Well, it has been a busy time here for miniMIXA, and I have given a number of demos on Windows Mobile and Symbian devices to various Japanese handset manufacturers and service providers. The reaction in every case has been outstanding, and I have had comments from senior industry figures and meeting attendees like “My son would absolutely love to have this application on his phone”, “amazing” and “this would be really good in Japan” to “simply light years ahead of anything else I have seen” etc.

I have a good feeling now that we will be able to get services going in Japan around intent miXaPlayer (miniMIXA), and around Tao’s intent GamePlayer, too, the demos of which were also received very well indeed.

I must say, I found Japanese hospitality to be outstsanding, and I was made to feel very welcome. Japanese people everywhere seem very courteous and friendly, and it was a pleasure to be a visitor to this beautiful country. The transportation system in Tokyo is incredible, but, I must admit, I would not have had a clue (and still don’t) about how to find my way around it were it not for my knowledgeable companions. It may be I will be coming back to Japan soon, and I very much look forward to that!

I am on my first visit to Japan right now, doing a miniMIXA demo tour. An auspicious start was when my BA flight was full and I somehow got upgraded to business class. I have never in all my years traveled before in business class, and I must admit to being impressed (the food, cabin service and environs were all excellent). The trouble is, once you have experienced it, you can never look back! My one quibble, if I were to be allowed one, would be why do BA charge you to plug in your laptop on the plane? I was expecting (perhaps stupidly) to be able to plug in a standard mains power plug, and I had brought lots of adaptors just in case mine did not fit. Not a chance! I was told you have to buy a special adaptor for £80! Hmmm.

Just before leaving for this trip I had the privilege of giving a miniMIXA demo/performance to an audience of Microsoft employees. It was part of a demo extravaganza session by Jason Langridge and Dan Cohen. I must I was well impressed with the new Windows Mobile 6 interface, and how cool it looked. It also seemed to be so easy to enter text on a Smartphone device. That got me thinking that before setting off on this trip I needed to have an easy way to enter text on my own pocket pc. I decided to check out a piece of software called SPB Software House Full Screen Keyboard. It took no time at all to get used to, and it sure beats having to buy a bluetooth keyboard. It is well laid out and I don’t know why I did not think of looking for a software solution like this before. Word completion is excellent, too. It looks great and it is one piece of software that does the job without a fuss. One suggestion though, is were it too be possible, somehow miraculously, to be able to second guess when you got the key press area slightly wrong (some kind of weighting system), then it would be perfect. As I am just still trying out the demo version, this is one piece of software I will most certainly be buying. Mind you, that said, having seen how sexy the new window mobile 6 interface is, and how easy it is to enter text on a messenger like device, maybe I will be needing to trade in my ppc for one of those! I have my eye on one of the new, super powerful and nicely specced imate ‘ultimate‘ devices. Like any audio bod, I can always use the most powerful processors, so I am also keeping my eyes open for what Marvell are going to come up with next, too.