Anytime you see ‘galapagos’ mentioned in any Japanese related tech article, know this: the writer is a lazy hack spicing up a crappy article with a sexy title. It’s no […]
Apple
Apple Maps Real-Time Transit comes to Tokyo…sort of
Apple announced Apple Maps Real-Time transit for the Tokyo area, for real unlike last time. The fuzzy Japanese press release says there is real-time transit information for ‘more than’ 20 […]
Mobile Payments
The Open NFC Lie
The whole EU vs Apple DMA sage boils down to one thing: “unfair” is never defined, never clear-cut. I’m no fan of what John Gruber writes these days, but his […]
Mobile Payments
iOS 18 Apple Pay: Code Payments at last (aka Apple Pay vs 3DS)
The state of online payments is far from ideal, it’s full of glitches, gotchas and different kinds of authentication that don’t always work well. We all have experience with cards […]
Mobile Transit
Suica 2.0 Platform Closeup: Next Generation Suica App
At the end of last Suica 2.0 Platform Closeup installment I wrote: What about Suica App?To quote Steve Jobs, “What about it? It’s dead. Right?” Suica App is not dead […]
Mobile Transit
JR East and Tokyo private rail lines agree to replace mag-strip paper tickets with QR starting in 2026
QR ticketing that been in the works for years will finally start to replace mag-strip paper tickets for JR East and Tokyo area private rail operators starting in 2026. Remember […]