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Remember that scene in Maid in Akihabara where Mako Sakurai’s character lives in a cubicle in an Internet/manga cafe? Well she isn’t the only one, by far. While the fact that some otaku live in these cubicles isn’t new, a new study by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has just revealed the true magnitude of this phenomenon.

After surveying 3,200 manga cafes the ministry found out that 5,400 people call these places home, having no other place to live. These people sleep, eat, shower (somewhat regularly I suppose), browse the internet, play games, read manga, watch anime and sometimes, just sometimes even work from these places. Is this a symptom of the rising costs of housing in Japan? The realization of the otaku that they really don’t need much else in the way or worldly possessions?

[ANN]

Imagine a world where forum posters from “GameFaqs” and “NeoGaf” (to name a few) wander around acting stupid and getting away with atrocities like “bump” and “L33t” speak. This video below shows us a glimpse of this bizarre reality at work in the corporate world. *shudder*

Technorati : corporate, first, humor, internet

Well as if we haven’t made enough fools of ourselves yet, the Big Guys at Mozilla, decided to make a cheesy video trying to convert people to Firefox, and even better, they posted it on YouTube.

With the extremely cute Japanese Firefox mascot and these two buffoons in fox ears,(furries, i tell ya!) they might have converted me, but I’m already a happy user. (In before troll-fest) also, Firefox 3? What?

[JapanProbe]

Recent technology is amazing, the downloads are fast, and browsing, even faster. Well, compared to the good Ole dial up from yester-year. But now something comes and shatters all you knew about the Internet and speed. The record for largest amounts of data on a single optical line: 25.6 Tbps, yes, TERABYTES. set by Alcatel-Lucent

This is currently the world record, and the previous was 14Tbps. Now in case you were wondering, and I’m sure many of you would like to see the sheer awesome in this. here’s an example: You could send over 600 DVDs worth of information, in ONE SECOND, yeah, hardcore, i know. Just need something like that in my house, I’d be set for life.

[Engadget]

[Tags]Geek,Computers,Internet,Speed[/tags]

Apparently Anime News Network has insider incormation that Aple Inc. will announce later this week the sale of anime content throught its iTunes store.

Legal digital distribution of anime has been around since last year but the arrival of anime on iTunes will put content avaliable for the most popular portable video player. There has been no other announcement so far on prize, only that it will be of an “affordable price”.

And dont be sad , although all of the content will be dubbed anime, it would have been quite a pain to read subs on those tine screens. Await more on this this week.

[ANN]

Capcom’s localization team must be filled with either true geeks or Will Smith fans. Why? Well apparently a dialog in the soon to be released Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Justice For All is a famous internet meme as seen in this video.

Didn’t get it? Pause at the clowns dialog, here let me type it for you.

“In West Clownadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spend my clowin.”

You got it right, thats the theme song of the Fresh Prince of Bel-air. Here’s the original lyrics:

“In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days.”

Will Smith fans or huge geeks? We guess huge geeks. After all, there was 1337 speak in the first game. Way to go Capcom!

It wouldn’t be shocking to find out that Matt Casamassina is causing ripples on the internet with fake information, through it wouldn’t be surprising either if he revealed some dark insider secret. Either wave when Matt claims something as outrageous as this, we listen and we listen hard.

Matt is claiming to having played Halo on the Nintendo DS. No, not some sort of DS/Xbox hack, the real deal! According to the latest post on his IGN blog Microsoft was once convinced by an unnamed publisher to release a Halo game for the DS. Sadly this game never saw the light of day as Matt claims “there were many egos involved” in the project. Then he goes on to claim that he recently played a leaked build of the game which allegedly plays like “Metroid Prime Hunters but with a Halo facelift”.

If such a game had ever been released gaming as we know it wouldn’t exist, we call BS on this and suggest ingesting near lethal amounts of salt before reading his post.

[Matt's Blog]

Video Game webcomics are a buck a pound these days, from the really good ones to the ones that make you loose hope in humanity. So I wouldn’t normally post about a webcomic strip, but when an honest to goodness webcomic that isn’t about Video Games makes such a good reference to gaming, it must be known.

And Questionable Content, one of my favorite webcomics, pulled a great one on the latest strip. A Final Fantasy reference AND what seems like a FLCL reference in one? Sweet!

And finally more details emerge about the Wii Opera browser. Rumors had been floating around the time of the Wii events this month. Some said that the Opera browser would be free while others said that you had to give Miyamoto a cock polish. No one knew for sure, but Shiggy did get some favors out of the confusion.

Now Opera has released information regarding how its going to work. The Wii browser will be free for download from launch day until June 2007. After that users can purchase Opera through the Wii Shop Channel, the amount of Wii points required isnt known as of yet. The press release also goes on to say that the browser will support Flash, AJAX (that means fancy web two point o), and “Bookmarks”. Yes, its in quotations so its a mystery what these “Bookmarks” are all about.

[Opera]

Mozilla continues to fight a tough battle in Japan where the browser of choice continues to be Internet Explorer. They’ve had some good ideas like the maid approach, but alas, thats only one pillar of japanese marketing. If cosplay wont sell it, mascots will.

And in comes this little fellow, a cute Firefox. He’s lacking a name though, and thats where you come in. Mozilla is running a contest to pick a name The contest last until the 14th of September, no idea if there’s a prize though, perhaps a plushie or a date with a Firefox maid. Anyway go ahead, submit a name, I sent in ‘Fugito’.

[Japan Probe]

The whole world suffers from spam, there’s no denying that. I bet even dethroned African royalty gets spam. But Japan cant settle for average, they have to have their own breed of bizarre spam. Mari, of Watashi to Tokyo, has made up a small list of some of the best email subjects she gets from spam. Our favorite 3:

• One year has passed after my husband was eaten by a giant ant-eater.
• Someone left a bunch of roses in front of our shop.

• The bathroom in the book store.

From Mari herself:

But when I check the bulk folder then if I found the title “One year has passed after my husband was eaten by a giant ant-eater“. How can I resist opening the mail.

We hear you! How CAN you not? Japanese madness or genius? You decide!

[Watashi to Tokyo]

With the recent launch of the Nintendo DS Opera browser one of the main complaints was that it was near impossible to use any sort of IM software/website. Well the brave souls on the cutting edge frontier of homebrew software (what?) have come up with a solution! Beup is a program that allows you to connect to MSN, have a picture avatar, have a special status nd even send and receive ink messages!

Here, have a video!

And you can download it here.

The Motion Picture Association of America, cousin of the Recording Industry Association of America, finally screwed up with their practically automated suing. This time their little electronic cross-hairs settled on Shawn Hogan, a multi millionaire programmer. Shawn’s not happy.

Shawn was accused of downloading a copy of Meet the Fockers on Bit Torrent, a movie he says he already owns in DVD. The MPAA rarely has to take their cases to court, most people decide to settle for around $2,500 USD. But Shawn wont, and he’s looking to spend “well into the millions on this” to challenge the MPAA’s tactics. Shawn Hogan is now an internet hero.

The MPAA, being the collected devil it is, just replied via John G. Malcom:

I hear Mr. Hogan has said, ‘I’m absolutely going to go to trial,’ and that is his prerogative. (….) We look forward to addressing his issues in a court of law.

We look forward to an epic fight, go forth Shawn Hogan, go forth!

[Wired / Via BoingBoing]

Goatse is perhaps one of the Internet subculture most prolific icons. Thats because its burned into your brain forever after you see it! Company’s would kill for brand recognition like that! Anyway Boing Boing has posted a small collection called Goatses in the media. A couple are unintentional, others are user made mock-ups. And then theres that little gem to your left, the goatse t-shirt, its so perfectly iconic. Any other unfortunate soul you meet or pass by on the street is bound to chuckle at this…and then cry.

[BoingBoing]

Really, geekness doesn’t go much further than this! Printing information in a DnD dice shape has to be way up there in the geek scale, right next to getting a Zork tattoo. A guy named Ole Arntzen (at least I think thats his name…) wrote a nifty little script that puts a calendar in a paper dodecahedron. There’s really not much use to this but I bet it would make for an interesting desktop item. Just imagine it, next time you need to set an appointment just roll your d12 calendar! Geektastic!

[12 sided calendar]