episode 015 - Rakuten, smart.fm, iPad, WordCamp Yokohama

First news, was of Rakuten (the online shopping mall we covered in Episode 014) switching to using English in their meetings as well as their purchase of buy.com for US $250 million. Next we talked about our new video camera, the DSLR Canon EOS Kiss x4 (also known as the Rebel T2i or EOS 550D, depending on where you are). What do you think of the video and sound quality, compared to previous episodes? And also we have a new video editor (me), so if you notice any problems just leave a comment and I will personally look into it. The next part, is a new segment, which we named Ken’s 30 seconds, even though a little bit longer than that. Ken introduces the way he learns Chinese and how you can learn Japanese via Smart.fm brought to you by Cerego Japan. As a sidenote, Kim of jisho.org (one of the best online Japanese <-> English dictionaries) works there. Of course, the iPad in Japan is a topic that we could hardly not mention, especially with the whole sim-lock nonsense from Apple and Softbank. Hiro’s reserved his iPad, and I’ve decided not to get one. On a related note, since he is getting the wifi only model, he gives his final verdict on the emobile vs WiMax. Finally we mentioned WordCamp Yokohama, Japan’s 4th big WordPress meet-up. Hiro promises interviews, which I will do my best to edit and get ready soon. Disappointingly the videos we sent to WordPress.tv of WordCamp Kyoto never seemed to have appeared. We’ll probably be posting these to messa.tv directly. Hope you enjoyed this episode, as ever we are delighted to get feedback whether good or bad. Leave us a comment or send us an email!