For the first time Apple’s iBookstore will offer paid ebooks in the Japanese market, from major Japanese publishers including Kodansha and KADOKAWA. The iBooks 3.1 update also brings reading improvements for other Asian languages. Read more at GigaOM »
Gawker Media has embarked on an ambitious international expansion plan, including the launch of a new partnership with the Times of India. The network also has a Spanish-language site and a series of Brazilian sites, and founder Nick Denton says China is next. Read more »
Apple will launch a fully fledged iBookstore in Japan this year. Kobo, Kindle and Google all launched Japanese ebookstores in 2012 — greasing the wheels for Apple’s launch in a country that has been slow to embrace ebooks. Read more »
New laws make downloading, as well as uploading, content illegally an offence punishable by a prison term and a large fine in Japan, in contrast with the emerging approach elsewhere. Read more »
Google added new Japanese reading features to its ebooks app yesterday and is now selling the Nexus 7, ebooks and movies through the Google Play store in Japan. Kobo expanded to Japan in July, and Kindle is expected to launch there in October. Read more »
Seth McFarlane’s performance on Saturday Night Live became available on Hulu Japan just hours after it aired on NBC in the U.S., and upcoming episodes will be released in the country just as fast. But don’t expect Hollywood to give up on international windows altogether. Read more at GigaOM »
Access to four out of five Anime shows that air on TV in Japan, in HD, and on the same day they’re available to Japanese audiences: These kinds of perks have helped Crunchyroll to get to 100,000 paying subscribers. Now it’s looking to expand its focus. Read more at GigaOM »
Sony VP Michael Aragon is trying to realise the corporation’s dream of uniting home electronics hardware and digital content. But, to do it, he will need to rely on rivals’ gadgets, as well as its own. Read more »
The Kobo e-reader looks like becoming an e-books success in Japan following its acquisition by Pinterest investor Rakuten. Read more »
After acquiring and investing in e-books’ Kobo and social sharing’s Pinterest, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten rolls both out at home in the same week. Read more »
Fittingly for a company that is now owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, Kobo is officially launching its e-reader and digital bookstore in Japan in July. The Kobo Touch e-reader will be available for pre-order July 2, and a full digital bookstore opens July 19. Read more »
It seems the world has a new digital media M&A power player. Fresh from buying Play.com, Kobo and a piece of Pinterest, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Spanish TV and movie streaming service Wuaki.tv. Read more »
Reports are coming from Japan that Amazon is forming an MVNO. If true, it would be an interesting experiment for Amazon, expanding its mobile business beyond selling devices, apps and e-books to selling connectivity itself. But I suspect this is nothing more than an experiment. Read more at GigaOM »
Japan’s largest mobile telco is about to buy in to mobile media content in Europe and farther afield, by acquiring one of the space’s pioneer companies. Read more »
Six months after first reports emerged Amazon was negotiating to take e-books Japan, it has reportedly struck its first such deal. Read more »
Hulu just cut the subscription price of its Japanese video service by a third. The company is now charging the equivalent of $12 per month in Japan, as opposed to more than $18 before the price change. The move mimics a similar step in the U.S.. Read more at GigaOM »
Kindle may launch in Japan and Brazil in 2012, according to reports published in the last week. Read more »
Disney (NYSE: DIS) Mobile, the short-lived U.S. MVNO that found a new lease of life in Japan through a Softbank JV in 2008, has now launched… Read more »
The ongoing, back-and-forth legal fight that is the Apple/Samsung patent dispute today took on a new dimension in one of its key battlegroun… Read more »
Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) faced a pretty big whack of upheavals in 2011 — not least of which was the none-too-quiet departure of their outspoken f… Read more »
The smartphone and tablet buying rush over the holidays spilled over into a corresponding deluge of app downloads, with the total weekly num… Read more »
Imagine a land where mobile advertising meets all the lofty forecasts. That land is Japan, which is showing the industry the future of the s… Read more »
Smartphone penetration is slowly approaching the tipping point where it will be more common to have a smartphone than a feature phone among… Read more »
Two more advances in the ongoing, international fight between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Android tablet maker Samsung over alleged patent violat… Read more »
Back in August, we wrote about how Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) had started to offer U.S.-based users of its Apple TV device the ability to stream sho… Read more »
We’ve seen some significant strides for LTE in the past year — with some big names like Verizon and AT&T (NYSE: T) getting behind the fast… Read more »
China is hot. Mobile connections there just overtook those in the U.S. for the first time. Here is a glut of deals news today illustrating t… Read more »
A reversal of fortunes, of sorts, for Samsung in its ongoing case against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) in Australia: today, an appeals court unanimous… Read more »
If the Kinect and the Wii popularized the idea of gestures controlling machines, the rise of startups working in the area will take the tech… Read more »
Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has gained another victory in its ongoing worldwide legal battle against Samsung. The Korean giant says it will not seek… Read more »
In recent months, we have written how Android is like the Wild West in China, with all manner of operators launching their own, non-Google (… Read more »
Gossip Girl is headed to Hulu Plus. On the heels of a past-season, library deal with Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) that could be worth as much as $1… Read more »
Kindle may come to Japan as early as the end of this year, according to reports today in Japanese newspaper Nikkei Business Daily and wire s… Read more »
It looks like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is once again rewriting the books on what it is that makes a smartphone sell. Those who thought that the iP… Read more »
More artillery build-up in the battle between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Samsung. Just days after Apple released its newest handset, the iPhone… Read more »
Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), the JV between the consumer electronics company Sony and mobile equipment giant Ericsson, may be the… Read more »
Sony (NYSE: SNE) has declined to comment on reports that it is considering a bid to buy out Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) from its Sony Ericsson han… Read more »
After years of effort and speculation, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has pieced together nearly 40 broadcast services from around the world to boos… Read more »
Not a new development, but further confirmation that there may be one on the horizon. China’s Alibaba, Russian investor Digital Sky Technolo… Read more »
Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), the joint venture combining the wireless expertise of Sweden’s Ericsson with the branding and media… Read more »
