B Market Builder Japan to Host B Corp Standards Seminar on July 17
The seminar offers Japanese companies direct access to the updated certification framework and practical guidance from the Japan branch of the certifying organization.
ASCII.jp
Industry
Auxia Japan Marks One Year With AI Decision-Making Surpassing 100 Billion
Auxia's AI personalization platform is showing measurable business results at major Japanese enterprises, indicating growing enterprise adoption of AI-driven marketing in key sectors.
ASCII.jp
Community Managers Become Regional Coordinators in Business Succession Alliance
The alliance turns everyday community managers into early detection points for business succession, aiming to catch needs that formal consultation channels miss.
ASCII.jp
Meta's Muse Image AI Faces Pushback From Hollywood Over Opt-Out System
The conflict highlights a growing tension between tech companies' default data usage policies and the entertainment industry's demand for explicit consent over likeness rights.
KAI-YOU
Netflix Considers Always-On Channels and Streaming Bundles as Engagement Slips
Netflix is considering a fundamental shift from its long-held focus-and-simplicity strategy to bundle live channels and rival services, in an effort to reverse falling engagement and competition from Disney+, HBO Max, and YouTube.
GIGAZINE
GoalTech Extends Prime Video Ads Support Package Through End of 2026
The extension signals that demand for Prime Video Ads among Japanese e-commerce businesses is strong enough to sustain a dedicated support package, and GoalTech is adapting to the need for lower entry barriers.
ASCII.jp
Japan's Dual-Use Debate Shifts from Military to Civilian-Led Innovation
The shift from defense-to-civilian to civilian-to-defense technology flow signals a new dynamic in Japan's innovation policy, where startups are seen as key to both economic growth and national security.
ASCII.jp
Jensen Huang to Unveil RTX Spark at NVIDIA-Sega Collaboration Event
The event marks a rare public celebration of the two companies' overlapping technical history, which includes a canceled console project and the earliest days of PC 3D gaming.
4Gamer.net
Kadokawa CEO Takeshi Natsuno Survives Shareholder Vote to Oust Him
The vote shows that Kadokawa's board and majority of shareholders backed Natsuno's reform agenda over the demands of the company's largest shareholder, Oasis Management.
Anime News Network
ZENFORCE and circlace Join to Cover Salesforce From SMB to Enterprise
The partnership creates rare full-market coverage in Japan's Salesforce consulting space, combining circlace's 600-plus enterprise clients with ZENFORCE's 200-plus SMB base, and signals a strategic bet on AI agents as the next growth area.
ASCII.jp
Kalshi Loses Court Bid to Override New York Gambling Laws
The ruling confirms that state gambling laws can apply to federally registered prediction markets, limiting Kalshi's argument for exclusive CFTC oversight.
GIGAZINE
PlayStation Disc Discontinuation Protest Surpasses 240,000 Signatures
The sustained protest reflects a vocal segment of the PlayStation user base that values physical ownership and second-hand trading, but the decision is driven by market trends toward digital distribution.
Game Spark
AUTON Demo Day to Feature 12 Teams From AI-DeFi Accelerator
The AUTON Demo Day is the first public milestone for a program that aims to fuse AI and DeFi to build a next-generation digital asset market, with direct involvement from University of Tokyo's Matsuo Lab.
ASCII.jp
Chuo Rodo Kinko Adopts Allganize's Alli LLM App Market for All Staff
The adoption shows a Japanese financial institution treating generative AI as a tool to automate routine tasks and shift human effort toward customer-facing advisory and proposal work.
ASCII.jp
SORACOM Discovery 2026: IoT Platform Expands Reach, Launches AI Agent
SORACOM is proving that in the AI era, its decade-old IoT platform remains central by embedding AI into its core offering, rather than shifting away from IoT.
ASCII.jp
NEOWIZ Appoints Former Wargaming CPO Chris Chung in Restructuring
The restructuring formalizes NEOWIZ's effort to build a sustainable global portfolio around Lies of P and new IPs, led by a veteran of Wargaming and NCsoft.
GameBusiness.jp
Jinbay's GenOCR AI-OCR Produces Results in Fuchu City Government Verification
The verification demonstrates that a generative AI-OCR tool can be effectively deployed in a local government setting, with staff accepting it easily, offering a practical model for other municipalities facing similar paper-digital integration challenges.
ASCII.jp
STYLY Phases Out Personal HMD Apps to Focus on LBE and Smartphone AR
STYLY's decision to phase out personal HMD apps in favor of LBE and smartphone AR reflects a strategic reallocation of resources toward growing demand for location-based and mobile AR experiences, mirroring a broader industry shift away from consumer VR headsets.
PANORA
Netflix to Host Videos From BuzzFeed, Variety, and Other Publishers Starting August 3
The deal lets Netflix test viewer appetite for short-form, low-cost web-style content as it competes with YouTube and TikTok and tries to retain subscribers between seasons of its original series.
GIGAZINE
B4A Announces B4A-I Project With 30 AI Features Per Year
B4A is positioning its cloud-based clinic management tool as an AI-driven platform, with a roadmap of 30 features per year starting with voice-to-SOAP charting.
ASCII.jp
JNI and Farrant Group Join Forces for Strategic Communication in Indo-Pacific
The partnership signals that traditional public relations and crisis management are no longer seen as sufficient, and that intelligence-driven strategic communication is becoming a standard requirement for governments and corporations operating in the Indo-Pacific region.
ASCII.jp
Michi Iijima, Former SMAP Manager, Named HYBE JAPAN Executive Producer
The appointment brings a veteran architect of SMAP's multi-talent model into HYBE's Japan operation, signaling a deeper push to develop J-POP IP using local production expertise rather than direct K-pop transfer.
KAI-YOU
angleReserve Launches Beta TNFD Advisory Service for Management Decisions
The advisory targets the common corporate failure to treat TNFD as a strategic tool rather than a compliance report.
ASCII.jp
Tax Accountant Without Programming Experience Builds Apps in Half a Day Using Claude Code
This case illustrates that non-technical professionals can create custom business applications with AI coding tools, potentially reducing dependency on external IT and outsourcing.
ASCII.jp