【About the Contest】

Please show the world your experience of Sekai Camera via video! Win the Grand Prix and get an Apple iPad ! More prizes available.

【How to Submit】

Please upload your video via YouTube, and send us the URL by email to contest@tonchidot.com. Your video will be checked by our staff, and if it complies with contest rules, it will be put on our contest site.

【Submissions】

Feb 3rd, 2010 – Feb 25th, 2010 24:00h

【Contest Rule】

Please refer to the contest site below.

【Reference】

“Girls touching Sekai Camera for the first time” by Ken Hosoi

v2.1.0 Updates:
* Profile names and post dates in the Air Tag detail view have been made easier to see.
* The Air Tags in the map view have been fixed to show the correct pictures.
* The Sekai Life time-line and history have been fixed to prevent showing wrong pictures.
* Sekai Life detail view has been fixed to prevent showing wrong pictures.
* Fixed problem about the application sometimes crashing after posting Air Tags.
* The Compass Interference dialogue can now be switched off in “Settings”.
* Sekai Life now shows the location of every Air Tag in map view.
* You can now jump to the twitter time-line when tapping text starting with “@”.
* You can now see the twitter time-line in full screen after tapping the Air Tweet profile.
* A dialogue has been added to check if you really want to post an Air Tag when the long/lat are both 0 degrees – when your iPhone probably has not located itself accurately.
* The distance between you and Landmark Tags are now shown.
* You may now start the Sekai Camera application while holding the iPhone in the portrait position with Sekai Life.
* Air Profiles are now shown as double circles in the indicator.
* Air Tweets are now shown as blue dots in the indicator.
* Sekai Life now has a button to jump to the Footprints feature.
* A feature to adjust the acceleration sensor and the compass preferences has been added in “Settings”.
* Sekai Camera and Sekai Life now switches between themselves faster.

Event Website (Japanese Only)

We were not able to win first prize, but we are extremely proud and grateful at the fact that we were nominated along with the most popular mobile apps in the U.S, just 3 weeks after our worldwide launch! The other nominees were Google Voice, Amazon Kindle, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Skies of Glory – it was a very humbling experience indeed.

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who supported us during the Crunchies voting process. We also extend our thanks to all our business partners, and everyone rooting for us all over the world.
Thank you!

We look forward to your continued support and patronage.

Look up!

2009 Crunchies Awards Winner (by TechCrunch)

2009 Crunchies Awards Winner (by VentureBeat)

The Crunchies Photo Gallery

Tonchidot’s Crunchies Report (Japanese)

Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

2.0.2 Updates:
Enabled weblinks in Profile view on Sekai Life.
Changed the way Follow/Unfollow, Block/Unblock is displayed on Sekai Life.
Changed error message when unable to download Twitter timeline on Air Tweet.
Brushed up selector buttons on Sekai Life.
Brushed up Profile view layout on Sekai Life.

Just ONE day after the Global release of our “Sekai Camera” (app name “Sekai” in U.S.), we have been nominated for the “Best Mobile Application” in the “2009 Crunchies Awards”, the Internet/Technology equivalent to the Academy Awards!! It is a great honor that Sekai Camera has been selected alongside giants “Google Voice” and “Amazon Kindle”, as one of the 6 nominees in the category – WOW! Public voting starts from December 22nd, and lasts 16 days until January 6th.

PLEASE VOTE for us! Your support is greatly appreciated.

If you root for underdogs and dark-horses, this is THE ULTIMATE opportunity! If a tiny start-up from Japan can cause a stir in the internet world, this is the time! Join us!

How to Vote:
Please CLICK HERE or on the button that says “Vote Now”, and vote for “Tonchidot” found in the third category from the top, “Best Mobile Application”. You can vote ONCE a day, EVERY day until Jan 6th – don’t be shy! It would be of great help if you could make this voting a daily routine in the coming weeks. Please also Tweet, Blog, post Air Tags, and tell all your friends and even far distant relatives. We thank you for your support!

About The Crunchies Awards:
The 2009 Crunchies is the third annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. The Crunchies is co-hosted by the 3 major IT Media companies GigaOm, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch. Best of all, the internet community is invited to choose who wins. The Crunchies award ceremony takes place on Friday, January 8, 2010 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco at 7:30 pm.

2.0.1 Updates:
Added “status-bar” on Sekai Life.
Fixed bug to show thumbnails on movies.
Fixed bug to enable the showing of entire list on Sekai Life.
Fixed bug to show Air Tags when moving between floors in multi-floor enabled areas with application ON.
Changed button in filter screen.
Altered some text messages for certain languages.

Sekai Camera now supports 7 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish.

Sekai Camera is designed for use on iPhone 3GS. Sekai Camera can be downloaded on both iPhone 3G and 3GS, but use on iPhone 3G is not recommended. iPhone 3G lacks various features, including a compass and advanced processing power, which does not allow for a responsive Sekai Camera experience.

Sekai Camera is now available for free, at iPhone AppStores (search for “Sekai Camera”), in 81 countries. To download our app, go to DOWNLOAD. Also check our HOW TO for instructions.

Sekai Camera has two different modes which users can go back and forth from:

LANDSCAPE: Sekai Camera Mode (Augmented Reality Live View)
PORTRAIT: Sekai Life Mode (Life-stream View)

The features of Sekai Camera include:

1. User Generated Content Features

Air Tag: location-based digital post-its in text, web-links, photos, movies or voice. Users can share comments, memories and graffiti by leaving Air Tags at that place and moment. Other Sekai Camera users can see them by just by holding an iPhone over that location. Use for anything and everything! Air tags are shown when holding iPhone in landscape position.

Air Filter: a search filter to find the Air Tags users are looking for. By specifying time, distance and type, users can sort through the many floating Air Tags around the location. More filters to come!

Air Pocket: a bookmark that allows users to view Air Tags even when users are not at the location the Air Tags were posted. Keep your favorites and show off to your friends!

Air Shout: Air Tags that fly! Air Shouts will fly up to 100 meters, and can be caught by tapping on them. Have fun catching them!

Air Zoom: zoom in on Air Tags far away. Just double tap or pinch in/out to zoom in/out.

2. Social Communication Features

Sekai Life: a life-log feature shown when holding iPhone in portrait position. Shows how users and their friends have interacted with Sekai Camera in a timeline display. Users can follow other users, and view their comments and actions. It will become your hub for your social networking activities on Sekai Camera.

Air Profile: Air Tags that show users’ registered profiles, which float right above any user’s iPhone for others to see – just like name cards with any messages that you may want to add. You can turn on/off at SETUP.

Air Tweet: Tweets that can be viewed as floating Air Tags. To synchronize with Twitter, change your Twitter settings to either “post” or “browse”. If you choose “browse”, you’ll see tweets shown as Air Tags.

3. Other Features

Custom AirTags: special “Authorized” Air Tags provided through our enterprise solution service “Sekai Camera eX”, which is a web-based tool that allows you to post and manage Air Tags for commercial use.

Multi-floor View: an enterprise solution that enables users to discern the height (for example, floors in buildings) of AirTags through WiFi location technology.

Look up, not down!
Imagine!
And please enjoy!

TOKYO (December 21st, 2009) – Tonchidot Corporation today announced the global availability of the iPhone application “Sekai Camera,” a social, Augmented Reality (AR) service for browsing and sharing user-generated text, photo, voice, and other location-linked information. Launched September 2009 in Japan, Sekai Camera was recently named the Best App in 2009 by Apple Japan. Sekai Camera is now available for free outside Japan at iPhone’s AppStore worldwide (search for “Sekai Camera”).

The Sekai Camera application features AR and location-based services that allow users to interact with and communicate in the real world in ways that they have never been able to do before. While most mobile AR applications today are navigation oriented, Sekai Camera is social by design, giving users the ability to communicate and have fun through interaction with digital tags that float in the real world. Sekai Camera has created a completely new interface for connecting the real world to the Web.

“Look up! Sekai Camera will change the world – please imagine!,” says Tonchidot CEO, Takahito Iguchi. “Sekai Camera is social, and so much fun! It is serendipity here and now. Sekai Camera will become a platform for new games, entertainment and communication. We are collaborating with many partners to create fun content. So please, join us!”

Some of the user generated and social communications features of Sekai Camera include:

1. Create : a Sekai Camera World

Air Tag: Create and browse futuristic location-linked digital Post-its® that float in real space. See and share in real time, text, photo, voice, and web-links that are posted as Air Tags. Leave your footprint in the real world!

Air Filter: Search for the Air Tags that you are looking for. By specifying time, distance and type, you can sort through the many floating Air Tags around any given location.

Air Pocket: Bookmark your favorite Air Tags and put them in your “pocket”. View and comment on Air Tags even when you are not at the location where the Air Tags were originally posted.

2. Communicate : a New Serendipity Experience

Sekai Life: Create a life-stream that shows how you and your friends have interacted with Sekai Camera in a timeline display. Follow other users and view their comments and actions.

Air Profile: Register and display your own profile as a personalized Air Tag. This virtual name-tag floats right above your iPhone for others to see – look up!

Air Tweet: See your Tweets as floating Air Tags, which are enabled through a mash-up with Twitter®.

Air Shout: Send and receive Air Tag messages that fly up to a distance of 100 meters.

About Sekai Camera Version 1.0, Japan

Sekai Camera for iPhone was launched in Japan on September 24th, 2009, and became an instant success, reaching 100,000 downloads (approximately 10% penetration of active iPhones in Japan) in just 4 days. It has since become one of the most downloaded and popular iPhone applications ever in Japan, and has been featured on national TV, newspapers, magazines, IT press and countless other media. It has also been selected as Best App (non-games) for 2009 by Apple Japan. The act of posting Air Tags has become a phenomenon, especially in areas such as Akihabara or Shibuya, Tokyo, where countless Air Tags have now been posted. Tonchidot also offers an enterprise solution for managing authorized Air Tags, which has already been utilized by numerous exhibitions, events, museums, tourist spots, shopping facilities and retail chains in Japan. Sekai Camera has also been used at Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris, where it made its overseas debut. For more information, visit www.sekaicamera.com .

About Tonchidot

Tonchidot Corporation (Tokyo, Japan) offers an innovative web service/application named “Sekai Camera”, which enables mobile devices to “change the view of the real world”. Sekai Camera enables camera-attached mobile devices, through an easy-to-use Augmented Reality (AR) interface, to access hypertagged social, informational and entertainment services over the internet. Tonchidot first announced its Sekai Camera concept at TC50, 2008, and released in Japan its iPhone version in September 2009. Tonchidot is a privately held company with investments from DCM and ITV (ITOCHU Technology Ventures). For more information, visit www.tonchidot.com.

CONTACT: press(atsign)tonchidot.com