Mobile Technology in Japan

There is no doubt that Japanese are very fond of mobile phones, they literally CAN NOT LIVE without it. You can see Japanese typing text messages all over the place. Not to mention the teenagers, they actually decorate their mobiles with lots of gems’ stickers and unbelievably lots of accessories

Therefore, it is no surprise that the technology of the Japan’s mobile phone is now being used on every aspects of the Japanese’s life.

This is one of very interesting technology utilized by Japan’s Glasses Merchant, “Megane Top” :

The Megane Top Superstore has opened a new online service that allows users to try on glasses in the comfort of their own homes via their mobile phones. The new technology enables users to “virtually” try on glasses via their cell phones. All they have to do is take a snapshot of themselves and combine it with images of glasses downloaded from the merchant’s mobile website. Unfortunately, they currently has not planning to expand it outside the Japan Market yet. Just hope they will

And some other advanced uses of the mobile phone technology in Japan :

NUTRITION COUNT AND MORE

Quebec-based Myca already has a hit with a service called MyFoodPhone, which lets users snap photos of their daily meals and send them to the company’s nutritional analysts. CNN Money

“Now it’s set to release Doctorphone and Babyphone, two services that offer patients and parents instant videoconferences with physicians via cell phone.

Doctorphone and Babyphone, both still in development will let subscribers conference with Myca’s network of freelance nurses and doctors. Heart rate and temperature data can be transmitted to a patient’s electronic medical-record file, and doctor-patient conversations are archived for future reference.

The fee for these services will likely be billed by the minute. In return, Myca will handle billing with insurance companies – at least for the 10 percent of U.S. health-care plans that reimburse physicians for video visits.”

SOFTBANK helps drunks find missing cellphones, moms locate kids

Here in Japan, Softbank Mobile – the brand Vodafone Japan transformed into last year – is about to launch a service that will surely appeal to the nation’s legendary drunken Friday-night salarymen who seem to have a habit of leaving their phones anywhere but their pockets.

The company’s new ‘Ichi Navi’ service uses the GPS chips embedded in many Softbank phones to trace missing handsets online via a PC interface. Phones have to be registered in advance and there’s a ¥210 ($1.70) monthly charge plus ¥5.25 (4c) per search, but this is bound to be a life saver many times over for the typical corporate warrior on a bender.

Search results yield either a Yahoo Map location result so the phone can be retrieved, or a message saying whatever the Japanese is for “We think it’s in the toilet, pal.”

More prosaically, Softbank is also soft selling Ichi Navi as a way for concerned parents to keep track of their kids at all times. (digitalworldtokyo.com)