super-excited about innovative new features like T9 texting.

Yeah, that was a few years ago. As in, pre-iPhone years ago.

Fast-forward to today, and Docomo has just reported its biggest-ever loss in subscribers: 40,800.

Source: NTT Docomo

Who needs iPhone when you have Disney?

The reason? As Reuters notes, competitors Softbank and KDDI carry the iPhone. Softbank grew by 301,900 subscribers, and KDDI grew by 228,800.

To be honest, there’s still no question that Japanese broadband and wireless speeds are much better than what the U.S. has. But it’s the iPhone 5 that Softbank and KDDI are using to capture Japanese customers. And it’s the lack thereof that is causing NTT Docomo its worst subscriber results ever.

Docomo, which features a “diverse” line of smartphones, has the Samsung Galaxy S II, an Aquos Android phone, Sony Xperia, and a variety of other Android-based phones, but no iPhone, and no Windows phone. It does, however, have the much-requested Disney mobile phone — also running Android.

The question, I guess, is whether Disney can put NTT Docomo into the net gainer’s club another time or if Japan’s largest carrier will finally see the light and start carrying a truly diverse set of phones.

Including the one its customers seem to want most.

photo credit: Sprengben [why not get a friend] via photopin cc

Panasonic, which had already trimmed its workforce by 36,000 jobs last year, will be looking to sell or close any business units that cannot achieve at least a 5 percent project margin, the company’s chief financial officer told Reuters.

Japanese electronics companies are fighting surging Korean electronics companies such as LG and Samsung — and losing. Sony’s stock is down almost 80 percent in the past five years. Sharp is down 90 percent, and Panasonic itself is down about 75 percent and currently at a 10-year low. LG stock, on the other hand, is up about 30 percent since mid-year, and Samsung’s stock has almost tripled since early 2011.

Source: Google Finance

Sony, Panasonic, and Sharp stock prices: down, down, down.

The Korean manufacturers have taken the majority of Panasonic and other Japanese companies’ TV business and have been quicker to jump on profitable new segments such as smartphones, where Samsung has a global lead.

Panasonic’s last profitable year was 2010, but it is aiming to return to profitability in its March 2013 to March 2014 fiscal year, aided by the sale of $1.4 billion-worth of land and buildings in Japan.

But it has a tough job ahead, with 88 business units to review and fix, close, or sell.

photo credit: joimson via photopin cc

What do cute anime girls have to do with Windows 8? Basically nothing — but that isn’t preventing Microsoft from fusing the two in Japan.

Microsoft has created a pair of  limited edition anime-themed Windows 8 bundles to attract the eyes of Japanese consumers. Decorated with characters named Madobe Yu and Madobe Ai, each version comes with special themed wallpapers, character sound effects, and a Microsoft’s Wedge mouse.

Microsoft used a similar strategy for Windows 7, which was advertised alongside a character named Nanami Madobe (“Madobe” in Japanese means “by the window”).

But this goes deeper. As it turns out, personified operating systems are common enough in Japan that there’s actually a name for them – “OS-tan.” OS X, Linux, and seemingly every operating system going back to Windows ME have their own OS-tan, which is as Japanese of a phenomenon as these things get.

Microsoft itself has had a mixed record in Japan, which didn’t respond well to the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2005. One side effect of this lukewarm reception emerged last month, when Japanese game developer Konami announced that would not release “Metal Gear Rising Revengeance” for the Xbox 360 in Japan.

Photo: Scott Green/Crunchyroll

Japanese TV and electronics manufacturer Sharp will soon cut more than 10,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its workforce, Bloomberg reports.

Sharp has struggled in recent years, as its televisions and other electronics have become less popular and its margins have declined. Back in April, the company announced a tremendous loss of $4.7 billion during the 2011 fiscal year. Currently, the company projects a $3.18 billion loss for the fiscal year ending March 2013. Thus job cuts seemed par for the course.

To get back on financial track, Sharp has said it will focus on creating displays for mobile devices and small-screen TVs. Notably, Sharp is one of the companies making screens for Apple’s iPhone 5.

Sharp will reportedly cut a total of 10,966 jobs and raise 213 billion yen by selling plants and shares of Toshiba. These job cuts will include the 5,000 cuts Sharp revealed in August.

Bloomberg said Sharp is also in talks to sell three of its overseas TV plants in Mexico, China, and Malaysia to Chinese factory staple Foxconn, best known for manufacturing Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Sharp CES photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

E.ventures has dedicated funds in the US, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Brazil, with local investment teams on the ground all over the world. The firm focuses on early-stage startups. With the unification, portfolio companies will be able to access financial and technological resources from all over the world, as well as see increased opportunities for international growth.

“The world has really become flat when it comes to entrepreneurship,” said cofounder Mathias Schilling in an interview with VentureBeat. “Before, China, Brazil, and Russia were standalone markets. With our global platform, it brings incredible synergies and benefits for the funds as well as the entrepreneurs. We can bring our companies to a global scale overnight and effect multi-city partnerships.”

While each market is different, these differences can be leveraged to complement each other. For example, a Russian engineering company may be able to implement its product faster in Brazil’s booming e-commerce scene, or a Chinese gaming company could generate greater revenue by distributing in Japan, where monetization is stronger.

BV Capital has invested in companies such as Groupon, Angie’s List, Shopping.com, and Sonos. Since 1997, it has invested nine funds totaling over $750 million in capital. It is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Beijing, Tokyo, and most recently, Sao Paulo. Read more on VentureBeat.

Japanese in Tokyo recently celebrated a Hotaru (in English, “firefly”) Festival by lighting up the Sumida River with 100,000 softball-sized, blue LED balls.

The balls drifted slowly down the river, creating a glowing blur when viewed from afar. They were powered by the sun, and they were collected by a large net at the end of their route.

The Firefly Festival, which celebrates those magical little insects whose glowing butts are mesmerizing to us human types, is a fairly new fête tacked onto the end of Japan’s Golden Week, which contains such national holidays as Greenery Day, Children’s Day, and Constitution Memorial Day. The holiday has its roots in 17th-19th century traditions of catching fireflies by the Sumida in spring; fireflies are no longer found along the banks of the Sumida, which today winds through the center of a global metropolis.

Panasonic provided the orbs, which also functioned as an opportunity for the corporation to promote its LED lightbulbs.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Amazon is already one of the best places to land a great smartphone deal online, so of course the retailer is stepping into the wireless resale market — starting with Japan.

Amazon will soon start selling prepaid SIM cards for Japan’s NTT Docomo LTE network as an MVNO, or mobile virtual network operator (like Boost and Virgin Mobile), the Verge reports based on earlier reporting from Nikkei. This marks the first time that a foreign company will offer wireless service within Japan, and for Amazon it’s also a big step towards controlling the entire wireless ecosystem.

The prepaid SIM cards will offer 500 megabytes of data and sell for a flat-rate fee of ¥1980 (around $25). With typical Japanese smartphone contracts going between $63 to $75 a month, according to the Verge, the prepaid cards would be a much better deal for consumers who don’t need to use a ton of data. The cards will function on NTT Docomo’s phones and tablets, as well as devices like the iPhone built to “foreign specifications.” Amazon is also teaming up with Docomo for the summer launch of its Kindle e-readers.

I’ve honestly been counting down the days until Amazon decided to jump into the wireless business on its own. At this point it’s not too difficult for companies to snap up extra bandwidth from larger carriers, and Amazon is in a unique position to sell cheap mobile devices as well. If these prepaid SIM cards take off in Japan, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them quickly spread to Europe and other areas where SIM-swapping is common, and then eventually bundled with cheap devices in North America and the rest of the world.

We’ve asked Amazon for more details on the news, and will report when we hear back.

SIM card image via Luciano Belviso/Flickr

Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency (which is similar to the United States’ Federal Trade Commission) has declared the once-ubiquitous mobile-social game mechanic of “complete gacha” to be illegal, according to a report today from Andriasang. The ban officially goes into effect on July 1.

This ruling, which declares that the mechanic violates laws against “unjustifiable premiums and misleading representation,” is something of a formality, since several prominent Japanese developers like Gree and Dena have promised to remove the feature from their products in anticipation. As we have previously reported, those companies’ stocks saw an immediate impact when the investigation began, falling over 20 percent in a matter of days.

“Complete gacha” is a potentially huge income generator for mobile-social titles. It’s a kind of virtual vending machine — a digital version of one of those old-fashioned toy machines you see in grocery stores, where you pop in a quarter and it randomly spits out a plastic bubble with a toy inside. In “complete gacha” players try to collect a whole set of prizes from these machines; only when they get the whole set can they unlock a rare item. It’s easy to see the value to developers and publishers: Players could pour money into the game indefinitely and still come no closer to getting the prize they want.

Gree and Dena’s market values are still down in the wake of today’s announcement. It’s important to note, however, that only the “complete” form of gacha (i.e. collecting sets to unlock prizes) is outlawed. Companies may still charge for randomly-generated in-game items, so these stocks still have a chance to recover once investors know how much the ban will affect profits.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Japanese web retailer Rakuten announced today that it’s leading a $100 million round in Pinterest, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, along with several angel investors. The deal reportedly values the company at around $1.5 billion, according to All Things Digital (which caught wind of the news last night).

Pinterest, which lets users create boards of images related to their interests, has become a darling of e-commerce. The company is sending big traffic to online retailers, and it also drives more revenue per click than Twitter or Facebook,

“While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining,” said Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani in a statement today. “We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

Rakuten is no stranger to big investments in Western companies. It purchased e-book reader company Kobo for $315 million last fall, and e-commerce site Buy.com in 2010 for $250 million. The company put in over $50 million of the Pinterest round, All Things D reports.

When asked by the Financial Times what the site will offer to Rakuten’s stores, Mikitani said, “Search is still the main driver or us. We are always looking to make our site more interesting. Pinterest is a little bit different from Facebook. Pinterest is more targeted. They use beautiful graphics very effectively to create interest circles. They are extremely good at it. Because of that, the traffic coming from Pinterest probably will have a very high conversion rate. That is why I think they are very good at this discovery shopping.”

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pinterest was founded in 2008, and previously raised around $40 million in funding.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Japanese phone-maker Kyocera has a long way to go before it can really penetrate the U.S. market in the smartphone realm, but its just-announced Rise smartphone — running Android 4.0 and sporting a pleasant physical keyboard — might help.

Kyocera introduced the new phone at the CTIA Wireless conference where we had a chance to test the device out and see what it has to offer. While the phone is not impressive in any one way, it’s a solid all-around package that will likely appeal to those on pre-paid carriers like Boost and MetroPCS.

The specs aren’t terribly impressive: the Kyocera Rise offers a 3.5-inch screen with 480-by-320 resolution, a 1-GHz processor, a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash, and a 1,500 mAh battery. Up close the screen looked terrible, with dull colors and a cheap-feeling plastic case. But on the plus side, the device is lightweight, the keyboard offers a nice typing experience, and its basic performance was fluid thanks to the Ice Cream Sandwich software.

The pre-paid market doesn’t get the sexy hyped phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC Droid Incredible 4G, but those who prefer more reasonable plans on the pre-paid carriers still want power and versatility out of their devices. That’s a completely fair expectation, and it is admirable Kyocera is tackling that. In the same category as the Rise is the Kyocera Hydro, a waterproof smartphone with Ice Cream Sandwich that was also announced at CTIA.

A Kyocera spokesperson told me on the floor of the convention that Kyocera doesn’t even register in the top 10 manufacturers by smartphone market share in the U.S. But its strategy of putting cheap Android phones on carriers like Cricket, MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular, and Boost Mobile seems a smart way to gain traction since the post-paid market is overcrowded with Android phones.

Pricing and availability for the Rise are both up in the air, but Kyocera said the device will arrive on pre-paid and post-paid carriers. We expect the device to be free with a 2-year contract or less than $200 upfront on a pre-paid carrier.

Check out our slideshow of the Rise:

For the first time ever, Apple has been ranked the top consumer brand in Japan in Nikkei’s annual brand ranking.

Apple shot up from 11th place last year, and 64th place three years ago, hitting 90.5 points for total brand power among consumers. The news shows that Japan is finally beginning to warm up to the American computer company — most likely due to the rise of the iPhone and iPad. Notably, Google fell from first place to second.

Among businesspeople, Apple ranked second place, with Toyota taking the top spot. Nikkei notes that the iPad and two other Apple products made the list for top 40 brands.

The consumer ranking is particularly significant since Japan has often shunned foreign consumer technology. Microsoft’s Xbox and Xbox 360, for example, have struggled to find ground in the country where Nintendo and Sony reign supreme.

Here’s how the rankings were put together, according to Nikkei: “The Brand Japan 2012 survey had a consumer market category targeting 1,000 brands, as well as a business market category for 500 brands. It was conducted online over November and December of last year. Overall brand power scores were calculated based on the responses of some 52,000 people aged 18 and older.”

The rankings are as follows (with last year’s ranking in parenthesis):

1. (11) Apple
2. (1) Google
3. (2) Uniqlo
4. (7) YouTube
5. (6) Disney
6. (4) McDonalds
7. (3) Panasonic
8. (5) Nissan
9. (39) Daiso
10. (9) Rakuten

Photo via Ivan Walsh/Flickr