JR East announced they will distribute 18,000 Suica cards to all Noto Earthquake evacuees at all evacuation centers. The request came from Ishikawa Prefecture via the Japanese Digital Agency because […]
Mobile Payments
iOS 17.4 Apple Host Card Emulation
Apple has finally given their answer to EU demands (and now USA demands) for ‘open NFC’: Apple HCE (Host Card Emulation). Basically this means that any payment provider/developer in the […]
Mobile Transit
Is Mobile TOICA in the cards?
Now that we have Mobile Suica, Mobile PASMO and Mobile ICOCA that represent over 90% of Transit IC group card marketshare, most people assume that’s the end of the mobile […]
Mobile Payments
SimplyGo EZ-link identity crisis
It’s been an interesting week reading the negative reactions of Singapore transit users to the new SimplyGo EZ-Link. Social media was full of complaints that basically boiled down to: we […]
Japan Journal
A Cosplay Life
I never knew much about Buffy Sainte-Marie or cared for her music. She wrote one song that I kinda liked, the Charlatans version of Codine. I liked it enough to […]
Japan Journal
The Kechi difference: Stingy vs Thrifty
The nuances of “kechi”, a Japanese word that means both stingy and thrifty depending on context, was best explained to me by a friend: good marriage is when the wife […]