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A survey carried out just before Golden Week (fine weather all round – no showers reported) has shown some very interesting results about Japanese attitudes to piracy.

If you’re an iPhone app developer or know someone who is, then stay tuned for some exciting news…

After a massive Twitter-only clearance sale last week, the doors are open to everyone and prices have been slashed, so get moving!

In spite of general ill-informed nay-saying about the hardware’s prospects in Japan, the Tokyo-specific iPhone apps keep rolling in thick, fast and creamy, with the latest being a gem from Enfour and Gmap.

So, NEC – you’re saying you don’t need us anymore? I’m hurt and know it’s no April Fool, so will just have to learn to live with it…

Anyone traveling in Tokyo knows how confusing the subway can be even if you can read Japanese, which is why we’re eternally grateful for Presselite’s new Tokyo Metro iPhone or iPod touch app. Best of all, we’ve got ten copies to give away.

What, with Valentine’s Day coming up at the weekend, it’s kinda lucky our dating pals at We Heart Tokyo have an extra special free deal going on until Feb. 15, isn’t it?

If actual karaoke in the nasty ole world beyond your bedroom is a bit too scary, then how about doing it in front of a computer with any Tom, Dick or Taro looking in? Best of all, you can even do it in Japanese.

NTT DoCoMo’s corporate videos have long been a Big Deal for the 800lb gorilla of a phone company, so it’s always worth checking out the latest to see the public face it wants to present to the world.

The iPhone is many things to many people, but we bet few of them ever imagined it becoming a web server all by itself.

I work for a UK firm on occasion and so am frequently exposed to the very British style of press releases emanating from those fair isles, which is nice (I’m being kind here).

Knowing when the quake will arrive keeps getting easier in Japan. Official earthquake warnings that pop up in a window on your computer screen is the latest alert method. Already earthquake warnings are broadcast on TV. Cable TV providers and telecoms offer…

I’m not sure if turning the plain-Jane old mobile site into a fancy new version using Winksite counts as a facelift, but I can say that it looks absolutely splendid now.

Strong language warning! Don’t read on if harsh words about innocent software offend you. No, seriously – he’s a potty mouth.

A new fixed-line phone from Sanyo uses an internet connection to receive and announce earthquake warnings.

Google’s oft-stated mission of “organizing all the world’s information” yesterday added something a little more interesting than robot-crawled website caches – Life magazine photos documenting over two hundred years of history.

They say any fool can be a blogger and, judging by the standard of my usual garbage, who’s to argue? Still, I bet no one ever guessed Japan’s latest online star would be a humble pot plant.

There are more than a few books out there whose origins lie in the new-fangled cellphone novel, but a new Japanese tome is the first we’ve come across to grow out of an online forum.

After so many reports about how slow US/UK/wherever broadband really is, this is kinda like rubbing salt into the wound, but we really do need to tell you that Japanese homes are about to get hooked up to 1Gbps fibre internet connections from next month. Yes - that’s a freakin’ gigabit per second.

Fresh from his hack-tastic Wii Balance Board mashup with Google Maps Street View, Tokyo otaku supreme Ryo Katsuma has just dropped me a line to say he’s one-upped Nintendo with his own take on the dull-as-ditchwater Wii Fit.

Anyone learning Japanese who also happens to spent a lot of time wasting away in front of a computer will definitely get a kick out of a bunch of new Nihongo courses on iKnow from Cerego Japan.

As fish supplies dwindle and competition among commercial fishing boats intensifies, a group of Japanese trawlermen have turned to the internet to give themselves an edge.

We’ve had a bunch of emails over the last few days asking about that little Flash widget down there at the bottom of the right sidebar (take a look waay down there), usually from readers asking what the heck all that Japanese stuff is.

Most of the breakthroughs in high-speed data connections that we hear about are of purely theoretical value in the short term, but Oki Japan seems set to buck the trend by committing to making its latest technology commercial in the near future.

It’s easy to believe the tales of internet censorship we hear regularly from China, but not so its ostensibly democratic neighbor in Japan. That perception may change of Japanese regulations shake up the online world as proposed.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune to dial into a virtual private network (VPN) for a spot of long-distance telecommuting, you’ll doubtless be overjoyed to hear of a new technique that gives the slowcoach technology a boot up the backside.

The idea of a far-distant future where we can upload our very essence to some digital repository in the ether is both compelling and repulsive in equal measure, but a less sci-fi alternative may be closer than we think.

All-round good egg/camera obsessive Gordon Laing at Camera Labs not only has the most detailed review (video here too) of Sony’s new Alpha A200 entry-level DSLR but he’s even found time to branch out with a new camera uber site.

The copyright-protection technology currently being trialled by YouTube has had a most unexpected result in the shape of an old-fashioned content owner embracing fan uploads to promote itself on the video-sharing site.

The latest research on the mobile phone habits of Japanese children may be music to the ears of phone providers, but the depth to which the gadgets have penetrated the lives of the young there is bound to set alarm bells ringing elsewhere.

Japan’s state broadcaster, NHK, has teamed up with Mitsubishi Electric to create an anti-piracy system that it hopes will put a stop to movie copying from cinemas.

An unusual new piece of software announced today by NEC Japan is intended for businesses seeking a competitive advantage over rivals, but - if it reaches full potential - could redefine internet searching instead.

We recently speculated that YouTube might one day soon be delivering high-definition online video instead of the grainy clips that proliferate now, but Sony Japan’s eyeVio video-sharing site has beaten the Google company to the punch by starting an HD TV service yesterday.

Japanese researchers have come up with a rather snooty technique for detecting online pirated video content in places where it shouldn’t be. By analyzing clips for ’amateur-looking techniques’ KDDI reckons it can sort the professional stuff out from the garbage the rest of us produce.

When it comes to internet speeds, we’ve long-since consigned the humble kilobit-class connection to the dustbin, so a mathematics-based breakthrough has us wondering if megabit- and even gigabit-level connections will one day sound as quaintly archaic.

KDDI, the company that recently started an online service delivering DVD-quality movies to domestic customers has upped the ante to send quad-HD films down the same pipe.

You may already have come across the notorious China Bounder – a how-to-get-laid-while-still-caring-about-stuff blog from Shanghai written by a ‘Western scoundrel’ – through reports about internet censorship in China like this one, but it doesn’t hurt to pass on a reminder to check it out.

As this latest piece of sci-fi-style research has appeared only in a rather traditional Japanese newspaper we haven’t been able to get many details yet, but thought we’d mention it in passing, as everyone loves a good yarn.

Due to the riches of the movie and music businesses, video and audio gain the most attention when it comes to online copyright violation, but unauthorized use of photographs and other artwork is also an issue, particularly for individuals with no corporate protection.