This document discusses the challenges of developing applications for the Japanese mobile market. It notes that there are three major carriers in Japan, each with their own incompatible emoji character sets. Additionally, Japan uses multiple encodings like Shift_JIS, ISO-2022-JP, and UTF-8. The speaker's company, Enishi Tech, created the jpmobile Ruby gem to help developers build applications that can translate emoticons and handle the complex encoding situations in Japan. They hope to rebuild jpmobile using Ruby 1.9's m17n internationalization framework.

1. East
Meets
West Yuki Sonoda
Yoji Shidara
Akira Matsuda
Shintaro Kakutani

2. East
Meets
West Yoji Shidara
Yuki Sonoda
Akira Matsuda
Shintaro Kakutani

3. From Japanese mobile-
web world, to Latin-1
developers.
yoji.shidara@enishi-tech.com

4. My name is
Yoji SHIDARA.

5. Enishi Tech Inc.
Small Company.
Only 2 staffs.

6. Small Office.
(CEO’s flat)

7. “Tech” is for
technology.
“Enishi” implies:
relationship,
link, bound, fate,
chance...

8. We’re from Japan!
@darashi (me)
Sapporo
1.4hrs 9.5hrs
Tokyo San Fransisco!
@yugui @a_matsuda
@kakutani

9. Sapporo is a
beautiful provincial
city of Japan.

10. Delicious foods are
waiting for you!

11. My works:

12. Real-time trends
tracker for twitter.
http://buzztter.com

13. jpmobile

14. jpmobile:
A Rails Plugin for
Japanese Mobile
Phones.

15. jpmobile absorbs

16. Chaotic
Specifications of
Japanese Mobile
Phones.

17. Today,

18. I’m going to take
you to the chaotic
world.

19. By the way,

20. We have kinds of
characters.

21. I’m so nervous
We have kinds of
characters.
at San Fransisco!

22. We have lots of
characters.

23. Not only
characters,

24. But also
encodings!

25. Major Encodings:
Shift_JIS Windows
ISO-2022-JP E-Mail
EUC-JP traditional UNIX
UTF-8 modern systems

26. UTF-8 is not the
only option.

27. We’re still using
these encodings
as the situation
demands.

28. Ruby 1.9 works
nice with this
situation.

29. For example,

30. 1.8 require ‘kconv’
Kconv::kconv(" ",
Kconv::JIS, # to
Kconv::UTF8 # from
)
#=> "e$B;%KZe(B"
We must care about the
encoding of “ ”
1.9 " ".encode("ISO-2022-JP")
#=> "e$B;%KZe(B"
Ruby cares about the
encoding of “ ”

31. Now we’re happy!

32. ... in most cases.

33. Do you know

34. Emoji

35. Emoticon

36. E + Moji
+
Picture + Character

37. Emoji makes the
situation worse.

38. We have three
major mobile
phone carriers
in Japan.

39. They define their
own emoticon
charset.

40. >A
DoCoMo au SoftBank
>>
(Japanese usually paint the sun red)
><

41. DoCoMo au SoftBank
>>
Unicode
U+E63E U+E488 U+E04A
SJIS F89F F660 $Gj
JIS
>< 7541 w/escape
SJIS’ EB60

42. Regular
Encodings
x
Emoticon
Encodings

43. That’s not all.

44. Five sad stories:

45. (1)

46. Sometimes the
corresponding
emoticon is not
available on the
other carriers.

47. “Snow crystal”
DoCoMo
au
N/A
SoftBank
N/A

48. (2)

49. Nuances may be
lost during the
translation.

50. “Really nonsense, but I had a
quarrel with my girlfriend
because of a problem with
mobile phones.”
- Mr. A (20-year-old office worker, Tokyo)
…
20
http://www.j-cast.com/kaisha/2009/07/31046442.html

51. (3)

52. Machine-readable
tables are not
published.

53. !"#$%&'()*+,-./01
v¶·y!]^ v¶·y!]^
¢QQ£&'(¤ 7´µ¤ª£¥ ¢QQ£&'(¤ 7´µ¤ª£¥
&'( !²¬³´µ¤ &'( !²¬³´µ¤
45 -.67 ¥¦§”¨©ª£¥«¬ ¯°§’±“$ ¸^lž¹º 45 -.67 ¥¦§”¨©ª£¥«¬ ¯°§’±“$ ¸^lž¹º
23 ª£¥«¬-® 23 ª£¥«¬-®
-® »¼¥¦§”¨©ª£¥ -® »¼¥¦§”¨©ª£¥
¸^l ¸^l
8 9 : ; < = ! > ? 8 @ < A B ! C < = AD EFGH : @ < ! ! < > D @ @ A : ! I < !
D 9 : ; < B ! > ? D @ < A C ! C < B AA JFGH : @ < : ! < > A @ @ > K ! I < :
A L : ; < C ! > ? A @ < A I ! C < C A> EFGM : @ ; K ! < > > @ @ > 8 ! I ; K
> L : @ > ? ! < D I @ @ D = ! I > ? A< JFGM : @ ; 8 ! < > < @ @ > D ! I ; 8
< NOPFGH : @ > = ! < D Q @ @ D B ! I > = A; RSTH : @ ; D ! < > ; @ @ > A ! I ; D
; UOPFGH : @ > B ! < D ! @ @ D C ! I > B A@ RSTM : @ ; A ! < > @ @ @ > > ! I ; A
@ NOPFGM : @ > C ! < D : @ @ D I ! I > C A? VRWGH : @ ; > ! < > ? @ @ > < ! I ; >
? UOPFGM : @ > I ! < A K @ @ D Q ! I > I A= VRWGM : @ ; < ! < > = @ @ > ; ! I ; <
= XWGH : @ > Q ! < A 8 @ @ D ! ! I > Q >K RYH : @ ; ; ! < > B @ @ > @ ! I ; ;
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/service/
8K XWGM : @ > ! ! < A D @ @ D : ! I > ! >8 RYM : @ ; @ ! < > C @ @ > ? ! I ; @
.Z[]^_`Z
88 : @ > : ! < A A @ @ A K ! I > : >D : @ ; ? ! < > I @ @ > = ! I ; ?
imode/make/content/pictograph/basic/
JbcM
_Za7
8D d.Zefg : ; = B ! > I 8 @ < @ B ! C = B >A EbcM : @ ; = ! < > Q @ @ > B ! I ; =
8A gh^i : ; ! B ! < 8 8 @ ; ; I ! C ! B >> jk : ; ; K ! > ? ? @ < > 8 ! C ; K
8> l7 : @ = ; ! < @ = @ @ @ ; ! I = ; >< mna^7 : ; = A ! > C B @ < @ A ! C = A
8< oH : ; < ! ! > ? ; @ < A : ! C < ! >; pq : @ C 8 ! < = > @ ? A A ! I C 8
8; rstu : ; < : ! > ? @ @ < > K ! C < : >@ oMvwxPy : ; ; 8 ! > ? = @ < > D ! C ; 8
8@ zWGH : @ < K ! < A > @ @ A 8 ! I < K >? {7 : ; ! C ! < 8 D @ ; ; Q ! C ! C
/|_}hZv4
8? zWGM : @ < 8 ! < A < @ @ A D ! I < 8 >= ~y
: @ @ I ! < ; K @ @ < Q ! I @ I
8= XSTH : @ < D ! < A ; @ @ A A ! I < D <K Xw : ; Q A ! > : B @ ; < < ! C Q A
DK XSTM : @ < A ! < A @ @ @ A > ! I < A <8 •^6 : @ C D ! < = < @ ? A > ! I C D
€•‚^ƒvi„•
D8 RWGH : @ < > ! < A ? @ @ A < ! I < > <D 7efgy
: ; = C ! > I D @ < @ C ! C = C
DD RWGH : @ < < ! < A = @ @ A ; ! I < < <A Wx… : ; ! I ! < 8 A @ ; ; ! ! C ! I
6†^l€^„
DA XYH : @ < ; ! < A B @ @ A @ ! I < ; <> v‡ˆy
: @ ; B ! < > ! @ @ > C ! I ; B
D> XYD : @ < @ ! < A C @ @ A ? ! I < @ << ‰Š‹ : @ ; C ! < > : @ @ > I ! I ; C
D<
http://www.au.kddi.com/
Œpq : @ = @ ! < @ B @ @ @ @ ! I = @ <; '•H : @ @ Q ! < ; 8 @ @ < ! ! I @ Q
http://creation.mb.softbank.jp/
ezfactory/tec/spec/pdf/typeD.pdf web/web_pic_01.html
D; /fg : @ < ? ! < A I @ @ A = ! I < ? <@ ŽpqH : @ = ? ! < @ C @ @ @ ? ! I = ?
D@ €.•g : @ < = ! < A Q @ @ A B ! I < = <? •‘‘‘%‘‘‘’‘‘‘“‘‘‘$‘‘‘”‘‘ ŽpqM : ; < > ! > @ I @ < A < ! C < >
[–|h^—‚g„
D? •H : @ < B ! < A ! @ @ A C ! I < B <= H
: @ @ ! ! < ; D @ @ < : ! I @ !

54. (4)

55. The official tables
are not complete.
(e.g. emoticons of
prior company
name are hidden)

56. (5)

57. Assignments of
Unicode private area
are partially
overlapping
between
two carriers.

58. Solution:

59. jpmobile

60. Automatically translate
= B the emoticons.
>A Eb
! B Rails >> jk
App
jpmobile

61. jpmobile supports GPS,
session management,
subscriber identification,
template switching, ...

62. Conclusion:

63. If you are asked to
build a website for
Japanese mobile
phones,

64. Say “No.”

65. Or use jpmobile.

66. Future works:

67. Reimplement
jpmobile on
Ruby 1.9 m17n
framework!

68. Thank you!

69. Questions:
After the last speech.
Thank you.

70. We’ll have
Regional RubyKaigi in
Sapporo on 5th Dec 2009 :-)
Visit Sapporo!
Sapporo!
1.4hrs 11.15hrs
Tokyo San Fransisco