Anime-goers and Japanese enthusiasts that are learning Japanese should not miss this great extension for Google Chrome. Rikaikun, a dictionary extension for Google Chrome which is a conversion/counterpart from the popular FireFox extension Rikaichan. Similar to Rikaichan’s functions, when enabled hovering the mouse on Japanese text would pop out a tooltip which has the translation and hiragana pronunciation of the text. By hitting the shift/enter button, more information of the Kanji will be presented.

More details about Rikaikun on the developer’s website, and you can read more about Rikaichan here.

Have you ever wanted to make those videos you see on Youtube and NicoNicoDouga about dancing 3D Vocaloids, Touhou, Utau, Idolm@sters and many more? I introduce to you MikuMikuDance, it is a software that enables you to import 3D model files in PMD format and lets you control movements and and camera sequences easy and simple. You can also lip-sync the characters to any song that you use for your video manually or by using the VSQ file from the Vocaloid software.
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My first test of MikuMikuDance with Hakurei Reimu model and static JPEG Background. No dynamic camera angles, no lighting effects, just plain model and motion test for future productions. The background of the video is only a picture I took from my desk, I just estimated the angle for the 3d video.
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Anime Icon Gundam RX-78-2 built in free-standing life size scale for the 30th anniversary of Bandai has now been completed. The said Gundam is stationed at Odaiba, Tokyo, Japan. The behemoth will stand 18 meters tall free from balancing support.

The Gundam is scheduled for public viewing this July 11 until August 31st, what is next is sure unkown, but perhaps it should not be dismantled and be kept for more viewing pleasures by otakus and the likes.

This comprehensive gallery shows the iconic mecha in magnificent detail.

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Impoverished Nation, North Korea, launched a rocket that passed over the Japanese territory. The defence ministry detected a “flying object” which looked like a rocket that went eastward passing through northern Japan then going to the Pacific Ocean.
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A decent film under 500$, woah! that’s a real indie..

All I can say is: Awesome game is awesome, awesome movie is awesome…

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Duel match between Sony and Microsft Console intensified. Sony gives the first punch, Microsoft has “lack of longevity”, as then Microsoft: Sony is “out of touch”.

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Danny Choo from DannyChoo.com tells us his experience about the new Fiber Optic/Optic Fiber/Optic Fibre Connection he recently bought.

Some of his reasons are:

-Can physically keep our private home network separate from an externally facing server – rather not have our private stuff on the same network.

-Want to have the freedom of disconnecting our private optic fiber modem for various reasons – cleaning up, moving things around etc – cant really disconnect the line for a live server all the time.

-Save 12,000 USD per year that some of the dedicated hosting costs.

-The most important reason is so that I can learn the process of how to do all the settings involved in setting up a server at home from scratch.

Surprising (at least for me) is that the optic connection he got is at 100Mbps! A Hikari line from NTT which costs a measly 1,022 yen per month for the first year and goes up to 6,720 yen for the second year. It’s a Flets Home Type promotion that he found on kakaku.com. With that promotion, he doesn’t pay the setup fees and modem rent. Nice… Compared here in my region, 768kbps with 1.2mbpsSpeed-on-Demand costs 899 php which is about 1700 yen and installation fee is 1999 php. A 2 mbps would be a luxury here…

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