Saturday, October 27, 2007

Music List Updated!!

Click here to view this week's featured music single and top 20 music hits from Japan.

posted by Fudocom - Robot @ 3:10 PM 0 Comments

 

Friday, October 26, 2007

Not so Super Nova

Oh, mysterious bunny, will you soon cease to be? This is the corporate mascot for Nova, easily the largest and, until recently, the most popular English conversation school in Japan. Nova's been in the news quite a bit lately due to their quick decline into the bankruptcy dust.
Years ago, Nova was a conglomerate, hiring native English teachers from abroad, bringing them over, housing, feeding and of course paying them in exchange that they speak the language they were born into. Of course, Nova's had its bumps along the way with its teachers, all seemed to be functioning well within it's corporate doors. Stock, students and its marketing efforts were up. It's mascot bunny even coming out with it's own buyable products. Take that, Hello Kitty.

But, as it is with most conglomerates, they got a bit greedy. With their "No Risk!" long-term prepaid contracts from the Japanese only wanting a bit more than their un-cultured neighbor, if they tried to cancel their contract, they soon found Nova intended to keep their money. Now, in my experience when one or two Japanese are screwed out of money they may just take it in stride. After all, Japan isn't a "I'm gonna sue your a**" type of nation. But when you screw a large group, daddy governement may decide to step in. And so, was the case. Nova was suspended for 6 months of obtaining new long-term contracts, their obvious bread and butter, as punishment for false advertising. Seeing the progression, other Japanese long-term students took the opportunity to run like rats from a sinking ship and ex-students filed lawsuits to get their money back. Oh Nova.
Money now quickly departing from Nova's bank account, the president, Nozumu Sahashi, took his cue to flee to...well noody's seen him since. Under new leadership, Nova desperately tried to analyze its possibilities. With the debt piling up, office space rent and its employees were going unpaid, which brought a whole new pile of problems as the Japan Labour board stepped in to settle the dispute. And, with their obvious financial problems made very public and inadequate amounts of teachers left to teach its lessons, Nova was forced to "temporarily" close its doors and apply for bankruptcy protection. What it boils down to is that the employees and banks may just get their money back, but the students-the ones so wronged in the first place- may, unfortunately, still be out of luck. Nova 's been given one month to find a sponsor so that it may continue in business. And it seems to be hopeful for another large school or IT company such as Yahoo to bail it out. But that will most probably signal a dismal goodbye for its bunny-like mascot. But there's an obvious lesson here. To all you other huge corporations, we people do have a say. Mess with enough of us, and you too will face the consequence of being bought by Yahoo...or something like that.

posted by Fudocom - Rei @ 8:46 PM 0 Comments

 

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Music List Updated!!

Click here to view this week's featured music single and top 20 music hits from Japan.

posted by Fudocom - Robot @ 2:38 AM 0 Comments

 

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Music List Updated!!

Click here to view this week's featured music single and top 20 music hits from Japan.

posted by Fudocom - Robot @ 11:46 AM 0 Comments

 

Friday, October 12, 2007

Cars No One Will Drive


What does the above picture look like to you? Perhaps like the latest Fisher Price space toy for kids? Wrong. The Nissan Pivo 2, a concept car, has just been introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show. This picture features the steering, the rearview mirrors and yes, your very own R2-D2-like navigation robot. But instead of bleeps and bloops this robot can communicate with you in Japanese and English. Huh, Japan is finally considering internationalizing one of its crazy new ideas. The outside of this car looks a little like a bubble, therefore "The Bubble Car" seems to have been adopted as its unofficial title.





So what do you think?

Powered by electricity and its own driver's drunken enthusiam, it swivels (yes, swivels) and navigates through the streets backwards, forwards and even sideways. Makes parallel parking a breeze. My current approach includes avoiding parallel at all costs.

One concern I have is its battery life. You know if it's Japanese it's going to do everything but do your taxes, so how can a moderately sized lithium-ion battery last a day when cell phones and laptops barely last with moderate to adequate use?

So, perhaps there's a hurdle or two to jump, but who would seriously drive this car? I guess in the land of the small and cute it may be an ok option, but among the SUV's and Ford Trucks of the west, the bubble car would stand no chance in a highway showdown. That and you might get some strange looks from passerby's as you happily chat at your robot.

I do like that companies are thinking greener nowadays, but I have to wonder at the billions of dollars going down the drain to come up with cute little concept cars that only a few would actually want to buy. Companies like Ford and Toyota who are taking their already popular cars and adding features like the hybrid capability seem to have more of the right idea. If you want to make a concept car, at least make it hover. And I'm still waiting for my personal jet pack.

View the Nissan Pivo 2 video below:


posted by Fudocom - Celina @ 6:16 AM 0 Comments

 

Friday, October 05, 2007

Music List Updated!!

Click here to view this week's featured music single and top 20 music hits from Japan.

posted by Fudocom - Robot @ 3:35 AM 0 Comments