China is enforcing a 20 percent tax on virtual goods, a $1.45 billion (10 billion yuan) a year market.  The measure “specifically takes aim at those who buy virtual currency from gamers and surfers and sell it to others at a mark-up”.

The tax specifically targets “gold farmers”, who collect in-game items in order to sell them at a mark-up. Characters, spells, and items can be sold for thousands of dollars on eBay and other auction sites.

A study by Manchester University this year estimates that gold farming is a $500 million industry. 80 percent of that industry, 400,000 people, is based in China.

Legislation of the virtual world is becoming increasingly complex.

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Japan’s SoftBank has released the first mobile phone aimed at stock traders. Produced by Sharp, the SoftBank 920SH YK (picture below) enables real-time portfolio checking and online trading. While other phones offer stock trading options, the YK is designed specifically for it.

What is new with this phone is the Stock Trading Key, a dedicated button that allows one-touch trading. The phone’s screen is also optimized for stock watching. SoftBank has a fold-out horizontal screen fueled by AQUOS (makers of LCD TVs) that makes market watching easier, as the phone when unfolded looks like a tiny PC (or something that Kirk and Adam West would have fought over).

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Several newly launched initiatives in the U.S. and other countries aim to allow governments to mine our personal data at border crossings. Legislation in the U.S. and Australia would give governments great freedom to search – and in some cases seize – our personal electronic devices.

U.S. Homeland Security can now seize laptops and other electronic devices taken across the border and hold them for an indefinite period, copying hard drives without need of warrants or probable cause. Officials are authorized to deep-scan hard drives to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and copyright infringers.

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Typing “robot” into Google yields some interesting results. The number of hits is as staggering as the intensity of interest in the underlying question: Can robots replace humans? We’re not there yet. Although…

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You will discover how to wirelessly upload photos directly from you camera to an online photo album, learn that Japan now has more than 6 million fiber-optic subscribers, and that the Japanese are switching in droves to 3G phones.

You will also discover the types of content Japanese cell users put on their phones, their mania for m-commerce, and a cutting-edge innovation that lets you map where you take your photos with a GPS device that connects to a digital camera or camcorder.

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On September 29th, camera manufacturer Nikon will be launching a new Internet connection service in partnership with Wi-Fi Internet service provider Japan Telecom. Users will be able to send photos directly from the camera to an online photo album wirelessly, without using a computer. This Coolpix Connect service (now called My PictureTown), the first of its kind on the Japanese market, will be introduced at the same time as a new camera, the Coolpix S7c.

The Coolpix S7c camera has built-in Wi-Fi capability for connecting to the Internet at any of the 3500 access points in Japan Telecom’s “BB Mobil Point” public wireless LAN. Coolpix Connect includes 100 MB of free storage space via Nikon Online Album, but users have to be Japan Telecom subscribers. Images are selected for upload to the album using the camera’s LCD screen.

The Japanese Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) has published the latest statistics on cell phone subscribers and mobile Internet users in Japan.

As of August 31st, there were 93.5 million cell phone subscribers in Japan, 81.3 million of whom also subscribed to a mobile Internet service from one of the three leading operators. In the same month, KDDI again won the most new customers (+119,800 for a total of 26.2 million subscribers), followed by NTT DoCoMo (+113,000, total of 51.9 million). Vodafone/Softbank Mobile attracted only 16,000 new customers (15.2 million total). That’s less than PHS (Personal Handyphone System) Willcom, which snagged 48,300 new subscribers (4.19 million total).

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On August 2, 2006, Sony (sony.com) announced the launch of a new product that enables its digital camcorders and cameras to plot the location where every image is taken. The external, stand-alone GPS device, called GPS-CS1, is a compact 87 x 36 x 36 mm (about 3.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 inches), weighs only 55 g (2 ounces), and is designed so its center of gravity will keep the GPS antenna pointed skyward whenever possible.

The device is easy to use: just have it on when shooting. It will automatically record the geographical coordinates along with a date and time stamp. Later, when you connect your camera to a computer to transfer your photos, simply connect the SPS-CS1 at the same time with the supplied USB cable.

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Mobile Content Forum, the Japanese association of mobile content providers, has published statistics on Japan’s mobile content and m-commerce market in 2005. According to the report, mobile transactions grew by 39% in 2005 to total ¥722.4 billion (€4.9 billion).

The MCF report addresses the two major sides of m-business: mobile content and mobile commerce. With 3G becoming the norm throughout Japan, these two markets saw continued strong growth in 2005: 21% for digital content (22% in 2004) and 57% for m-commerce (52% in 2004). There are 92.6 million mobile users in Japan, 80.5 million of whom also subscribed to a mobile Internet service by of the end of May 2006. Of these, 51.3 million have a 3G handset.

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The Japanese Telecommunications Ministry has published the June 2006 quarterly statistics on broadband Internet connections. These most recent figures show the number of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections continuing to soar. They now account for 26% of the market.

As of the end of June, more than 6 million households (6.3 million) were subscribing to FTTH. In contrast, ADSL, previously the star of broadband connections, saw its first drop in subscribers in the second quarter of 2006. This decline occurred in major cities, where copper wire is now competing directly with fiber optics.

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