世論 What Japan Thinks

This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into Windows security – “an oxymoron!” I hear you all yell – showed that the Japanese too are well aware of Microsoft’s reputation in this regard.

Demographics

Over the 11th and 12th of September 2008 300 home computer-using members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female and 20:20:20:20:20 between people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixty and overs.

In Q1 the survey is referring to Internet Explorer security settings – the Settings dialog from Explorer, then the Security tab, and then the slider at the bottom for the strength of the security checks. However, Q1SQ then talks about firewalls, which is not part of the security settings! I also find 65.9% of people using a pop-up blocker hard to believe, unless the figure was obtained primarily from people reading the settings straight out of the said security dialog box.

Adding up Q2 and Q2SQ results, just about one in four of all Windows users are actively checking for security holes at least once a week!
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Ahh, I could write pages and pages on this topic, but as I like getting paid every month I’d better keep quiet and just stick to the facts in this survey from Marsh Inc that was reported on by japan.internet.com on the subject of corporate information leaks. For reference, just last week I looked at leaks from the home environment.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 8th of September 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group who used PCs completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 between those in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixty or older.

We have some new rules in our office that have been introduced over the last couple of weeks, which I do recognise will increase data security and reduce the risk of accidental leaks, but… I can’t really qualify that “but” without risking falling foul of said data security rules! Ah well, I’ll have a fun team meeting tomorrow where I plan to point out an issue or two and generally play at awkward buggers.

In Q2, I suspect one can read “can’t answer” as “yes”! Indeed, the sample size for Q2SQ indicates that the “can’t answer” people did regardless.
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The figure in the headline is a surprisingly high one, coming from this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into measures to prevent leaks of information.

Demographics

Over the 28th and 29th of August 2008 300 people from the Marsh monitor panel with home computers completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, and 20.0% in each age group from the twenties to the over-sixties.

The difference in Q1 between online shopping and online checkout is that many services offer not just online payment, but also offline payment at convenience store kiosks, and even cash on delivery to said convenience stores.

For Q2SQ, my wife had that, filling in a dodgy survey from a site linked from a popular trustworthy site, and she gets about 10 spam per day from them.
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It’s now 19 months since Windows Vista appeared on the Japanese market (last January), so this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into computer operating systems looked at how it was penetrating the market.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of August 2008 300 home computer-owning members of Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sexes were split 50:50, 20.0% of the sample were 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.

I’ve recently upgraded to Vista as it came with my new machine. I’d put myself in the moderately satisfied category, but I’m still trying to get it set up just as I desire, and the photo management software and nengajo (New Year postcard) management software that I specially bought as a set had a “Windows Vista compatible” sticket, but I find that really means “not incompatible with Vista” as it requires full permissions in order to run.
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Surprisingly high levels of data security were uncovered in this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported by japan.internet.com into computer backups.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of August 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.

I haven’t backed-up for ages and ages, although the wife pesters me to do it weekly or so. Hopefully now that we have our new PC with a DVD-R I can set up a regular schedule. Can anyone recommend good software for that? Talking of backups, I don’t do it for the blog either…

I’m surprised, however, at the numbers who do back up, and perhaps in the full survey we would find answers to questions like why did they start backing up, have they ever had to restore, and did the backups restore correctly.
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The number in the headline is quite surprisingly high, I feel, as revealed by this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into web filtering. The survey was specifically looking at service for blocking web pages with content deemed to be harmful.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of August 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixty or older.

Sadly, details of why people use filtering services was not described. What it for protection from viruses, to stop their children accessing unsuitable material, or what? Without purchasing the full survey results we will never know.
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A few months have passed since Blu-ray emerged as the victor from the next generation high capacity optical disk format wars, so this recent survey from Marsh and reported on by japan.internet.com on digital television program recording also had a look at people’s purchasing plans.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of July 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 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.

I went digital a couple of months ago with a Panasonic DiGa (I was going to link to the official US site, but it’s broken…), which is rather nice except for a slightly slow boot-up time; it’s about 30 seconds from power on until it’s ready to go. Mind you, I don’t really use the thing myself, leaving it mostly up to the wife to record. We’ve not filled up the hard disk yet; the super long-play mode gives us 400 hours, so we’re only half-full so far, even though we record two or three programs per day.

Blu-ray is still far too expensive, and as we don’t have a handy video shop (and more than enough movies queued up anyway!) there’s no real appeal.
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A bit of a straightforward (read: rather dull) survey today, reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh into news sites.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 30th of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 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. Presumably teenagers were judged not sufficiently interested in news to bother asking…

In Q1 it might be surprising to western readers that there is not a separate category for television station-related news, as we have the BBC, CNN, and MSNBC, to name just a few high-profile television-related news sites. In Japan, two issues are that most of the television stations are owned by newspaper groups anyway, and their news tends to expire very quickly. In addition, portal sites are favoured by such a vast margin not just because everyone uses Yahoo! for everything, but also that few newspapers put more than a few paragraphs per story online anyway, so by reading the newswires through a portal one doesn’t really miss out on anything.
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This survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the matter of the iPhone also finds that a surprising to me percentage of people are aware of the details of the launch of the device.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23th of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sex and age breakdown was not reported, although Marsh usually has a 50:50 sex split, and 20% of people in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties, and the remaining 20% split between those in their fifties and those aged sixty or older.

My price predictions, then my reports of a leaked pricing memo have both turned out to be wrong, as on the 23th of June there was an official annoucement of the iPhone price. I still feel that the price is a bit low and as it undercuts the Series X smartphone prices, so I wonder if there is hidden charges or any extras that will bring the price up a bit. In Japan, as there is little public WiFi, the iPhone will put quite a strain on the mobile network, so does SoftBank have the capacity to handle a successful iPhone?

Oh, and here’s a rather low-quality video of the Japanese 12-key input method running in an emulator, using a mouse rather than a finger. I like the pop-ups when you hold down a button.

If you want to see people using public WiFi in central Osaka, don’t head towards the nearest Starbucks, but instead choose the Pokemon Center where you’ll see big groups of kids huddled around the gaming access point there. This recent survey from Marsh and reported on by japan.internet.com into public wireless LAN (WiFi) suggests that games machines are beating PDAs at least.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 8th of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample was 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.

I’ve posted this before, but I’ll post again; if you want to find a public wireless access point in Japan, this site in English aids your search. However, the one at Yodobashi Camera was WAP-protected when I tried, although their electricity sockets do work. The iPhone is going to suffer in Japan from this lack of availability.

Thanks to running NetStumbler on my way home, although I pass through about 22 railway stations, including changing trains at the largest station in Osaka, the only open WiFi I pick up are misconfigured domestic routers. Many of the stations seem to have locked-up tight corporate WiFi points only.
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