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Yesterday, on the drive home from work, I popped in a cassette tape into my car's tape deck* for the first time in at least 5 years (The Allman Brothers Greatest Hits, for those curious to know**). It might be the first time in 10 years, I really don't remember the last time I did this, which is when it occurred to me that there might actually be younger people here that have either never touched a cassette and/or ...

Softbank (9 models) and au (10 models) released their new models for the 2009 season earlier today.

Softbank 2009 phones

au 2009 phones

Of particular interest are the following two phones:

Softbank AQUOS 932SH

The 932SH actually has dual TV tuners so that you can watch programming from 2 different sources. It's apparently the world's ...

Bandai is releasing the new color version of the Tamagotchi in November. The very first Tamagotchi was released back on November 23, 1996 and has been a huge hit in Japan. In 2004, the Tamagotchi Plus was released, which included an infrared communication feature. A feature-length anime was also produced last December, which pulled 700,000 fans into theaters.

The Tamagotchi Plus will feature a 1.52-inch LCD screen with a backlight. Seasons and weather can change, along with the ...

There is one Softbank store in Japan located in Omotesando, Tokyo that will begin selling the iPhone 3G at 7am Friday morning. That's 5 hours earlier than any other Softbank store in the country. (Incidentally, the store is about a 10 minute walk from where I live.)

Do you know what this means?


Camp out!


...or at least for those people who have to be the very first to get their hands on the newest offering from Apple.

...

...but will it succeed?

Unlike other countries, the Japanese mobile phone market has been saturated with multi-function phones for quite some time now. Many current phones have built in TV tuners (phones from Sharp and Sony apparently have Aquos and Bravia, respectively, mobile technology for better pictures), music player functionality, cameras, and internet access.

So where would the iPhone fit?

Some analysts in Japan are saying that the iPhone probably ...