5 ms·

IR is used a lot in japan to exchange contacts with people you meet. For English speakers it's not that hard to punch in someone's email, but since email addres

by mclin 16y ago

IR is used a lot in japan to exchange contacts with people you meet. For English speakers it's not that hard to punch in someone's email, but since email addresses have to be roman characters, it's actually a pain for non-english speakers. Thus IR. A new Sharp Android phone was just released on Au that I think is the first android phone with this feature.

jrockway 16y ago
But you can just share your contact card as a QR code, which is easily recognized by even the cheapest Japanese phone. It's Contacts -> <Contact> -> Menu -> Share -> Barcode Scanner.
- chrisbroadfoot 16y ago
  Or NFC! ;)
  - cloudwalking 16y ago
    Or just bump ;)
- RK 16y ago
  Unfortunately Android (2.2) doesn't list my contact info in my contacts.
  - nodata 16y ago
    You can add yourself to your address book.
darren_ 16y ago
> but since email addresses have to be roman characters, it's actually a pain for non-english speakers. Er, no, not at all (well, possibly for the very old?). Roman characters are everywhere in Japan, no-one has any problem dealing with them (pronouncing the words they form? different story). It's more that exchanging contact details is a lot more work in Japan - number, mail address, name in kanji, name readings (yes, you need these, even if you're Japanese/a native level speaker). Mail addresses are frequently really long and sprinkled with non-alphanumerics. Name kanji are a pain too - there's lots of homophones, so if someone tells you their name you often need to check with them which kanji it is. Basically: it's almost impossible to convey your contact details verbally, so without IR, you usually wind up just swapping phones for a few minutes (luckily, in Japan you can be pretty carefree about handing your multiple-hundred-dollar phone to a stranger). Contrast with the situation until recently in the west, where it was usually just a person's name (that you probably knew how to spell already) and a number, and you can kind of see how IR would be a big deal in Japan and not elsewhere. iPhones have seriously broken contact exchange for young people in Japan, since almost everyone has one, and thus no-one has IR anymore. There's probably money to be made fixing it but so far the only solution I've seen other people actually have on their phones is Bump, and it's never really worked well for me.

by mclin 16y ago

jrockway 16y ago

But you can just share your contact card as a QR code, which is easily recognized by even the cheapest Japanese phone. It's Contacts -> <Contact> -> Menu -> Share -> Barcode Scanner.

chrisbroadfoot 16y ago
Or NFC! ;)
- cloudwalking 16y ago
  Or just bump ;)
RK 16y ago
Unfortunately Android (2.2) doesn't list my contact info in my contacts.
- nodata 16y ago
  You can add yourself to your address book.

darren_ 16y ago

> but since email addresses have to be roman characters, it's actually a pain for non-english speakers. Er, no, not at all (well, possibly for the very old?). Roman characters are everywhere in Japan, no-one has any problem dealing with them (pronouncing the words they form? different story). It's more that exchanging contact details is a lot more work in Japan - number, mail address, name in kanji, name readings (yes, you need these, even if you're Japanese/a native level speaker). Mail addresses are frequently really long and sprinkled with non-alphanumerics. Name kanji are a pain too - there's lots of homophones, so if someone tells you their name you often need to check with them which kanji it is. Basically: it's almost impossible to convey your contact details verbally, so without IR, you usually wind up just swapping phones for a few minutes (luckily, in Japan you can be pretty carefree about handing your multiple-hundred-dollar phone to a stranger). Contrast with the situation until recently in the west, where it was usually just a person's name (that you probably knew how to spell already) and a number, and you can kind of see how IR would be a big deal in Japan and not elsewhere. iPhones have seriously broken contact exchange for young people in Japan, since almost everyone has one, and thus no-one has IR anymore. There's probably money to be made fixing it but so far the only solution I've seen other people actually have on their phones is Bump, and it's never really worked well for me.