Check out Kokoro, from Yuichi Kawasaki. Good chewy stuff for those watching the mobile scene in Japan. Check out the cool toys that most of us can't have because we live in the wrong place! Next best thing to trolling through Akihabara -this one is going on the blogroll. Check out the avatar based chat and 3D games, both on mobiles.

Hat tip to Mochio
11:50:37 AM    

Two more interesting pieces on infrastructure to support micro-publishing (or other small transactions):

Andrew Odlyzko - one of this blog's Analysts of Note - explains why micropayments will never take off. I can provide first-hand corroboration for one of his points: "consumers are willing to pay more for flat-rate plans than for metered ones" - this turned up clearly in usage vs. revenue analysis when I was running Sprynet for CompuServe. Read section 6 for the priceless story of an AOL customer convinced she was being cheated by paying less.

On the other hand, Scott Loftesness speculates that the time is finally ripe for Internet micropayments, and writes up his analysis of the Apple iTunes service and its meaning.

I do so love it when my respected sources agree. Heh! Actually, they're not that far apart. Odlyzko is talking down the purist form of atomic, immediate microtransactions, and Scott is noticing some clever tricks that Apple may be using to aggregate its transactions into the conventional payment systems. They may both being saying 'evolution not revolution.'
11:30:29 AM