cell phones

Flip phone graduation ceremony — A surprisingly emotional look back at life in 3G-era Japan【Vid】

With the first phase of Japan’s 3G network shutdown starting this month, phone provider takes a moment to remember how it changed communication culture.

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Freakish Twitter video shows phone walking on its own, no human attached

“Don’t walk with your phone! …Oh, your phone is…Walking anyway…Um…Carry on.”
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Touching DoCoMo ad shines light on diversity, features well-known Japanese lesbian couple

The new ad will bring tears to your eyes while revealing some interesting statistics about Japanese society.

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Famous manga artist avoids drawing one everyday item in his comics for the sake of future readers

It’s so common that you might be holding it right now.

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Tokyo trains to ease cellphone restrictions near priority seats — but not during rush hour

If you’ve been on the train in Japan, you’ve likely seen the stickers and signs plastered everywhere around the priority seats asking people to make room for those who need and to turn off cell phones. While you should definitely continue to give your seat to anyone who needs it, starting next month, you’ll no longer have to feel guilty about playing Angry Birds in the priority seating section—unless it’s rush hour.

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Free at last? Japanese government mulling over doing away with cell phone SIM locks

When my brother and his family moved back to America, leaving my wife and I as the last Baseels in Japan, he graciously offered me his practically new iPhone. Sadly, despite the tempting opportunity of upgrading from my old-school flip phone, I had to turn down his generous offer.

Being happily married, this wasn’t because I needed the boost in attractiveness that comes from an outdated cell, but simply because my brother and I had different providers, and his iPhone was SIM locked, like all mobile phones in Japan have always been.

However, that might be changing soon.

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Foreigners in Japan must grow accustomed to distinctive Japanese designs

When raised within relatively homogenous culture like Japan, one rarely ever considers how their everyday surroundings might seem strange to someone from another country. And I don’t just mean the historical landmarks and traditional clothing. I’m talking about items encountered in everyday life like home toilets, product packaging and cell phones. Japan’s culture has shaped the designs of these various places and products in ways that most Japanese people would never think to realize are different from their foreign counterparts.

Hoping to shine light on a few of those surprising little differences, My Navi News recently conducted a survey asking 20 foreigners living in Japan which things they considered to be of a “totally different design” when comparing Japan to their home country. Here’s what a handful of the respondents had to say.

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Top secret! This peep-preventing film will keep all eyes off your phone screen

Whether it’s people worrying about the NSA stealing all the cookies from their cookie jars or a generous gent hiding his identity, it seems that privacy is all over the news these days. And while we could argue the merits and demerits of living in a surveillance society, we can probably all agree that there’s nothing more annoying than people looking at your phone screen over your shoulder!

Of course, privacy-protecting films for phones have been around almost as long as cell phones have, but this one takes your privacy to heart and makes sure no one sees your business…

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Telling Cell Phone Wallpaper: What NOT to use!

Are you curious about people’s wallpaper?  Have you ever found a colleague or acquaintance looking over your shoulder at your wallpaper?  Are you dying to know the wallpaper of the person sitting next to you at work?  Well don’t worry, other people’s wallpaper is a natural curiosity, and according to Irorio, a popular Japanese news blog,  the wallpaper you choose is very telling of what kind of person you are!

With that in mind, a survey was conducted  of  362 males and 506 females to find out the major turn offs for men and women concerning wallpaper choices.

The results are ranked according to gender, in order of distastefulness along with the percentage of men and women who picked them.  The wallpapers most likely to lose you the respect of your friends and colleagues are ranked as follows: Read More