The SF Chronicle provided a splashy welcoming cover article in its weekend style section, but inadvertently framed the store logo using an old Imperialist Japan look. The picture says it all. Probably not pulled from approved examples in the Uniqlo brand guidelines and color schemes. It should have upset both Uniqlo PR and the Japanese right-wing nationalists, since it is not quite right from either perspective. It is distinctive from the Japanese national army flag (16 rays) and even the Japan Self Defense Force banner (eight rays) – this one has eleven rays, so maybe the designer just used something like a clock face to lay it out.

The new-imperial vibe in the Chronicle did not keep people away from the grand opening of the Powell Street shop, which had lines running around the block for the first couple of weeks, including lots of Chinese customers who might be the first to recognize this prestigious Japanese brand manufactured in China. In fact, it was like an Asian tour bus had just let off, and middle-aged ladies thronged in the shop, at times climbing up displays to pull popular sizes in running in short supply directly of the mannequins, to the horror of Japanese staff who politely asked them to retreat and wait for restocking.

Emergency Restocking via Uhaul

True to their Japanese service training, Uniqlo staff hustled about silently in order to replenish dwindling stock and pacify crowds of eager shoppers.  Not so Japanese-looking was the $19.95-per day U-haul truck parked in front of the store to resupply racks of clothes, but the whole operation was carried out very inconspicuously by  staff dressed in black, equipped with walkie-talkies and headsets, carefully coordinating their movements like secret service agents

Also diligently at work were the Uniqlo Crowd Management Team, who kept the line moving up the street and around the corner toward the entry while leaving open a passageway for pedestrians.  Another polite Uniqlo employee was posted to escort people around the corner while protecting the loose open-ended segment of the line from potential cutters or line-jumpers coming in off Powell Street.

Uniqlo Crowd Management - Corner Unit

Uniqlo staff were even polite to cheeky salespeople from Old Navy and other rival retailers who roamed up and down the Uniqlo line, passing out their own leaflets as they tried to lure impatient  shoppers to perform a little “uwaki” with the competition.  All indications were that they were wasting their time and nobody was about to get out of line to go check out the Gap.

The scene inside the new store was exciting and felt authentically Japan, all the way from oodles of beaming staff greeting you and offering help, down to the Toto-branded toilets and the teeny tiny changing rooms.  Lines at the oddly-situated checkouts and a confusing little system around getting measurements taken and purchasing pants prior to dropping them off in the basement for alterations had some customers wringing their hands.

But for a major market launch, things looked pretty smooth and the customers were mostly smiling.

So woo-hoo!  Welcome Uniqlo, and bring on the high-tech underwear, puffy socks and comfy micro-knit casual wear!

The site depicts the radiation levels ranging from natural to “emergency evacuation” and lines them up alongside current measurements being taken at 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi Plant as well as various monitoring points in Gunma, Saitama, Tochigi, Tokyo and Kanagawa.

Simple English translation below – but better to view the live site. If you are wondering how these levels translate, the Japan Times just published its own map.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Here is a useful list of several simple mobile donation methods available to users in the Japan and the US:

Making Mobile Donations From Japan

Japan does not have premium SMS, but other donation-via-mobile options are available. Solutions vary according to your carrier, so here they are broken out that way. They range from micro-donations (donated through the purchase of mobile content) to larger donations made using credit card payments of up to $250 per donation.

I have listed Softbank first (even though it is the no. 2 carrier in Japan) because it offers the most extensive means to contribute via mobile, including smartphone apps (noteworthy since Apple in the US has disallowed in-app donations)

The applications below all appear to be Japanese-language only.

Softbank/Yahoo Keitai:

1. Purchase Mobile Content, Donate Proceeds to Charity:
Go to the Yahoo! Keitai portal home page > Information > Tohoku Pacific Earthquake Relief Fund> Choose digital content you would like to purchase (105 yen, 315 yen, and 525 yen) > Choose “Purchase”

Softbank's Disaster Relief Wallpaper Collection

2. SoftBank Charity Dial
Dial *5577, follow the audio guidance, select the number you would like to support, and listen to the audio message.

3. Simple Donation Smartphone Apps

iOS devices: Softbank Mobile has released a free application called Softbank Simple Donation that allows users to make contributions via iPhone, Ipod Touch and iPad. The app can be downloaded for free from the i-tunes store. The instructions seem to be in Japanese only, but you can follow the flow from the image below.

Android devices: you can donate money in the same way as iOS users with the Softbank Simple Donation Android app. It can be downloaded by scanning the barcode below with your Android phone. If you are reading this article with your phone, just click the barcode to capture the application.

Softbank Android Simple Donation App

Users can opt to receive push alerts when contributions are being gathered or to learn how much money has been collected.

Payment can be made via credit card or Softbank Money in denominations ranging from 100 to 5000 yen.

Softbank donations are being directed to the Japan Red Cross (which is more likely to direct your donation to the local Japan effort than is the International Red Cross).

 

NTT Docomo/imode

NTT Docomo users can make mobile donations in a number of ways, with proceeds being routed to relief efforts via contributions to Japan Platform.

1. Purchase Content, Donate Proceeds to Charity: buy original content and the total amount including consumption tax will be donated to relief efforts in the disaster area.

Docomo Disaster Donation Portal

2. Use Docomo’s Mobile Remittance Service: this allows users to make more sizable donations of 20,000 yen respectively  (currently about USD$246), and up to 10 donations of that size can be sent over the course of a month. This service does require preregistration.  The Japanese explanation is here, rough google translation is here.

3. Donate Converted Docomo Points: each time you pay your Docomo bill, you should be racking up Docomo Points at a rate of 1 point for every 100 yen paid to Big D.  Toward the relief effort,  Docomo will send Japan Platform 100 yen for every 100 points donated by customers from their royalty points accounts.

Users can access Docomo’s disaster relief portal pages by scanning the QR code below. If you are reading this on a Docomo device, click the barcode to link to the correct destination.

Scan or Click to Access the imode Disaster Relief Pages

 

KDDI/au:

1. Purchase Content, Donate Proceeds to Charity: buy original wallpapers or Flash-based screensavers and the total amount including consumption tax will be donated to the disaster area.

KDDI/au customers can follow the menu path below to access the disaster contribution page on the au mobile portal:

EZ Top Menu button or au One Top → Disaster Message Board (災害用伝言板) → Disaster Support Contribution Site (被災地支援義援金サイト)

This disaster contribution pages are scheduled to be live until April 11 (Mon) at 12:00pm.

Information about groups receiving the contribution is also posted at the site.

Making Mobile Donations From the US

The following organizations are accepting donations directly through SMS. All short codes will authorize a $10 charge on the wireless bill after confirmation. Details of how this works are explained at the mGive site.

* ADRA Relief: text SUPPORT to 85944
* Convoy of Hope: text TSUNAMI or SUNAMI to 50555
* GlobalGiving: text JAPAN to 50555
* International Medical Corps: text MED to 80888
* Mercy Corps: text MERCY to 25383
* Salvation Army: text JAPAN to 80888
* Save the Children Federation, Inc.: text JAPAN or TSUNAMI to 20222
* World Relief Corp. of National Association of Evangelicals: text WAVE to 50555
* World Vision, Inc.: text 4JAPAN or 4TSUNAMI to 20222
* American Red Cross Relief: text REDCROSS to 90999 [**Read caution below]

CAUTION: **Listed last for the following reasons: the International Red Cross states that donations are for “those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific“ and that the money will be directed to other disaster relief efforts if donations exceed expenses, which reportedly happens frequently with large donation targets like the IRC.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile as well as several smaller operators have waived SMS fees when donating via text messages. AT&T and Verizon are also waiving all long-distance charges for calls, SMS and MMS messages to Japan through the end of the month in the case of AT&T and through April 10 for Verizon.

The good news is that at present, this is mostly just chatter and there is no evidence that people outside the immediate perimeter of the plant need to flee.

Still, many would like to have the app that will send you mobile alerts when radiation levels begin to rise in areas surrounding your own, provide you with the fastest escape route, and help you book the cheapest airline tickets to safety. We are not quite there yet, although such such a service will probably be ready in time for the next nuclear or bio-hazard crisis. (Note: Fukushima residents can sign-up via mobile for mobile alerts about nuclear radiation emergencies).

In the meantime, there are a handful of authoritative sites that offer radiation level monitoring data both for Japan and the US, searchable by location, and accessible by mobile phone.

For the status in Japan, a few official sites give easy mobile access in both English and Japanese, as well as Korean and Chinese:

http://notice.yahoo.co.jp/emg/en/archives/np_jp.html
http://eq.sakura.ne.jp/
http://eq.wide.ad.jp/

The latest radiation readings for the Tokyo area are provided by the Tokyo government in English, and in a “feature phone-friendly” format.

Apart from these sites, which are provided in compact HTML, the rest of the best live data is accessible via smartphones, and in the case of flash-based sites, via PC/Web browsers.

For an all-Japan overview of radiation levels, you can check the NISA (Nuclear Information and Safety Agency) website for the latest news releases and updated maps (such as this one for March 20), but the site does not offer a live monitoring dashboard.

There are a number of live radiation monitoring dashboards maintained locally by individual prefectures. Some of these resources are really impressive, such as the Shizuoka Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station in Maezaki City – complete with images showing the placement of each plant reactor, and allows you to filter separately for a wide range of outputs, including gas, radiation, power, etc. This flashy part of the site is, however, Flash based, so you will need a PC or compatible device to view it. However, Shizuoka does offer the latest radiation measurement levels accessible via mobile phone in Japanese, with PDF-formatted data that can be opened by most standard Japanese feature phones.

Shizuoka Hamaoka Plant Monitoring Map

Almost all prefectures maintain simple mobile sites and are updating them for emergency purposes, but these sites (such as the Ibaraki mobile site) do not include all links to the latest nuclear radiation monitoring data for their area.

One site has aggregated diverse data from around the country onto a single web page at Pow-Source.com/311, which offers a useful snapshot and various maps of the radiation levels around Japan.

For people worrying about radiation drifting westward to the continental US, you can check the EPA Radnet site, which features live radiation monitoring data from key points around the country. Unlike Japan, it offers a convenient one-stop data server for the entire country, although at present it can only be accessed by smartphone or PC browsers, and you cannot yet sign up for alerts.

But for now, you can just lean back and check the latest radiation stats on your mobile. Despite all the hype, there seems to be no indication that radioactivity levels are rising outside the immediate area of the Fukushima plant. In fact, the standard background radiation seems higher in West LA than in Tokyo, although both are thousands of times lower than levels believed to be hazardous to human health.

But with the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis, instant news updates and constant press conferences are not doing much to clear up the sense of profound confusion about what is actually happening.

There is also not much in the news media about the level of public frustration toward official handling of the nuclear crisis.

Not so if you are watching the Japanese social stream. Ustream is providing live feeds of both NHK and TBS in Japanese, which is accompanied by an extremely active and angry-sounding commentary from Japanese viewers. There are too many colorful remarks to list here, but the short version is that they are sick of most of what they are seeing and hearing on TV. They are tired of vague, chaotic press conferences held by TEPCO utility representatives leafing through sheaths of printouts and waving pointers at confusing diagrams; sick of inane questions from Japanese journalists who seem to be missing the point, and angry that there is no clear instruction from the government about what action the public should take, other than putting wet towels over their heads and staying inside with the doors and windows shut tight until things blow over: “Enough already!,” writes one viewer, “where are the government press conferences?”

At the same time, when the coverage shifts from press conferences with spokesmen in grey suits to the nuclear and flood disaster site crews or relief efforts, the social stream becomes a chorus of gratitude and inspiration: “Thanks guys, you are risking your lives for us!” Even, “C’mon TEPCO! Don’t give up!”

I wonder if any of the authorities are monitoring this stream. The social backchannel could really help them to communicate better with the public.

True to the site’s name, Twitter2CSV, users can also output their search results to a CSV spreadsheet

Besides a snapshot of what people are tweeting from the disaster zone, the site provides an incredibly useful crowd-sourced information resource that fills an important gap amid the crisis, allowing users located within the disaster zone to discover, connect with and follow the feeds of other victims.

As fears grow over the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plants, we will probably see other sites offering twitter- or other socially sourced information about radioactivity detections. With Internet service still connected, and millions of people cooped up indoors to avoid exposure to fallout, expect a spike in this kind of captive development.

Wi2 began offering free wifi access on March 12, the day after the quake.

Bravo to Wi2!

Wi2 unlimited wifi access charges are usually 380 yen per month, with one-time only plans starting at 350 yen for 6 hours use, and no sign-up fee.

Anyway, here is a sample of how things look for March 15.

NTT Docomo

As of 10am, service was interrupted at some 2470 cellular base stations, and 1830 FOMA 3G base stations. Broken down by region, outages were as follows:
Aomori – 20; Iwate – 510; Iwate -10; Miyagi – 880; Yamagata – 30; Fukushima – 180; Kanto: 200. In Hokkaido, power outages caused temporary difficulties for some MOVA services but this was restored on March 14 at 8:58pm.

Restrictions on voice services are in effect as follow: Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima – of between 0-70%; Ibaragi – 0-80%. There are no service restrictions in effect on packet data services.

Government agencies have been loaned 324 satellite phones and 362 mobile phones. 30 mobile base stations are expected to be deployed. Other deployed assets include: mobile power trucks (30); portable generators (400) and multi-chargers (80).

The Disaster Message Board Services has recorded 17,333,333 searches conducted on a database of 11,210,446 registered users. In addition, as a result of the planned outages by TEPCO, even emergency battery power supplies may, depending on the frequency of outages, get drained, in some cases causing communication services to fail intermittently. This may also affect mobile data content services.

KDDI

AU services have suffered outages at some 1500 base stations, of which 1190 are in northern Japan, and 310 in Kanto. Due to restrictions on voice services, Tohoku is restricted by 20% on outgoing calls and 15% on incoming calls. In the Kanto area, incoming and outgoing calls have been restricted 5%. At the request of emergency in the affected areas, some 14 satellite phones have been loaned with another 10 devices to be provisioned.

Mobile base stations have been established in 6 cities, and have been removed from 2 locations where base stations were restored.

2 more shops have been added in Sendai that will allow users to charge their phones, and shop times have been extended to 7pm at the Tohoku branch.

SOFTBANK MOBILE

At present, mobile phone services are experiencing difficulties in the areas of the following prefectures: Aomori, Iwate, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Ciba, and Kanagawa. As of 9am, there are 1157 cell towers out of service.

No restrictions on data services are in effect. Mobile email services are being provided for free for one week starting March 11. Mobile phones and chargers are being provided free of charge in areas hit by the disaster.

Emobile

As of 12pm, service is down at some 155 base stations. There are no restrictions on transmission.
　
Willcom

As of 9am, there are outages at approximately 3800 base stations. No restrictions have been placed on transmission. PHS phones and chargers are being loaned free of charge in areas hit by the disaster.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Having mobile calling service knocked out was an eye-opener about how vulnerable the wireless network is. People have actually been lining up to use payphones, and NTT has made available free payphone calling service in afflicted areas. I admit to scoffing at payphones when I was in Tokyo recently, wondering why NTT even keeps any around, now that everybody has a personal wireless connection. The original disaster messaging plan has been the emergency communication “Disaster Message Service Board” offered by all carriers (here is the page from Softbank explaining how this works with the link for confirming any personal updates since the quake). These services are accessible via mobile or PC web, and allow users to transmit a pre-configured message describing their status to a preset list of recipients. It also allows people to input a user’s mobile number to check the boards for any communication from them.

However, if you have not set this up for your phone, or there is no mobile service, it will not help you.

Google has now also made available a similar but more flexible emergency People Finder system too for Japan, using names not phone numbers, that can be set up on the fly. This was used last month following the New Zealand quake. It looks useful, although it sadly shows a lot of people in northern Japan who are missing, with unanswered posts like: “He’s my grandpa. He has a trouble walking, but can get around okay. He usually wears a little hat. He is 155cm tall.”

As of today, mobile voice was mostly restored in Tokyo, although there is some spottiness. But nobody can reach anybody in the areas hardest hit.

Or maybe its all just an anomaly, carefully incubated in isolation, and so unique it will never take root overseas.

This is known as the Galapagos effect, and it’s gone mainstream in the Japanese media, especially as a metaphor for what’s happening in the Japan mobile industry.  Not that this talk is new. It has been thrown around since Japan broke onto the world scene as the top mobile innovator 10 years ago.  Japan was basking in the explosive success of its mobile content business. It scoffed at foreign equivalents, and instead touted its own fabulous home-grown mobile OSes and flashy phone devices for the world to envy.

Then there were several flopped attempts by Japanese players  to “take the business global,” notably by NTT DOCOMO, which spent billions to launch its flagship i-mode services all around the world.  Okay, not all have been total flops, but for the most part they did not succeed. Does anybody remember DOCOMO’s failed $10.b investment in Cingular and the rise and fall of m-mode? Maybe they were a little too far ahead of the curve, back in…2002…

But now that the world outside has caught up technically and commercially, people are asking again if there is going to be some meaningful migration or expansion of all this know-how out of Japan.  This question was framed last summer in an interesting article by one of the chief architects of Japanese mobile Internet, Takeshi Natsuno, who really knows what he is talking about. More recently, the same sort of story was partially rebaked by the New York Times to talk about Android.

In any case, the Galapagos effect is not necessarily all bad, even if it is for real.  If it didn’t exist, we would have no idea what was coming.  And it’s actually kind of trendy. Sharp even used it to brand their newest 3D-screened mobile phone, the GALAPAGOS 003SH9 (which ironically is driven by the alien Android platform). And if you are lucky enough to live on the archipelago, you can enjoy the latest local technology,  like glasses-free 3D mobile phone displays, a year before everybody else.