Kokoro reports on a talk by the chairman of research at KDDI, Japanese mobile carrier. Interesting bits are paragraph (1) with current market sizing for mobiles in Japan and his assessment at (4) of the comparative technological market advantages of Japan and the US at present. Some of the entries on the Japan side of the comparison may be surprising to US readers, particularly optical devices and networking, and telematics. I wouldn't go so far as to put them unequivocally on the Japan side of the list, but there are certainly arguments in that direction:

With the North American backbone networking market still in catatonia, there are a number of potential optical component and systems innovations going begging right now, unable to find internal or VC funding while the market opportunity remains so murky. Meanwhile, the larger Japanese companies continue to plug away in the lab, and the East Asian market for networking equipment continues to have life, at least in comparison to the rest of the world. Enough of this trend, and the balance can tip.

I'm more dubious on the telematics front. Japan certainly has the edge in enabling wireless infrastructure, and in early adopters. But one difference is that American cars work, day in and day out, where a lot of Japanese vehicles are trophies displayed on weekends. The North American market may be the better place to create services with staying power.
11:00:20 AM    

For some time, I've known from friends at Yahoo that they regarded Google as a competitor. Though they have been on-and-off 'partners' it's clear that the Yahoos underestimated the attractiveness of Google to end users, and let them get far too competitive without having a reply. Now we see the reply: A $1.6 billion acquisition of Overture.

This will be interested to watch as it plays out. Google has long since outgrown the need for Yahoo traffic. Overture, under the name Goto.com, originated pay-for-placement search, and I've always felt that its search results and user interface have been compromised in the direction of advertisers vs. end users. Its technology is a bit of a grab bag - it has recently acquired both FAST and Altavista. Google remains more of a pure play, in spite of experiments such as the Pyra buy and Froogle.
9:43:33 AM