In the wake of its most recent network disruption, Japanese mobile carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) is scrambling to find ways to improve both its network service and its public image. The company has said that a number of free VoIP applications were a major cause behind the service disruption on Wednesday. We got in touch with a Docomo representative this afternoon to find out which apps were the biggest culprits. Not surprisingly Skype is one, but readers might be interested to know that up-and-coming voice chat app Line was the ...
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Jan 27 2012
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Japanese Voice App ‘Line’ Continues Meteoric Rise, Hits 15 Million Downloads
It was just one month ago (almost to the day) that Japanese mobile messenger application Line surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone. And now today, Naver Japan, who operates the popular app, is announcing that Line has reached 15 million downloads (pdf) just a month later. While the app has about 5.5 million of its downloads from Japan, it has prover popular elsewhere in Asia (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) and is starting to gain some traction in Europe as well. You can see Line’s impressive growth in the chart below ...
Jan 24 2012
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PlayCez Android App Hits the Streets, Helps You Find Places to Go
When we chatted with the Indian startup PlayCez last summer, one co-founder promised that the social venue recommendation service would soon get a mobile app. And here it is. The new PlayCez app for Android now joins its HTML5 mobile website in providing listings of nearby restaurants or shops, filtered by how strongly they’re recommended by your Facebook buddies. Along with the newly-released app for Android - with an iPhone version still in the works - PlayCez’s Ashwani Gaur has other bits of good news about the progress of the service. ...
Jan 24 2012
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Fishing Joy Hits 30 Million Downloads, Celebrates with Chinese New Year Update
We’ve already written about Rovio’s Year-of-the-Dragon update for its Angry Birds Seasons game, which features China-themed art in the backgrounds and in game play. And now China-based Punchbox has pushed its own New Year holiday update for its popular Fishing Joy game. Fans of the game can update/install the iPhone or Android version of Fishing Joy to get the special Chinese Year edition. The general manager of Punchbox USA, Lei Zhang, also pointed out in a statement that the game has now passed the 30 million download milestone: As ...
Jan 20 2012
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Sony’s SmartWatch Supplements Your Smartphone
Earlier this week I had a chance to check out Sony’s (NYSE:SNE) new SmartWatch, the successor of the Live View accessory from Sony Ericsson back in 2010. And while I’ve never seen the latter, this new one looked very cool. It’s a sort of bluetooth command center for your smartphone, connecting to display many types of notifications on its full-color, touchscreen display. You can view information about email, text messages, social media updates, what music is playing, or just see who is calling. It also features an accelerometer, and can be ...
Jan 19 2012
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Rumor Suggests Sina Weibo Phone Being Prepped for 2012 Launch
Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) is prepping a ‘Weibo phone’ that runs a customized version of Android, according to rumors in the Chinese media. Due later this year, the phone reportedly exists only as a fully-formed design so far, and is awaiting approval to be pushed into reality. Plus, Sina has set up a dedicated team of 10 staffers which could increase to hundreds if this mobile venture takes off. It’s not clear which company might be the OEM for the device. The same source suggests that the Sina Weibo phone would be ...
Jan 18 2012
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Xiaomi Phone Gets an Android 4.0 Beta, Only For the Adventurous
The Xiaomi M1 phone currently runs Android 2.3, but the Xiaomi startup team has been promising that it’ll roll-out an update to 4.0 as soon as it has managed to theme the newest version of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) mobile OS. And now that’s a major step closer to reality with the first beta of the 4.0 ‘ice-cream sandwich’ update for Xiaomi phones being put online yesterday. Called ‘Mioneplus,’ the beta version of the ROM is only for adventurous tinkerers who know how to ‘flash’ a new ROM onto their device. A 246MB ...
Jan 18 2012
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The Makers of China’s Super-Expensive Communist ‘RedPad’ Tablet Respond!
Yesterday, we told you about the RedPad, an Android tablet aimed at China's government officials and priced at an incredible 9,999 RMB ($1,580). Yesterday, the Southern Metropolis Daily spoke to an official RedPad rep and got the full scoop on the device, and also heard the company's official response to many of the cynical questions raised by Chinese net users after the device went viral yesterday. The biggest question, of course, is why the device costs so much. After all, the thing is running Android and boasts modest tech specs; why ...
Jan 17 2012
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After Success With E-Readers, Shanda Plans a Budget Smartphone
The Chinese web company Shanda (NASDAQ:SNDA; FRA:RZP) is set to launch its first ever smartphone this summer, according to reports, which will run a highly customized version of Android. With a rumored price tag of just 999 RMB (US$158), Shanda could well be trying to create an ebook platform that supports both its e-reader, the successful BamBook, and its new smartphone - in the manner that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is doing with its Kindle and Kindle Fire tablet. Local tech media reports that Shanda’s smartphone exists as an internal prototype that’s undergoing ...
Jan 17 2012
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RedPad is the Tablet Custom-Made for China’s Cadres, Costs Twice as Much as an iPad
A largely unknown Chinese manufacturer has launched a ‘Red Group Number One’ Android tablet that’s aimed at, and highly customized for, China’s ruling cadres. Following the URL of the very flakey website that it’s from, we’ll just call it the RedPad. Its specs are pretty decent but its price is enough to make even the most patriotic think about getting an iPad instead: the RedPad costs 9,999 RMB (US$1,580), though it’s currently available for the bulk-buy price of 7,100 RMB ($1,124). With a mere 16GB of storage, that makes the ...
Jan 14 2012
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Imaginary Friends Come to Life in Asylon World for Android
Whappa Games is a games developer focusing on multiplayer mobile games. It follows in the footsteps of NightSpade (a graduate of Bandung Institute of Technology) to become a part of the East Ventures family . And it launched its first Android game, Asylon World, for Demo Day in Jakarta. Asylon World is a casual-RPG game with a fantasy theme. To attack monsters, player can simply draw skill symbols that match the appropriate pattern. You can even play with friends over a bluetooth connection to defeat monsters together. Some people in their childhood ...
Jan 13 2012
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Aliyun Phone Gets Its Own Android App Store
Alibaba has launched an app store for users of its Aliyun smartphone to browse and install Android apps. The Aliyun platform is not based on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) mobile OS, though it is also Linux-based, and it can run Android games using a ‘virtual machine’ that’s built into the software. And so it has the advantages of being able to use both its own web apps as well as the huge catalog of stuff that’s on Android. (If only RIM had got a similar system working on its Playbook so quickly, ...
![Japan’s Social Giants: Trends in User Numbers [CHART]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_5437-80x80.jpg)
Japan’s Social Giants: Trends in User Numbers [CHART]
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