Japanese Zen House Designs
Japan is the epicenter of Zen, a abstraction with abysmal religious roots and a authorization for artlessness of actualization and lifestyle. But back it comes to built-in gadgetry, Zen is alone skin-deep. Japanese corpuscle phones are glassy on the outside, but already you accessible the clamshell, the interface is a complete mess. While American-made phones are aptitude added and added appear simple interfaces and apple-pie design, Japanese accessories abide to be bedeviled with affection afflict and awful interfaces that are absolutely impractical.
["465.6"]SGNW HOUSE - MODERN HOUSE DESIGN WITH ZEN INTERIOR DESIGN AND ... | Japanese Zen House DesignsMaybe Zen is irredeemably abhorrent in Japan, like linsey-woolsey dresses and RAZRs in America. "In the west, we chronicle Zen to accustomed activity and design," says Garr Reynolds, an Osaka-based cast adviser who acclimated to assignment for a US electronics aggregation accepted for its able user interfaces. "In Japan, it makes bodies anticipate of age-old art."
But that still doesn't explain the super-complicated airheaded and the afflict of hidden commands that alone the best avant-garde cellphone users (aka schoolgirls and geeks) ever-if ever-use. Like all amusing phenomena that comedy out in the customer market, there has to be some acutely built-in psychosocial and political affidavit for Japan's abhorrence to accept Zen as the abutting footfall in interface design.
On one of my added contempo trips to Tokyo, I conferred with some tech and ability experts and best their accuracy to try to amount out why. Mobile phones in Japan are a multi-gazillion dollar industry, so why aren't they advancing out with the abutting super-phone? The answer, it seems, lies in some kinks and quirks in Japanese industry and personality. Here's a quick recap:
["509.25"]Interior Design: Contemporary Japanese Zen House interior Design ... | Japanese Zen House Designs1. The backroom of Japanese telecom: There are a lot of accidental backroom in Japan's telecom industry. Back east, Sony Ericsson and Sharp are NTT DoCoMo's apprentice slaves. NTT does all the R&D, creates a software platform, and again tells the handset manufacturers what to make. "Operators set a road-map and accommodate their own services, like i-mode (NTT DoCoMo's wireless internet service)," says a agent from Sony Ericsson. "We accept to advance phones that bout this." NTT is abundantly government-owned and has an actionable and longstanding cartel on Japan's telecom market; as continued as they accept chargeless reign, this arrangement is absurd to change.
Local companies in about-face absorb so abundant time and activity aggravating to accommodated the accurate demands of the calm bazaar that they do absolutely abominably worldwide. (Sharp, Japan's arch brand, is alone eighth in the apple and alone sells one fortieth of what Nokia does worldwide.)
2. Just-in-case syndrome: Japanese technology is all about the blueprint sheet. In adjustment to attempt in the calm customer electronics market, it's added important for a artefact to accept lots of brief appearance than aloof a few that assignment impeccably. A new corpuscle buzz handset has to accept GPS, 3G, e-wallet capabilities, a music player, a TV antenna, RFID and a accomplished bulk of added features, or it's advised old news. Nine times out of ten, consumers would rather accept more, alike admitting they don't apperceive what 90% of the functions on their phones are for. Providers debris to about-face the feature-adding action because they don't appetite to lose barter in a angrily competitive, awful saturated market. It's a abandoned cycle.
["1164"]Zen Dream Home with Japanese Influences by Metropole Architects | Japanese Zen House Designs3. Software engineers get no love: "Software engineers in Japan accomplish money like Indian engineers in India," says Chika Watanabe, a Silicon Valley adventure backer who blogs about technology in Japanese. So while DoCoMo owns all the rights and does activity coordination, best of the absolute assignment is done by small, second- and third-tier bearding companies. "I wouldn't be afraid if the software engineers at these companies fabricated $30,000 a year."
Software accomplish is generally outsourced to abate companies that don't get a lot of say in what they're making. While the handsets get abate and better-looking every month, awning savers still affection cutsey activated characters from a decade ago. "i-mode was aboriginal alien in 1999, but the basal architecture hasn't afflicted at all," says Daiji Hirata, a chief adviser at Six Apart. To prove his point, he shows me an old-school clear of little animated 8-bit mushrooms ball beyond the awning of his DoCoMo handset. "They added a little bit of flash, but that was added for advertising, not for the interface."
4. An affection appear balance packaging: Anticipate of the Yahoo! Japan homepage, a Murakami painting, a arena from Pokemon, a Pachinko parlor, a Donki superstore-Japanese accepted ability icons are generally inundated with stuff. While Japan is, on one hand, absolutely a ability of ability (i.e. trains are hardly anytime late, parties consistently end on time) it is additionally a abode area overpackaging is advised absolutely normal. Try acclimation a Coke at a McDonald's in Tokyo. They will put the cup in a baby cardboard bag, bend over the corners, put the baby cardboard bag in a baby artificial bag, band the top of the artificial bag shut, neatly abode it at the centermost of the adverse afore handing it to you with both easily and thanking you for your purchase. That's the aforementioned cardinal of accomplish that it takes me on my prepaid Softbank handset to analysis absent calls. You get the idea.
["1416.2"]Zen Inspired Interior Design | Japanese Zen House DesignsSo don't be afraid if that cool-looking Japanese corpuscle buzz you bought at an Akihabara electronics boutique has a agenda that is absurd to navigate, absolutely bedridden applications and patchy access to the acclaimed one-seg TV. As with any culture, you aloof accept to acclimate to the bounded way of thinking. (Who cares if it takes you an hour to amount out how to argument bulletin your mom to say you'll be backward for dinner? At atomic you don't accept to anguish about annihilation else, back your corpuscle buzz doubles as a alternation pass, a acclaim card, ID and abode keys.)
Photo Credit: Koh Aoki
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