Let’s make content as robust as possible

 　“Content” first made its appearance in Japanese as a loanword in the mid-90s. It refers to information products such as movies, television shows, books, CDs, and DVDs. Even the government has pinned its hopes on this 15 trillion yen industry and has announced a goal to expand it by a further 5 trillion yen. However, for these past few years the market has been contracting and areas such as anime and music have been continuously pressed by...

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Japan’s Digital Signage

 　Have you heard of “digital signage”? The term refers to the electric signs you see spread across town. On the walls of buildings, the insides of stations, convenience store cash registers, indoors and out, we are practically buried under net-capable displays of all sizes. This form of new media is expected to grow up to a trillion yen industry. 　Because of this, it has been a full five years since the formation of the Digital Signage Consortium,...

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The mechanism which gave birth to Hatsune Miku.

 　Hatsune Miku is the name of synthetic voice DTM(Desktop Music) software created five years ago. With over 36,000 songs created, more than 10,000 videos uploaded, and views on her various media numbering well into the ten thousands, she has grown into a singer who can proudly call herself the most prolific musical artist in the world. 　Hatsune Miku's power flows from three sources: Technology, Pop, and Community. 　First, the technology of...

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TV: From convergence to smart

 　In 2011, “Convergence of communication/broadcast” policy and legal system was enacted.  This allows us to use the same frequency for both communication and broadcast.  This was, even from an international standard, a groundbreaking deregulation.  Digitalization of terrestrial television took about 20 years and was completed in 2011.  High-speed Internet became available all around the country.  A merged digital...

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