Transcript

Welcome to Totemo Tech on April 16th, 2023. Let’s start with some news from the entertainment industry. Tokyo Skytree has been lit up in seven different colors to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney’s founding. The colors are inspired by Disney characters such as Mickey and Minnie.

Moving on to tech news, Belong, an operator of a used smartphone e-commerce site called “Nico-Sma,” has released a ranking of the top-selling used smartphones in March 2023. The iPhone SE (2nd generation) (64GB) took the top spot in the sales ranking.

In other entertainment news, a new making-of video has been released for the movie “Shin Kamen Rider,” which delves into the VFX of the film, including the transformation scenes and the Rider Kick.

Next up, let’s talk about Sony’s PS VR2. Despite the hype surrounding its release two months ago, sales of the device have reportedly been lackluster. There are various reasons why this might be the case, but it’s unclear at this point.

In tech industry collaboration news, Intel Foundry Services and Arm have signed a multi-generation contract that will allow Arm’s customers to manufacture SoCs using Intel’s 18A process technology.

Moving on to gaming news, Nintendo has announced that it will be opening an official store called “Nintendo KYOTO” in Kyoto in October 2023. This will be the company’s third official store in Japan, following Tokyo and Osaka.

Finally, in business news, Money Forward has reported strong Q1 earnings, with SaaS ARR increasing by 42% year-on-year to 182.8 billion yen. The company’s president, Tsuyoshi Tsuchiya, has described the start of the year as “smooth sailing.”

Meanwhile, Benesse Holdings has developed an AI chatbot called “Benesse GPT” for internal use by its approximately 15,000 employees.

Keywords - japan, tech, news