5 Sakura Songs by Vocaloid

5 Sakura Songs by Vocaloid? First let me explain what a Vocaloid is.Vocaloid is a vocal-synthesizing software developed and released by Yamaha back in 2004. If you still don't get it, it is basically a non-human voice creation software. I hope I made that clear. This brilliant piece of software has been used mainly to give a distinct voice to anything you can image. Including but not limited to an anime character, an action figure, vending machine, vehicles, doors, pillows, alarm clocks, home appliances and unicorns. Scratch that last one, it just popped up in my mind. But seriously, a talking unicorn? that's would be pure awesomeness! That's a lot of uses for the Vocaloid software but of course the Japanese has a much better use for it turn an inanimate figure into a pop star! Well sort of since it can only sing those ballad-ish songs inspired by the sakura tree( that's cherry blossoms in English). Two of this Vocaloid singers are Kaito the first version and Hatsune Miku. Interested? check out the in depth article. 

via Muza-Chan's Gate to Japan

Toyota Installs Brake Override System

Toyota Motor Corporation and 6 other major Japanese car manufacturers installs brake override system on all of the models that they will release. The system will work by stopping the car even if the accelerator is still depressed. It's about time I think and I wonder why is it the safety measures are always the last features to be installed?

via Japan Today

Japanese Show No Love for Google Buzz

Japanese show no love for Google Buzz according to the survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported by japan.internet.com. Please note that the survey data doesn't reflect the Google Services in general but only focuses on Google Buzz alone. I won't find the results surprising, first of all the Japanese people tend to use Japanese only services like Ameba and others like it. Although regional arms of internet service giants like Google and Amazon proves to be a hit. I often find searching for Japanese content on Google.jp fruitful without me being able to read Kanji.

via What Japan Thinks

Toshiba's New iPad Clone

Toshiba's New iPad Clone? I mean I love my Toshiba laptop but I don't think developing an iPad-like device is something that I would look forward to on its release late this year or early 2011.

via Akihabara News

and here are the rest of the Japan hyperlinks today:

Leonardo DiCaprio arrive at Narita Airport in Tokyo today. What is his purpose? but who cares anyway? LOL.
via 3yen

Masahiro Nakai digs Swedish shirts. His an actor and he wore two sets of t-shirts made by a famous Swedish brand. I think it's common that Japanese likes to wear foreign brands as do I. My favorite Japanese idol Reina Tanaka wears stuff that has the New York Yankees logo on it most of the time. Including but not limited to baseball caps, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, shirts, hoodies, sweaters, underwears well maybe except the last one, I don't have proof.
via Yonasu

New Japanese Micro-blog vs Twitter

I don't use Twitter. But I have a Twitter account, to reserve my ever famous user name in case someone gets clever and hijack it. LOL. Back to the topic, the Japanese only blogging service Ameba just released what appears to be a decent Twitter challenger called Ameba Now. For sure it's gonna lose since its in Japanese only but still anything is possible.

via Japan Trends

Slaves of the Japanese Gaming Industry

I'm not much of a gamer but I'm sure I played my share and played it well. Programming video games is cool but I suck at programming so I know it's not for me. But to work for Nintendo? how about Sony? No? how about a full time job at Square Enix? For a hardcore gamer it would be heaven. Alright then the job is awesome but how about the pay? Good question.

Recently a thread at 2ch, a Japanese BBS, asked Japanese game programmers how much money they get, of course most of the things in the internet is anonymous so it's hard to tell if the following claims are true.