Spencer
Wolfe

Here we are at Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Bank in Ginza (did we get the whole name right?).

Why is there always a rush on the banks to get cash before New Years in Japan?

Great write up here.

Thanks to WordPress (this site uses it), expression engine, and other CMS (content management systems), the job of optimizing sites for search engine looks like it has gone out the window.

There is a great write up on privacy and Google here.

In January there was also a great AINEO Insight on that as well. You can find it here.

Dear Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Government Representatives,

Please remember that the group of people that are making 250K US (25M yen) are many of the people who are small business owners and the ones that create many jobs. Not only in the US, but Japan as well. It would be good to see this group do well.

You can give money to citizens and watch that money vaporize, but if you want to help your economy recover, let's encourage these small business owners to expand, do more business, and hire more people.

Yours truly,
Citizen

I am not sure how good of a deal this is. Usen already sells this services and makes no money apparently.

The big concern is all the data is in the US under a US company. Is that a good idea for a Japanese firm? We'll see what they decide.

Quoted from here.

Softbank, Google Joining Forces On Cloud Computing
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Softbank Corp. (9984) will market Google Inc.'s document-sharing and calendar services to businesses as part of a cloud computing alliance.

Softbank's 003SH smartphone is powered by Google's Android operating system.
Subsidiary Softbank Telecom Corp. will in February add the Google Apps platform -- which allows users to view e-mails and in-house documents online and share schedules -- to its corporate cloud computing service, dubbed White Cloud. It plans to charge 6,300 yen annually or 525 yen monthly. Other companies also sell Google Apps, but Softbank will be the first in the world to charge a monthly fee.

And by combining Softbank Mobile Corp. smartphones with Google's Android operating system, customers will be able to connect directly to Google servers via Softbank's cellular phone network. Since data will not be sent to the Internet under this setup, there is less danger of internal documents being leaked. Google Apps could also be sold as a set with smartphones.

Softbank will deploy specialist sales and support staff for Goggle Apps together with the Internet firm's Japanese unit. Starting with around 20 personnel, the staff will be filled out gradually.

This is amazing! Getting faster and faster on the net. Japan and Korea probably still have the best internet access in the world.

Quoted for from here.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

NTT, Others Develop Ultra-Fast Net Technology
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (9432) and its partners have developed technology that enables household Internet connections with 1,000 times the data-carrying capacity of those currently available, it has been learned.

The team, which also includes the National Institute of Information & Communications Technology, NEC Corp. (6701), Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (6503), Hitachi Ltd. (6501), KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. (6702), aims to make the technology commercially available by around 2020.

At present, optical fibers cannot transmit multiple types of signals simultaneously. The research team has come up with a device which, when connected to an optical fiber line, allows it to transmit four to 10 different signals at once. This raises the connection speed to 100 gigabits per second.

The test of the device, which was conducted on a 50km experimental line, enabled transmission of a 25-gigabyte image file -- satellite photos of many parts of the world -- in just two seconds.

The new technology, when it becomes widely available, will, for example, allow viewers to see images on a huge screen with four times the sharpness of current high-definition video. Possible applications for the technology include telemedicine and sophisticated home theater systems.

(The Nikkei Dec. 5 edition)

With the advent of Microsoft Security Essentials, Symantec have a tough sell. You can see our write up here. If you're using our AINEO Secure service, you can use MSE and also know that we are scanning everything that comes in for threats.

This pic is from Akasaka Mitsuke station in Tokyo. Symantec is advertising an event at a nearby hotel.

Whatever you do, avoid putting your personal picture on the net!

I got copied on an email of some unknown guy complaining about a couple other businesspeople I knew. When I searched images on the net I found out way too much.

I saw he ran a company the same year it went bankrupt, that he was working from his home for a US based company and a lot more... all that handsomely highlighted by pictures of him on his bio on the website of his current company.

Unless you are Rupert Murdoch or someone who is all over the place and already known, I highly recommend you avoid putting any pictures of yourself on the internet.

Quoted from here.

Monday, November 22, 2010
Skilled Foreigners Increasingly Shunning Japan
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Highlighting the growing trend of foreigners not finding the country an attractive place to work, Japan issued 49% fewer residency permits to highly skilled foreigners in 2009 compared with the previous year.

Last year saw residency permits newly granted to 8,905 foreign engineers and workers with expertise in other fields, marking continued decline since peaking at 22,792 in 2007. An official at the Labor Ministry predicts that the downtrend will continue this year.

Foreigners account for 0.7% of the individuals in Japan who have graduated from institutions of higher learning, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. This pales in comparison to 16% in the U.K. and 13% in the U.S.

Shinsei Bank employs many Indian workers at its Meguro Production Center in Tokyo.
Many experts point out that foreigners find Japan unattractive because it lacks services that cater to their needs. Foreigners often complain that they cannot carry out everyday tasks in English and that there are no appropriate schools to send their children to. Many decided to live here anyway when Japan was enjoying strong economic growth, but this has changed as the economy continues to falter.

Japan ranks 42nd in attractiveness as a labor market for those with advanced skills, according to Swiss business school IMD. This put the nation below not only the U.S. and European countries, but also China and South Korea, which are rising in the standings.

Meitec Corp. (9744), a major staffing agency for technical jobs, began receiving Chinese engineers for design and development positions at Japanese manufacturers in 2006. Such personnel peaked at 300, but the firm stopped accepting Chinese engineers in April 2009 as a result of the financial crisis, and the number has declined to about 100.

In addition, some firms are moving to hire foreigners directly at overseas units. According to Kenji Yumoto of the Japan Research Institute, "many companies do not feel the need to hire foreigners at home."

Fearing that Japanese competitiveness will weaken over the long term, some corporations have begun calling on the government to take steps to attract more talent from abroad. Proposals include easing the requirement for 10 years of uninterrupted residency in Japan to receive permanent residency permits and revising a pension system that pays departing foreigners smaller lump-sum benefits than what they paid in.

(The Nikkei Nov. 22 morning edition)