Truth is much stranger than fiction, my friends. This is the bijin-tokei. It’s got a Japanese and an English site. Japanese tells you the time in JST, while the English site appears to be in Central Time… Why Central? My guess is that they meant to do Eastern Time, but forgot about DST.

Technorati Tags: clock, gadgets, Japanese girls, lol, pictures, silly, time, web, websites

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5anNWJkw08

マジっすか？！ I am really skeptical. I mean, for one, I am generally distasteful of the recording industry. And in the above video, they are called more of a collections agency than a copyright holding group. They apparently are generally unfair, but that sounds like any copyright collections agency. But at the same time, if we really can use JASRAC music however we want, this could be an amazing deal. And, this does seem like a very good move on JASRAC’s part to show they are with the times and not a dinosaur.

So, by using the JASRAC music search, you can find songs they own the rights to. They will have a blue circled “J” under the various columns when you click on the song name. I can’t tell which column would be the right one to use (there is musical performance, audio, video, film, commercial… @_@), so as long as they all have the J’s, it should be okay, right? (BTW, I am not a lawyer, so anything you put up is at your own risk!)

Anyway, I guess we will know if the Japanese music on YouTube starts sticking around instead of getting insta-deleted. Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: copyfight, copyright, 音楽, google, Internet, JASRAC, music, nicovideo, rights, web, youtube

Ninja is a theme where there are little ninja guys sticking out everywhere. The stars are of course 手裏剣 (shuriken, aka “Ninja Stars”) and there are little things going on at the bottom between a ninja and a geisha. Sometimes they are courting each other, and other times they are quarreling. The background message is もしもし (moshimoshi), which is what people say for hello over the phone. Not exactly sure how that relates to ninjas or even Gmail, but it is interesting.

The tea house theme features an asian looking house and garden where various cute animals have tea with each other. It looks like the fox is the proprietor of the tea house and it seems to be tied to the season or time of day or something. Not quite sure. It is very Animal Crossing/SnoogleZoo. If you are into either of those, you’ll probably like it.

I’m personally partial to the ninja one since the cartoons at the bottom of messages are just so awesome and slightly less girly than the whole tea house one. Apparently these Japan-related ones were designed in house at Google, so I don’t have the name of the designers/artists. Too bad, I’d love to see more by them!

There is another vaguely Japanese one called Cherry Blossom. It was designed by Vania Sofandi. But it is hard to really call it Japan-themed for sure.

Technorati Tags: animal crossing, art, どうぶつの森, computers, cute, design, e-mail, email, gmail, google, ninja, snoogle zoo, software, tea, tea house, web, websites

But today, I was watching ニコニコ動画, and one of the advertisements said 今日の右上 and had a little message, 「もしかして表示されてなかった!?面白い事言ってたのになぁ～」 (moshikashite hyoji sarete nakatta!? Omoshiroi koto itteta no ni na~, “Wait, this wasn’t displaying!? Too bad, I was saying such interesting things…”).

お帰りなさい、右上。(Okaerinasai, Migiue.)

Technorati Tags: ニコニコ動画, ネタ, memes, migiue, NicoNicoDouga, web, websites, 右上

The points will be used for buying clothing (?) for your character in the anime MMO/Second Life game ai sp@ce, but until that starts, the only place you can use them is the ニコニコメダルゲーム(仮称) (“Nico Nico Medal Games (temporary name)”)! Medal Games are a staple of ゲーセン (geisen, “Game Centers”) where you can basically gamble, without actually gambling. So for the NicoNico version, they are currently giving away free medals (which you normally have to buy with points) for the various game. So, I tried them out. What I found after the jump…

First off, you need a ニコニコ動画 account. Second, all the games are really just anime/cute-ized versions of your traditional betting games. There even is a daily free lottery to win a bunch of medals. The only question in my mind at the end of the day is, “If I win a whole bunch of medals… what would I do with them…” Another thing about the games is they open in a separate window, specifically so you can keep watching ニコニコ動画 while you play them! They even have little sounds to tell you that you need to focus back on them at a certain point. You can even open them up from the chat box under any video. The command to pop them up in a new windows is ＠ゲーム. You can also add the name of the game after the ＠ゲーム command to bring up that specific game. No need to go browsing around. It’s command line, baby!

The first game I tried was the ねこねこダービー (Neko Neko Daabii, “Kitty Kitty Derby”). Basically, you bet on one or two cats and if that one or two win, you get a return. Yeah, it’s just horse racing with cats. The odds are shown while they are waiting to start the race. You can also buy snacks for the cats. And then, after a few minutes (while others are betting?), the cats race! I’m notoriously crap at betting on the ponies, so the kitties are really no different.

(And yes, there just happened to randomly be two cats ジェシー and やよい in the first race… Of course I bet on the two of them winning).

The next game I tried was Bingo Break. This is a bingo game where 4 numbers are called at a time, and there are 8 rounds (plus the Bingo Break bonus which comes up when that bar at the top is at 100%). It’s bingo, what do you want? Remember, リーチ (reach) means you have one more until you hit bingo.

Then there is アリスの危険な冒険 (Arisu no kiken na bouken, “Alice’s Dangerous Adventure”). It’s some kind of RPG style game… looked like I pain in the ass, so I didn’t really play it much. I do like the idea of skill-based gambling, but at the same time, some times you just want to know if they are going to take your money quickly. If you are a big RPG fan, you’ll like that you use your winnings to buy better equipment and such. I didn’t play long enough to figure out how to play or whether it has a save feature or not, so play at your own risk!

The last game is 南国ビーチパラダイス (Nangoku Biichi Paradaisu, “South Seas Beach Paradise”). This one is a slot machine, with the dubious feature of a busty anime girl named ナツミ (Natsumi) who giggles happily when you win and goes through a variety of emotional responses when you lose. And this isn’t because she is sad for you, but her outfit is mismatched… Not only are you playing for medals, but each spot on the tumblers also has a little clothing icon. Yep, you guessed it, when you match the clothing on a line, you change her clothes! No, nothing really scandalous, but who knows what she puts on if you hit the Jackpot.

Anyway, you could totally waste your life on NicoVideos already, and now you can waste your money on NicoPoints! No word on whether or not you can buy points overseas, mainly since I didn’t want to waste $10 plus fees on 240 medals, although that would be a lot of play time!

Oh well, I’m just happy ニコニコ動画 is doing something to keep it afloat!

Technorati Tags: arcade, スロット, ニコニコメダルゲーム(仮称), ニコニコ動画, パチスロ, メダルゲーム, betting, bingo, cat racing, cats, cute, gambling, horse racing, neko, Nico Nico Medal Games, NicoNicoDouga, slot machines, slots, web, websites

I am willing to be that this is the exact reason why the iPhone didn’t take off in Japan. Or, at least, if they had added a ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga) player, they would have had one rabid fan base right off the bat.

Well, TUAW is announcing that Adobe really wants to bring flash to the iPhone. I am all for it. Of course, right now, when I visit the ニコニコ動画 site on Safari, it crashes… so who knows, maybe I’ll never get to have the joy of commenting “wwwwwwwwwwwww” in front of my favorite videos while on the bus.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Apple, ニコニコ動画, cell phones, flash, iPhone, NicoNicoDouga, Safari, technology, video, web

But then the season changed and now it is fall. So!

The new version of NicoNicoDouga is 秋 (aki)! Makes sense. After Summer comes Autumn. It’s simple. And the video introducing it was funny, saying 「文句あるか」 (monku aru ka, “Any complaints?!”) And, the 秋葉原 (Akihabara) tie-in potential can’t be ignored.

They were calling the next version… “Double Beta,” but no one really knew what that was supposed to mean. So they went with the natural next choice.

New features have been announced… many not yet implemented. Short explanation after the jump.

• NicoNico Points- Points you can use around the site, starting 10/15. I assume you have to buy these?
• NicoNico Medal Game (tentative name) – Playing pachinko while watching nicovideos? They are going for major だめ人間 points on this one!
• User NicoWari – Now you can set NicoWari’s (like the time report) in your videos?!
• NMM Version Upgrade – An upgrade of the NicoNico Movie Maker. Very exciting, especially since the old one was so lame but had so much potential.
• Page Changes – The design has changed here and there.
• NicoNico Commons new features
• New fashion collaboration with Suicommi Underground
• NicoAnime over the broadcast channels?!

What does double beta mean?! Who knows! Who cares! Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be writing more about these features as I figure them out. XD

I do miss the messages that used to be in the upper right hand corner though… ;.;

Technorati Tags: aki, autumn, ニコニコ動画, 秋, double beta, fall, japan, lol, NicoNicoDouga, nicovideo, silly, update, version update, video, web