Via Eric Rice: The Skype pay phone. Woah.
Businessweek: Blogs Will Change Your Business
Businessweek writes in Blogs Will Change Your Business:
…the blogs are turning [the world of mass media] on its head. Set up a free account at Blogger or other blog services, and you see right away that the cost of publishing has fallen practically to zero. Any dolt with a working computer and an Internet connection can become a blog publisher in the 10 minutes it takes to sign up.
Well then, let the dolts go to Blogger. The rest of us non-dolts with a working computer and an Internet connection will become blog publishers at BlogHarbor. They do say that blogs are the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself, which the royal we would have to agree with.
Fuji from Izu
More majestic and powerful than the picture conveys.
A walk with our little angel at sunset
Me and the little angel enjoy a walk at sunset. Nice camerawork, mama.
Family Toilet
This is a great one, the sign on the bathroom at the Fuji
Safari Park said Family Toilet. The concept is supposed to
be a nice sized room where mommy or daddy can change baby, etc. But if
you had no idea, doesn’t it appear on the left that the room is
supposed to be for pregnant mothers and their husbands with bad knees?
A somewhat typical house
Here’s a nice image of a modern Japanese house, at least one in the
countryside. Plexiglass covered carport, and I didn’t notice it when we
passed by but I think that you can spot a solar water heater on the
awning. You see a lot more of that in Japan than in the US.
Under construction
A new house will be built around the corner from Grandma’s house. I
love the shadow of the clouds on Fujisan in this image.
Sunset on a spring evening
Sunset on a spring evening…
Three putts aside
Yours truly leaves another putt short of the hole. This was such a
beautiful day, clear sky and vivid colors everywhere. One of those days
you’re just like Wow, I am so glad to be alive! Even if I three
putt every hole!
Reserve your tickets by phone
Yes, in Japan you can already reserve and pay for tickets on the Shinkansen
“bullet train” via your keitai denwa (mobile phone). In
America, we will have that sometime in the future. You know,
when we drive to work in our flying
cars.
Mt. McKinley from a 777
On the way home we were able to see a clear view of Denali out the window of the 777.
Japanese traditional Sushi USB Memory
Saw this at an electronics shop at Narita airport on the way home. Note this is the traditional Japanese USB Memory, not some of that new modern USB memory. This is memory like it used to be.
The countdown for the extinction of CDs is about to begin
Mark Cuban says: The countdown for the extinction of CDs is about to begin: When it happens, the music industry will EXPLODE and sales and profits will go through the roof.
He makes some great points:
MP3 players are changing peoples listening habits. We dont carry folders filled with CDs anymore. We carry our library in our MP3 players. We dont listen to CDs. We listen to playlists that we adjust all the time. We dont burn CDs anymore, its too time consuming. We copy all our music to our MP3 players so its all available at our fingertips.
All of our music in a single device. Available to us where ever we are, for whenever we want it. Music how we want it, when we want it. Easy and breezy. Thats how we want to consume music.
Even Hello Kitty has a blog
Daily Yomiuri: Companies count on blogs to cut cost of Web.
Some companies are taking a more creative approach to promoting their products, as shown by world-famous celebrity cat Hello Kitty.
Of course, the fictional kitty doesn’t write her own blog, which is run by character-goods maker Sanrio Co., inventor of the character. But the company uses the blog to bring the cat to life, making her a familiar character and bringing her closer to her fans.
Click here to access the list of Hello Kitty blogs (Japanese).
Circle K has it all
This shot really highlights how advanced this country is. We’re not in
the metropolis of Tokyo, but in the suburbs of Shizuoka Prefecture. In
fact, some Japanese would refer to this as a “country” area. But around
the corner from here, the Circle K convenience store can sell you blank
DVDs, ADSL splitters, line noise filters, USB mobile phone connector kits…