Japan, South Korea continue to lead in fiber Internet

The number of fiber Internet subscriptions rose 12.7 percent in the countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based group said Thursday.

Just under 49 million fiber Internet connections existed across the 34 countries, according to the data. That represented about 15 percent of all fixed Internet lines, but in several nations the percentage of fiber connections is much higher.

Japan and South Korea lead the pack with fiber penetration of over 60 percent. Sweden, Estonia and Slovakia rounded out the top five with penetration in the 30 percent range. The other nations with above average fiber penetration were Norway, Iceland, Slovenia, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Portugal. Hungary was ranked just slightly below the average.

Penetration rates in the remaining countries, which included the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, were all under 10 percent.

While fiber continued to gain on rival technologies, it remained half as popular as cable Internet, which accounted for 31 percent of all fixed Internet connections. Both technologies continued to trail DSL, which accounted for just over half of all fixed Internet lines.

The OECD said there were 327 million fixed Internet connections in its member states at the end of 2012.
On the wireless Internet front, broadband connections rose 14 percent in 2012 and conventional mobile phone connections dominated. They accounted for 662 million lines, or 85 percent of the estimated 781 million broadband Internet connections in OECD countries at the end of 2012. Almost all of the rest were dedicated mobile terminals, such as 3G modems. Satellite and terrestrial wireless systems accounted for less than 1 percent.

Four countries—Finland, Sweden, Australia and South Korea—had mobile broadband penetration rates above one subscription per person.


The OECD includes most major European nations, the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Chile. 

Square Enix: 'Of Course' Dragon Quest X MMO Will Be Released Outside Japan

The MMORPG Dragon Quest X will “of course” be released outside Japan, according to a Square Enix producer speaking to Famitsu magazine, as translated by Polygon.

But there’s a catch. Of course!

“However, as for whether it’ll be run in the Dragon Quest style in the overseas market, every nation has its own play style and sensibilities, so I don’t think it’ll be a single game worldwide like with Final Fantasy 11,” said executive producer Yuu Miyake.

Interesting. So Square Enix’s belief is that since the Dragon Quest role-playing game formula is more popular in Japan than in the U.S., it may have to make fundamental changes to the “play style” of the game for overseas versions?

This should not be read as confirmation that the Wii U version of the game will make it outside of Japan. Square Enix recently announced that the game will appear on the PC platform on Sept. 26. This makes a lot of sense, since the extremely low sales of Wii U hardware mean that Square Enix likely can’t get enough subscribers to the MMO based on Nintendo platforms alone. It’s also a loss of one of the Wii U’s bigger exclusives — good for Square Enix, bad for Nintendo.

Dragon Quest X still might happen on Wii U in the Western markets, but it’s much more likely at this point that we see a PC version.

Backlash occurs in Japan over sales of train e-ticket records

A privacy debate has erupted in Japan over a new service from a major rail operator that sells private e-ticket records as marketing data.

This week East Japan Railway (JR East), the country's largest rail company, has begun offering for sale the anonymized histories of millions of its passengers. The data is gleaned from its Suica train pass system, which is Japan's most popular with 43 million users, roughly equivalent to a third of the national population.

JR East and Hitachi, which will handle the technical aspects of the service, announced it last week via a terse news release that initially drew little attention. But this is the first time Suica information has been sold to third parties, and the news was soon highlighted by prominent bloggers, triggering a discussion that has now spread to Twitter and other online forums.

"Even if there is a proper way to use this (data), it must be done with the approval of society," wrote Hiromitsu Takagi, a professor and prominent commentator on data privacy, on his Twitter account.

Some were less reserved, with many calling the new service "revolting."

"Personally, rather than being revolted, I just don't have confidence in the ability of JR East and Hitachi to manage the data," wrote another commentator.

The Japanese debate is unfolding as the rest of the world reacts to revelations about surveillance programs of the U.S. National Security Agency. The tale of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who released details of the surveillance, has been closely followed by the media in Japan, where many are hesitant to publicize their private details online.

JR East's service provides details for passengers that use specific stations, such as their sex, the date and time they used the service, and the amount they spent. The company and Hitachi are adamant that no laws are being broken, and JR East says the Suica user contract gives it rights to the passenger data.

"There is no way to determine the identity of specific individuals from the data, so we feel there is no privacy issue," said Takashi Yamaguchi, a JR East spokesman.

Hitachi is marketing the service as an example of its prowess at handling "Big Data" a foreign buzzword for using powerful servers to crunch through large amounts of information that has recently caught on in Japan. The cheapest price for the service is $50,000, which provides passenger data on ten stations for a year. New data is added to the system monthly.

"This is statistical data," said Hisahiro Sakai, a spokesman for Hitachi. "We will aim to sell it to station tenants, or companies that are thinking of starting businesses in stations, as well as real estate companies and advertisers that want information about specific stations."

JR East was already facing criticism over a newly installed entrance at a busy station in the eastern part of Tokyo. The gates at the "nonowa" entrance only work with Suica or compatible touch cards, so travelers with traditional tickets or passes must take another route.

"No one without an IC Card gets in?" asked the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, in the headline of an article that said many locals consider the entrance to be a form of discrimination.

IDGNSA passenger uses a touch card to enter a train station in Osaka, Japan.
Another train organization was forced to change its policies after an embarrassing leak last year. An employee of Tokyo Metro, which runs the city's subway system, disclosed the "Pasmo" train pass history of a female passenger, forcing the company to cancel a service that allowed users to view their histories online.

Suica, launched in 2001, uses NFC technology developed by Sony. Initially offered as train passes that had to be periodically recharged, the technology is now built into credit cards, mobile phones, and even USB readers that can be plugged into PCs for home shopping. Payment can now be made in many convenient stores and restaurants, as well as taxi cabs and vending machines.

In March, the most popular regional electronic train pass systems in use throughout Japan signed agreements so that they could all be used interchangeably. The data sold by JR East currently covers only users of its own Suica system.

JR East is the largest of Japan's seven overland railway companies, formed when a nationwide rail system run by the government was broken up in 1987. JR East's domain covers about half of Japan's main island, including the crowded Tokyo capital and surrounding metropolis. It runs everything from daily commuters to the bullet trains that operate on its territory, all of which are compatible with Suica.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

'After Earth' Bows at Number One in Japan But Fails to Dazzle

TOKYO – After Earth topped the charts on its opening weekend in Japan, but failed to light up the box office with a gross of $2.57 million (250 million yen) in its first three days on more than 570 screens, as the Will and Jaden Smith-starrer continues its mediocre global run.

By way of comparison, Oblivion bowed in Japan with a $4.4 million opening weekend at the start of June.

With local analysts predicting a $10 million final total for After Earth in Japan, the third largest theatrical market after the U.S. and China, the film may still struggle to cover its production and marketing budget.

PHOTOS: Hollywood Dynasties: Top 14 Movies Featuring Stars and Their Kids

100 Kai Naku Koto (Cry 100 Times), a memory loss love story directed by Ryuichi Hiroki, bowed at number two during the weekend, taking $1.59 million (155 million yen) from 223 screens, a solid start for distributor Showgate Inc, a subsidiary of advertising agency Hakuhodo.

The two debutantes knocked The Great Gatsby into third place after it had opened at the top spot last week.

G.I. Joe Retaliation, released locally as G.J. Back 2 Revenge, fell to fifth in the weekend rankings in its third week of release. One place below it was Oblivion, which has now earned more than $10 million locally in its first month.

STORY: Could 'After Earth' End Will Smith's Box Office Domination?

The Complex (Kuroyuri Danchi), the supernatural thriller from The Ring director Hideo Nakata, which has also passed the $10 million mark, fell to ninth in its sixth week of release.   

Propping up the chart after three weeks in theaters is Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen, released in Japan as End of Whitehouse.

 

Steven Tyler: New Aerosmith Documentary Spotlights Band's 2011 Japan Tour

A bit of band discord indirectly led to a new document of one of Aerosmith's shining moments.

Frontman Steven Tyler tells Billboard that he initially brought Casey Patrick Tebo -- who directed the forthcoming documentary R" -- into the Aerosmith camp about four years ago, during a particularly turbulent period in the group's history. "There was a lot of shit going on at one point with the band," Tyler explains, "and I got really pissed off and I thought, 'I need to start filming a day in the life of myself on tour.' So I brought (Tebo) out about four years ago, and he did such a great job he started doing the (video) screens and he started being our videographer on tour."

That included Aerosmith's fall of 2011 trek through earthquake- and tsunami-ravaged Japan, where the group went "just because of our love for the people there and because of what was going on there...to cheer them up a little bit," Tyler says. While the group started working on its latest album, "Music From Another Dimension," Casey went through footage from the tour and came to the band with an idea.

"He shows up in L.A. and goes, 'Would you be interested in doing a full-length feature motion picture about what you did in Japan?' " Tyler recalls. "And we said, 'Well, show us what you got,' and he put together such great footage of us playing there, six shows and all the songs that we'd never done before ('A Lick and a Promise,' 'One Way Street'), and it was amazing and we said, 'Yeah, of course.' So hats off to Casey, man."

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Rock For the Rising Sun, which comes out July 23 on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download, features live performances of 17 songs as well as behind-the-scenes footage from the tour and bonus material. And Tyler says that if viewers pay attention they'll notice that the film also chronicles the end to the nearly game-ending feuding that dogged Aerosmith during the couple of years prior.

"The band was getting along better than ever," he says. "We'd just broken up for crazy f---ing reasons, and I went away to get my head straight again. We booked a tour, South America first and we took it to Japan, and...It's funny that it took that for the band to realize how important we are to each other and how f---in' good of a band we are and what a f---in' good time we have on stage that is infectious and gets people happy. We were just all in such a bad place that we didn't realize our self-worth. I took going to Japan and playing those shows for the band to realize its own magic again. Somewhere along the line there it got the band happy again, and we thought, 'Holy shit, we gotta do a f---ing record right now!' So, yeah, that tour helped us to a new album."

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Tyler -- who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry earlier this month -- says that positive spirit is still strong within Aerosmith at the moment. The group has summer and early fall dates booked in the U.S., Japan, South America and Mexico, while "everyone is collecting their marbles" to start working on new material and predicts "we're gonna be working on the new Aerosmith record" in the near future. Tyler, meanwhile, also vows to complete his long-in-the-making solo album, hopefully for release in 2014 and including possible collaborations with Johnny Depp and Elton John, among others.

"I'm just doing a solo record 'cause I think it's f---in' kinky to go write a song with Johnny Depp," says Tyler, who recently co-wrote Julian Lennon's new single "Someday" and appears on new songs by Buddy Guy (with Perry and Rad Whiford) and Bayonets, an all-star group led by Paul McCartney guitarist Brian Ray. "I think it's f---in' ridiculous to go write a bunch of songs I started five years ago and never finished. It feeds my passion. I like traveling all over the place and writing songs and seeing what we catch. It's kind of like driftnetting for songs, right. But, no, the band's not breaking up. Me doing a solo record doesn't mean the band isn't working on a record -- but I get that in the press one has to hear that from one lead singer of one Aerosmith."

 

'After Earth' Bows at Number One in Japan But Fails to Dazzle

Will and Jaden Smith in "After Earth"

TOKYO – After Earth topped the charts on its opening weekend in Japan, but failed to light up the box office with a gross of $2.57 million (250 million yen) in its first three days on more than 570 screens, as the Will and Jaden Smith-starrer continues its mediocre global run.

By way of comparison, Oblivion bowed in Japan with a $4.4 million opening weekend at the start of June.

With local analysts predicting a $10 million final total for After Earth in Japan, the third largest theatrical market after the U.S. and China, the film may still struggle to cover its production and marketing budget.

PHOTOS: Hollywood Dynasties: Top 14 Movies Featuring Stars and Their Kids

100 Kai Naku Koto (Cry 100 Times), a memory loss love story directed by Ryuichi Hiroki, bowed at number two during the weekend, taking $1.59 million (155 million yen) from 223 screens, a solid start for distributor Showgate Inc, a subsidiary of advertising agency Hakuhodo.

The two debutantes knocked The Great Gatsby into third place after it had opened at the top spot last week.

G.I. Joe Retaliation, released locally as G.J. Back 2 Revenge, fell to fifth in the weekend rankings in its third week of release. One place below it was Oblivion, which has now earned more than $10 million locally in its first month.

STORY: Could 'After Earth' End Will Smith's Box Office Domination?

The Complex (Kuroyuri Danchi), the supernatural thriller from The Ring director Hideo Nakata, which has also passed the $10 million mark, fell to ninth in its sixth week of release.   

Propping up the chart after three weeks in theaters is Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen, released in Japan as End of Whitehouse.

Twitter: @sajilpl

'After Earth' Bows at Number One in Japan But Fails to Dazzle

Will and Jaden Smith in "After Earth"

TOKYO – After Earth topped the charts on its opening weekend in Japan, but failed to light up the box office with a gross of $2.57 million (250 million yen) in its first three days on more than 570 screens, as the Will and Jaden Smith-starrer continues its mediocre global run.

By way of comparison, Oblivion bowed in Japan with a $4.4 million opening weekend at the start of June.

With local analysts predicting a $10 million final total for After Earth in Japan, the third largest theatrical market after the U.S. and China, the film may still struggle to cover its production and marketing budget.

PHOTOS: Hollywood Dynasties: Top 14 Movies Featuring Stars and Their Kids

100 Kai Naku Koto (Cry 100 Times), a memory loss love story directed by Ryuichi Hiroki, bowed at number two during the weekend, taking $1.59 million (155 million yen) from 223 screens, a solid start for distributor Showgate Inc, a subsidiary of advertising agency Hakuhodo.

The two debutantes knocked The Great Gatsby into third place after it had opened at the top spot last week.

G.I. Joe Retaliation, released locally as G.J. Back 2 Revenge, fell to fifth in the weekend rankings in its third week of release. One place below it was Oblivion, which has now earned more than $10 million locally in its first month.

STORY: Could 'After Earth' End Will Smith's Box Office Domination?

The Complex (Kuroyuri Danchi), the supernatural thriller from The Ring director Hideo Nakata, which has also passed the $10 million mark, fell to ninth in its sixth week of release.

Propping up the chart after three weeks in theaters is Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen, released in Japan as End of Whitehouse.