Here’s one of these subjects for a survey that make me scratch my head and wonder why they really asked this. This time japan.internet.com reported on a survey by goo Research into broken digital cameras.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 27th of January 2009 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.
As all I have is a cheap and cheerful compact digitial camera I’ve never thought that it might have the facility for a firmware upgrade; given the rate of model turnover buying a new camera is the only way of getting a new version! I’ve of course heard about upgrades for digital SLRs, but let me check the support web site for my camera – oh, they do have firmware upgrades even for the compact cameras! It doesn’t tell you what they do, however… Read the rest of this entry »
In Japan too the New Year brings sales, so this survey from the curiously-named RealWorld RealResearch and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at New Year digital home electrics purchases.
Demographics
On the 4th of January 2009 1,201 members of the RealWorld RealResearch monitor panel completed presumably a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.1% of the sample were male, 8.7% in their teens, 7.4% in their twenties, 20.8% in their thirties, 12.8% in their forties, 27.6% in their fifties, and 22.6% aged sixty or older. (That’s a rather unusual age distribution!)
I didn’t buy any digital electronics, although I did get a room humidifier and some blank DVDs. Most of the items I need to buy are very digital on the inside but boring old white goods on the outside, such as a rice cooker as our current one’s non-stick is coming unstuck, and no doubt very soon I’ll also need a new washing machine as it’s on its last legs. Read the rest of this entry »
Last month’s survey on Blu-ray and HD DVD was rightly criticised for rather dubious data, let alone the small sample size, so hopefully I can make amends with this detailed report from DIMSDRIVE into Blu-ray recorders.
Demographics
Between the 15th and 30th of October 2008 9,141 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 1.2% in their teens, 12.8% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, 30.5% in their forties, 15.% in their fifties, and 7.2% aged sixty or older. By household salary, 7.4% earned less than 2 million yen a year, 20.1% less than 4 million yen, 23.5% less than 6 million yen, 15.5% less than 8 million yen, 10.2% less than 10 million yen, 7.8% less than 15 million yen, and 1.9% over 15 million yen. 13.6% didn’t know or declined to answer.
When I reported last month’s survey it got picked up by an obscure corner of Kotaku, which was then picked up by another online mag and featured prominently, even getting onto Google News UK’s front page, but any credit to me got lost on the way. Mind you, if I had got a link back, I’d probably have had my old server blow up even earlier!
Eikichi Yazawa is an aging rocker who features in Sony adverts like this one:
This rather fun survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at mobile phones, with the focus of the article being phones and bedtime.
Demographics
Over the 18th and 19th of December 2008 1,082 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.
My phone sits on a desk in another room, but my wife’s on a desk out of reach in the bedroom as she does use it as an alarm clock. Read the rest of this entry »
This short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at the subject of biometric identification.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 22nd of December 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.
Just about all the non-special permanent resident foreigners in Japan will have had experience with biometrics as we all get out fingerprints and face scanned at immigration, but this survey is about biometric identification, and as I understand it the machines can only identify people on immigration blacklists in real-time, it perhaps does an offline (2-day turn-around) scan of ordinary criminal records, but there are no reference prints to verify the average law-abiding non-citizen against.
Many of the newer mobile phones have face-identification for unlocking the phone, but even though mine has I’ve never tried it out for fear of locking myself out of my mobile! Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to normal service from What Japan Thinks, and my apologies again for being offline for so long. We’ll start off the year with a survey connected with one of my most popular themes of 2008, a look with japan.internet.com at goo Research’s 42nd regular monthly survey on mobile upgrade needs, with a question on touch panels.
Demographics
Between the 16th and 19th of December 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were female, 2.1% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 36.6% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, and 15.3% aged fifty or older.
The figure of 0.3% Apple users reflects about 300,000 people given the estimate of about 100 million contracts, but given that on one hand there is a lot of multiple phone ownership and on the other iPhone users may be more likely than average to be the sort of people to participate in online surveys, it’s difficult to extrapolate from the three iPhone owners in this survey.
Note that it’s not clearly stated in the survey, but looking at the wording of the questions in Japanese, there is a possibility that the survey was conducted via mobile phone internet, so the questions may actually apply to the phone currently being used to answer the questions. Read the rest of this entry »
What a super excuse to promote my favourite purveyor of Japanese tat (and I mean that as a compliment!) through this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Point On Research into cellphone accessories.
Demographics
On the 11th of December 2008 exactly 1,000 cellphone-carrying members of the Point On Research monitor group (a footnote classified them as heavy users) completed a private (mobile?) internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% or the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.
Dangling off my cellphone right now are: Monokuro Boo cubic pig screen cleaner; four-leaf clover with bells on; Miffy’s teddy bear; and Kobe Airport Hello Kitty jet, which for me is quite few. However, next week I should be getting a new one, as if I buy an advance ticket for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince it comes with a free gift of a Hogwarts scarf strap. I’ve got a million and one freebie straps and the like; I wonder if I could sell them on eBay?
Here’s an interesting (but a fuller version would be even more interesting) survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into taking work computers home.
Demographics
Between the 4th and 9th of December 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.
At my place of work we have a number of interesting rules regarding taking computers out of the office. I take mine home almost every day, and of course since it is forbidden I never ever use it to prepare my blog entries nor have I installed no end of tools to assist in creation of said entries, even though by deleting the uninstall entries from the registry they can be hidden from the licence checking software. Or so I’ve been told, I of course do not know if that is true or not. Read the rest of this entry »
With the demise of HD DVD in February 2008 as a format for recorded media, ths recent suvery from goo Research reported on by japan.internet.com into video devices showed some surprising results.
Demographics
Between the 27th and 30th of November 2008 1,081 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.3% in their thrties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
I really do find the HD DVD drive ownership stunningly high! It would be interesting to investigate exactly why, and whether or not these drives are still in use or just gathering dust.
A subject that pops up every so often is the matter of children and cellphone usage, this time conducted by MyVoice.
Demographics
Over the first five days of November 2008 14,671 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 34% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.
Pictured here is Willcom’s child cellphone from Bandai, the papipo!, with a Tamagochi theme to it. Perhaps it’s just me, but it does look awfully like a toilet seat when folded closed…
In Q3 it’s interesting that in child cellphones, docomo loses out to both au and SoftBank compared to the percentages for adult phone ownership. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s one of these subjects for a survey that make me scratch my head and wonder why they really asked this. This time japan.internet.com reported on a survey by goo Research into broken digital cameras.
In Japan too the New Year brings sales, so this survey from the curiously-named RealWorld RealResearch and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at 
Last month’s survey on 
This rather fun survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at 
This short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at the subject of 
Welcome back to normal service from What Japan Thinks, and my apologies again for being offline for so long. We’ll start off the year with a survey connected with one of my most popular themes of 2008, a look with japan.internet.com at goo Research’s 42nd regular monthly survey on 
What a super excuse to promote my favourite 
Here’s an interesting (but a fuller version would be even more interesting) survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
With the 
A subject that pops up every so often is the matter of 
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