Gundam Phone

If you’re a fan of 「ガンダム」 (“Gundam“), there has been many things in Tokyo that you would love…the “life size” Gundam robot, the smallest Gundam, the Gundam Cafe, and now a 「ガンプラケータイ」 (“Gunpla Cell-phone”).

This phone is made by the Japanese electronics maker “Sharp” for the Japanese cellular phone company “Softbank“.
The phone is to commemorate the 30th anniversary of 「ガンプラ」 (“Gunpla”), which stand for “Gundam plastic models“.
This new Gundam cell-phone comes decorated with decals and parts similar to a Gundam robot, Gundam inspired applications, a unique charger and a plastic model of a Gundam robot.

I won’t be buying this phone…I’m not much of a Gundam fan, and my cell-phone is kinda old but it still works so I’m not in the market for a new one.
Anyways, it’s a Softbank phone…I use Japan’s biggest cell-phone service provider—DoCoMo.

How about you? Would you buy this? What type of cell-phone do you have now?

Japanese barcodes

The original barcode was invented in America. But the technology was improved in Japan.

For example…do they use the “Quick Response (QR) Barcode” in your country?

QR Code for "Wikipedia Japan" website's URL

The QR Barcode was invented in Japan and it can be read by cell-phones in Japan.
If you use your (Japanese) cell-phone to scan the code, you can access the website without typing the URL manually.

Can cell-phones in your country do this? Or is this used in Japan only? (The only cell-phones I’ve ever used were my phones here in Japan).

And also the “regular” barcode that is found on all sorts of consumer products has been improved by a Japanese company.

They proved that the barcode doesn’t have to be limited to the simple straight lines and numerals design that we’re all used to.

Here are a few examples of their work:

“Tara-chan”

Last November 12 was the Emperor of Japan’s 20th anniversary on the throne (I mentioned it on this post).

A special ceremony was held to mark the occasion. The Emperor gave a speech at the ceremony…he said, among other things, that he hopes that the younger generations won’t forget the horrors of WW2 and repeat the mistakes.

The Japanese Emperor & Empress at the ceremony to mark the Emperor's 20th anniversary on the throne.

And U.S. President Obama was in Tokyo yesterday and today. He met with Japan’s Prime Minister and also with the Emperor of Japan.

U.S. President Obama meeting the Emperor of Japan.

If you’re in Japan this weekend, you may notice children who are three, five and seven years old dressed in kimono and visiting shrines with their families.

That’s because it’s now the time of the 「七五三」 (“7-5-3 Festival“).

As I wrote on my main website’s FAQ page, on or around November 15, girls aged 3 and 7 and boys aged 5 are dressed up (girls in kimono, boys in kimono or suit) and go to a shrine with their families for blessings for a long healthy life.
Afterwards, they are given special candies and are often brought by their parents to a photo studio to have their portrait taken.

And also, Quintin Tarantino and Brad Pitt were in Tokyo together recently to promote their new movie “Inglourious Basterds“.

Brad Pitt and Quintin Tarintino promoting "Inglourious Basterds" in Tokyo.

This movie will premiere in Tokyo on 20 November…the same time that the new TV commercial for the Japanese cell-phone company “Softbank” will air.
Quintin Tarintino will appear in this new commercial.

Last year, Brad Pitt was in the Tv commercials for Softbank…but then Softbank began making a commercial “series” that showed the adventures of the “White Family“.

The father in the “White Family” is a dog! The son is an African-American. The wife and daughter are regular Japanese though.

They’re kinda funny commercials.

And now in the newest Softbank commercial, Quintin Tarintino will play the White Family’s uncle, “Tara-chan“!

Still from the new "Softbank" commercial featuring Quintin Tarntino.

携帯電話

Last Sunday we (my wife and I) bought our oldest daughter a 携帯電話 (cellular phone).

Of course, all three of my daughters really want a 携帯電話 (cellular phone)…but we decided not to get them one until they start 高等学校 (high school).

In Japan, most kids who are in public 小学校 (Elementary School) or 中学校 (Junior High School) can walk to school…but once they start 高等学校 (High School) they usually have to take the train to school.

My youngest two daughters are in 中学校 (Junior High School) and they walk to school. But beginning in early April, my oldest will start 高等学校 (High School) and she’ll ride the train with her friends to school every day.

So, my wife and I decided to get her a 携帯電話 (cellular phone).
Most important to us, her phone has email and GPS tracking (in an emergency, we can track her location on our 携帯電話 (cellular phones))…but her phone has every function available on Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones)—email, internet, 「おさいふケータイ」 (cell-phone wallet), GPS, TV, radio, MP3 player, etc, etc.!

Her phone is much better than my wife or my 携帯電話 (cellular phones).

Of course, her sisters are jealous! But, next year my second daughter will begin high school and I’ll have to buy her one…and then the youngest daughter when she starts high school too!
(*_*)

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Speaking of  携帯電話 (cellular phones), I recently learned that a cell-phone called “Blackberry” is popular in America.
Do you use this phone? Do you like it?

It looks like this:

I’ve never used a “Blackberry” so I can only speculate…but it looks much less convenient, handy, and cool than the average 携帯電話 (cellular phone) in Japan.

First of all, it looks like a pocket calculator.
And it has a really wide keyboard with one key for each of the 26 letters of the English alphabet…like a computer keyboard. (The letters are arranged in the typewriter “QWERTY” order, too.).

It looks like you’d need both hands to type an email. Is that right?
Seems slow and inconvenient.

The numbers on it are also on ten keys on the left side (presumably they’re the keys you’d use to dial a phone number).

A Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phone), on the other hand, simply has the ten number digits keys (1-9 and 0) which double as both the English alphabet keys (in alphabetical order) with each key used for three to four letters.
The “1” key is usually symbols such as “@, ., -, _, etc”, the “2” key is used for the letters “A-C” (both upper and lowercase), “3” is used for “D-F”, etc.

That’s in “English” mode.

In “Japanese” mode, the same number keys are used for the Japanese “alphabet“.
“1” is 「あいうえお」 in ひらがな (hiragana), and the corresponding 「アイウエオ」 in カタカナ (katakana),
“2” is used for 「さしすせそ」 (and, of course, 「サシスセソ」)), and so on for the keys 3-9 and 0.
Of course, to get 漢字 (kanji characters), you’d simply type out the phonetic spelling in ひらがな and the possible 漢字 (kanji characters) choices appear.

That may not make sense to you if you don’t know about the Japanese writing system…but, believe me, it’s quite easy.

Better than the Blackberry, Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones) are slim. So, everyone in Japan types out cell-phone emails using one hand…actually just the thumb on one hand is used to type the whole mail!

Another thing about Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones) that make typing emails easy is the “predict” function.

Once you type the first ひらがな character in a common word or phrase (and also in a word or phrase that you have typed out before), the phone will offer you that word or phrase again and you can easily insert it into your email.

For example, I often email my wife while I’m on the train heading home after work and ask her 「今日の夕食は？」 (which means: “What’s for dinner today?”).

If I typed that out in English, it’s twenty-four characters. In Japanese, it’s only eleven…but with my 携帯電話 (cellular phone)’s “predict” function, I only need to type one character (「き」) and the phrase 「今日の夕食は？」 appears.

Convenient!

++++

Which reminds me of another subject…

In America (and maybe other countries too), businesses will often advertise their telephone number not with the numerical digits…but using the corresponding letters that are on the keys of a telephone.
To make their phone number easier to remember.

So, for example, a car dealer in America might have a phone number like 555-2277 but would write their phone number as 555-CARS.

In Japan, cell-phones have the English alphabet on the keys (as I just mentioned above)…but most home phones don’t.

So Japanese companies don’t use English letters to make their phone numbers easy to remember…but they use alternative pronunciations of the numbers to make clever expressions.

For example, I saw an ad for a pawn shop the other day. Their phone number is 78-2840.
In Japanese, that would normally be pronounced “nana-hachi-ni-hachi-yon-zero“…but the pawn shop had ふりがな over the numbers that showed the reading as 「しちやにはしれい」 (shichi-ya-ni-ha-shi-rei) which is an alternative reading of those numbers—but it also means 「質屋に走れい」 (“Run to the pawn shop”).

Many companies in Japan write the phone numbers with clever play-on-words like that.