Today, Yahoo! Japan official blog published the follow-up announcement [J] of the possible 22 million account name leaks on 17th.

According to it, further investigation reached the conclusion that more data beyond account name could be brought out for 1.486 million accounts. The data are non-decrypt-able password (password hash, I guess) and information used when you reset password.

To protect those users account, Yahoo! Japan temporarily turned off the password reset feature, which asks user’s secret questions, 19 p.m. tonight. The relevant users will get their password and secret questions reset in early morning 24th.

Yahoo! Japan Hacked Accounts: 1.5 Million Users Might Be More Unsecure

Asahi Digital published an interview of new Mixi president Yusuke Asakura [J], titled “Mixi expand to free call app business beyond social network” today.

Mixi quickly released a short release that it is not a fact [J].

Asahi Reports Mixi To Begin Free Call Service, Mixi Denies

Yahoo! Japan announced on May 17th night [J] that they found that their account management server got raided, a file having 22 million of their user account names left on the server.

The announcement said that they can not deny the possibility of the file transferred to outside of the company’s network. However, as the file did not include any other information such like password, secret questions for password recovery, etc., they wrote that those public account name disclosed will not cause serious trouble such like others log in your account.

[Update] Reuters report it.

[Update 2013-05-20] PC Advisor and Information Week followed. These do not tell that Yahoo! Japan’s ID is totally irrelevant with U.S. Yahoo ID. (i.e. you can not log in U.S. Yahoo with Yahoo! Japan’s ID, and vise versa.)

22 Million Yahoo! Japan ID Could Be Leaked

mixi, Inc. [J] has announced the termination of service for “mixi coworker’s network” and mixi video [J] on the SNS “mixi.”

Service for “Mixi coworker’s network” began in June of 2010, and it allows you to find coworkers who register their place of work at the same company as yourself.  Also, “Mixi video” is Mixi’s own video sharing function which opened in February of 2007, and it allowed users to upload videos and paste them onto their profile or diary entries.  However according to the company, because both services are falling short of their expectations for user numbers, they came to the conclusion that they should focus their attentions on other communication services and bring these to a close.  “Mixi coworker’s network” will close service on May 23rd (Thurs.), and “Mixi video” will halt new video posts from May 23rd and terminate service at the end of July.  Also, from June (planned), they will offer a service that allows download of posted video data.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Mixi Closes “Mixi Video” And “Mixi Coworker’s Network”

3 days ago we reported that Mixi is to have a young new president. Now Facebook Japan announced that a new president, according to Markezine [J]. Same as Mixi, this is the first time of presidency change.

Atsuhi Iwashita, who is going to take the president seat on May 20, have served as CEO for Interbarnd’s Japan arm since 2010. Before that, he worked for McDonald Japan as a Chief Marketing Officer.

Facebook once passed Mixi by number of active users, but recently the number dropped down from its peak, at least on the number Facebook itself shows on its advertisement tool. Mixi shows gradual decrease but not such big so at this point which social network is bigger in Japan depends on which research you rely on.

Facebook Japan Replaces Its Head Following To Mixi

ITMedia reports that the notorious website of Aiseikai Hospital is planned to be closed within 2 months, a son of the hospital head revealed on his Twitter account @miya_blu_swing. The tweet [J] has been retweeted more than 2,000 times.

The screenshot above can not show you the vividness of the site. You should check it before closed. It is not a joke site or for enlightenment, a real hospital site.

The site has been there around the end of last century, frequently referred as a very bad example of web design in Japanese. Here is a version in 2000 thanks for the Internet Archive and @No_1026 [J]

Japan’s Most Annoying Website To Be Shut Down Soon

Mixi, a Japanese local social networking service competing against Facebook, announced today [J] that the founder, president and the largest stockholder Kenji Kasahara is to hand over the presidency to Yusuke Asakura.

Asakura, born in 1982, 30 years old, who joined Mixi in October 2011 when Mixi purchased his founding company Naked Technology.

According to Nikkei BP interview in 2010, he entered an Australian jocky school when he was 15, dropped out because of growing too tall, came back to Japan and went to The University of Tokyo with 2-years delay. While still studying, he established Naked Technology with other students. He once left the company at graduation and worked for McKinsey & Company for a few years, then back to Naked Technology in August 2010, became a president 2 months later.

The changes will officially happen at the shareholder meeting on June 25.

Mixi Appoints A New President. CEO Kasahara To Be A Chairman

Asahi Broadcasting Company [J] and Smikie Inc. [J] have released an iOS game application themed on the popular TV series “Dai Kaizou!! Gekiteki Before After” (Great Remodeling!! Dramatic Before and After).  Download is free.

In this construction and management simulation game, the player becomes an artisan builder and craftsman by making home improvements and spicing it up by arranging various items around the house.  Already a title of the same name is offered for GREE [J], but it has no connection with this and is a separate game of its own.  Purchasing items requires coins, but you can raise plants to acquire them in your garden, so free play is possible.  Also it has social components where you can visit friends’ houses.

Dai Kaizou!! Gekiteki Before After [J]

Translation authorized by VSMedia

“What the … ?” Remodeling TV Show Released As iOS Game App

I’ve read recent article on Wired titled The 12 Cellphones That Changed Our World Forever. To be honest when I’ve checked those phones I felt this article has too narrow view of things. There are many other cellphones contributed to change the world. I picked up 5 Japanse cellphones influenced not only Japanese market but the whole mobile industry in the world.

Fujitsu F501i — 1999

When Nokia 3210 came into the U.S. market, first i-mode handset was released in Japan. i-mode was a mobile internet service in Japan used data format cHTML(compact HTML) based on HTML.

By the success of i-mode service, many mobile content providers grew in Japan and established monthly subscription businesses. 1999 was also a year Nokia introduced S40 OS into the market.

NEC N503i — 2001

First handset adopted to i-αppli service by NEC. i-αppli enabled to run Java applications on mobile.

Kyocera W11K — 2003

Together with a sister model Hitachi W11H, Kyocera W11K was the first handset adopted to fixed unlimited data plan in Japan. Till that time, mobile users needed to pay data fee based on usage. After the success of this handset and unlimited data plan, mobile web usage exploded and brought many freemium services similar to PC internet business.

From the outlooking this handset was called Gundam Keitai(Mobile). (Gundam is a robot from a popular animated TV series.)

Sharp J-SH04 — 2000

 First handset by Sharp enabled Sha-mail(Photo mail) service. This was one of the earliest handset installed camera on mobile.

Pioneer J-PE01 — 1999

This handset is also a classic one… 8 years earlier than iPhone, used touch front LCD screen interface instead of actual buttons.

The 5 Japanese Cellphones That Changed Mobile World Forever

According to IT Media [J], Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs(ACA, Bunka-chou) reportedly expressed at a symposium that they had given up their original public copyright license CLIP, which they researched from 2007 to 2010, and changed to support existing licenses, especially Creative Commons Licenses(CC).

Although that some criticizes ACA spent tax for such a project easily could be expected to fail spreading, basically the net users seemed to welcome the decision. It would have been a nightmare if many contents created in Japan licensed under domestic-only original license, though CC is (of course) not perfect solution for any creatives.

Japanese Government Give Up Original Copyright License, To Support Creative Commons