Web/Tech

Feb 09 2007 7 Comments

Bill’s busty bouncers

Whilst the Japanese love of cute characters is nothing new — with the police to popular foodstuff boasting a beaming beastie of some description or another — it still seems a little odd to see a similar creation connected to uncle Bill’s omnipresent operating system. Yet with the OS-tan brigade, that’s exactly what we get.

For example, here’s 2k-tan.

And this is ME-tan — the pair perfectly capturing the, erm, personality of their respective operating systems.

Sadly the current character set stops at XP, although judging by the video below, more prudish PC users would probably be proposing a promotion to XXXP.

The larger than life young lady perkily proclaiming something along the lines of, â€œWindows XP has booted up. You are up earlier than usual. I’m happy, we can spend more time together than usual.â€

Which, further translated from geek-speak to regular English, comes out as, â€œLook at my bulging and bouncy breasts. Great aren’t they?â€

Now all that remains is to see what levels of voluptuousness Vista may hold…

(huge thanks to Jon for the link)

Nov 08 2006 2 Comments

Eco-friendly following

Cleverly combining an upcoming new software package with a headline grabbing ‘Eco Message Exhibition’, Sourcenext Corporation looks set to shift a hefty number of its latest title when version 11 is released next month.

The inclusion of celebrity and top blogger Kaori Manabe should also help boost sales, with the 25-year-old pontificating at a promotional event, “There aren’t too many young people who think seriously about ecology, but if good-looking people whom they look up to get involved, then I think everyone will follow them.

A comment that despite a certain degree of self-importance is probably quite true, with hordes of fans set to fervently follow in Manabe-san’s footsteps.

Her each and every move closely scrutinised.

Sep 09 2006 3 Comments

Site slowness

Due to apparent server problems way beyond my comprehension, Tokyo Times is currently suffering from slowness and occasional outages. Issues which will hopefully be sorted out soon, with engineers in some far-off distant land quite possibly crossing their fingers a lot and frantically turning servers on and off — maybe even hitting them a few times too for good measure.

However whilst you wait (providing of course you’ve even got this far), here’s a picture of some semi-suggestively shaped gourds in Kawasaki to pass the time.

Aug 23 2006 1 Comment

Lesbian longing

Following in the online footsteps of the successful Japanese web diary-turned-novel, Densha Otoko (Train Man), Harukarin Blog has sold well since its bookshop debut in May this year. Yet whereas Densha Otoko documents the feel-good feats of a train riding geek winning the heart of a commuting cutie, Harukarin Blog is far less candy-coated, covering the less traditional territory of a man attempting to save his relationship after his girlfriend comes out as a lesbian, with 23-year-old protagonist Harukarin Nakagawa opting for the decidedly drastic approach of agreeing to his partner’s request that he undergo a sex change. A few snips and the odd injection designed to satisfy her needs and thus salvage the union.

Such an unconventional approach to saving a relationship no doubt helped to fuel interest in the saga, but for the very same reason many people have quite understandably dismissed the diary as mere fiction, with one online critic writing, “The whole story of a guy’s girlfriend of five years telling him she’s a lesbian and asking him to become a woman is just ridiculous.” Others have also hit out at alleged factual inaccuracies, bursting Nakagawa’s claims that his breasts started blossoming shortly after starting hormone treatment. One mammary malcontent stating, “It’s medically impossible to develop a bust as fast as the writer claims.”

Such criticism has resulted in Ameba Books changing the publication’s title, which was originally Seitenkan Dokyumentari Blog (Sex Change Documentary Blog). Yet despite this, the company remains very protective of its lesbian and laceration laced love story, with spokesman Kenichi Yamakawa boasting, “I don’t really think it matters one iota whether the book’s factual or it’s creative. What’s most important is that it’s a high quality piece of modern literature.”

Jul 14 2006 8 Comments

Mozilla maids

As far as market share goes, the usage of Mozilla’s Firefox browser remains stubbornly low in Japan compared to other key regions such as Europe and North America. A sorry state of affairs that has forced managers at Mozilla to try and rectify the situation with several promotional events aimed at spreading Firefox awareness, plus at the same time tempting the millions of Microsoft users to make the switch.

Yet whereas the giving away of gifts such as CD-ROMs, postcards and stickers may well win over one or two web users.