Bijin Tokei (literally beauty clock) is a web application with cute Japanese girls showing you the time on your PC, iPhone, gadget, website etc., which refreshed automatically with a new image every minute.

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Bijin Tokei = cute Japanese girls + clock = win from YeinJee's Asian Journal

[more illustrations on Creative Cloud, via Neatorama]

If you printed the internet… from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Looks cool, Sim City (PC game) fans will like it for sure. Unfortunately it doesn’t provide much advantage over 2D maps; and it’s probably easier to navigate the traditional two dimensional maps.

Edushi, 3D China city maps from YeinJee's Asian Journal

It’s a disputable date of birth, depending on how we interpret the term internet. One thing for sure, the internet has come a long way to become what it is today. Sharing an enlightening video, a brief history of the internet…

[video by Melih Bilgil, more history of the internet on Wiki]

As convenient as it is, I always wonder if our lives would be a bit more interesting without internet… it took away some excitement of learning and discovery, as information becomes a bit too accessible imo, almost effortless.

Internet’s 40th anniversary, a brief history from YeinJee's Asian Journal

This blog will be updated as usual; some of the stories here will be cross-posted at Iggy, and I’ll write a few extra stuff for the folks there during my stint.

Hope that the short project will benefit both parties and Asian pop culture fans; check out my updates at Iggy.

Guest blogging on MTV Iggy from YeinJee's Asian Journal

To be frank, I’m not keen in websites’ awards… so I’m not going to bore you with the poll, especially if you are not familiar with the nominees.

The nominee list provides some good links though, with bunches of Korean related blogs in various topics… might find a few interesting ones if you are keen in Korean stuff.

Thanks for the nomination, although I still find it a bit odd considering the fact that this blog is not dedicated entirely to Korean matters.

Golden Klog Awards 2008 from YeinJee's Asian Journal

After three years of development, the Palace Museum and IBM have unveiled on Friday (Oct 10) a virtual palace where online tourists can peek into the history and culture of the former imperial palace in a game-like 3D environment.

The project will allow people who cannot visit Beijing to experience the Forbidden City, while also providing a platform for further learning and refences for those who have visited the place in real life.

Image from the website’s photo gallery

The project looks pretty cool at first glance, but the loading speed is killing me… seems like it might take forever to download the software.

Virtual tour of Beijing’s Forbidden City from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Style-arena – Japanese street fashion site from YeinJee's Asian Journal

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BoA’s Eat You Up leaked on MySpace from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Google claims that the new and free browser is more stable, faster, safer, simpler and more efficient (than Internet Explorer, although they didn’t mention the name). You can read more about the idea behind Google Chrome via Google’s comic books if you are into techie stuff.

Google said that the Chrome is meant to add value for users and is just another option that could help drive innovation on the web. While the statement is not untrue, the rivalry between Google and Microsoft for online dominance is heightened obviously.

Internet Explorer still dominates the web browser usage around the world; it’s estimated that 75% of the web surfers are using IE.

The BETA version of Chrome is available for download for Windows user only at the moment. I am testing the browser now… at first glance, it’s a bit too simple for my liking, although simplicity is one of its advantages that Google has stressed about.

Google released Chrome web browser from YeinJee's Asian Journal

The certified record is 230,755 unique visitors in one day, with daily pageviews of 5-6 million. The highest unofficial record is 13,171,039 PV on April 12th, and 56,061 comments on April 17th. [Asiajin, via Japanprobe]

That’s some crazy stats… my blog’s popularity is literally nuts compared to his lol.

The world’s most popular blogger from YeinJee's Asian Journal

There are a few sites that are smaller than Guimp, but when it comes to functionality, Guimp rules… the website even has games like pacman, pong, asteroids etc. and a gallery of pixel arts.

World’s smallest website from YeinJee's Asian Journal

A screenshot from Rain’s official website

Frankly, the introductory flash animation sucks. The loading is slow, the dances are not cool, and the image looks poor with Rain’s face looking distorted. It’s cheap.

Set that aside, the site has a nice gallery and shares some decent information about Rain. Some of the links (discussion and English language etc.) are not working at the moment… perhaps they are launching the site to match the promotion of movie “Speed Racer” with Rain as the co-star, and thus chose to ignore some of the details.

Rain launched official website from YeinJee's Asian Journal

Fahrenheit… (L-R) Wu Chun, Aaron, Jiro and Calvin

Fahrenheit is one of the most popular boy bands in Asia. Their albums are not really best sellers, but their popularity is sky high at the moment because of their looks and their success in dramas acting.

Fahrenheit launched official international fansite from YeinJee's Asian Journal

[update] The blog is no longer updated since mid-2008, unfortunately.

BoA’s news

Next: BoA receives Young Contemporary Artist Award

BoA’s Japanese blog a hit from YeinJee's Asian Journal