Yahoo! JAPAN recently held an interview with AKB48 sub-unit No Sleeves for a fun chat about smart phones and free, convenient search apps you can use on the go.

Check out their interview below!

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"Please tell us if you've had a personal experience looking up something on your cell phone or smart phone on a regular basis."

Minegishi: I've used mine to look up info on changing connections (on the bus, train, etc.) and to look at the other members' blogs.

Kojima: For maps and location info? When I go to stores and stuff, I use my GPS when I want to look up where to go.

"Do Minegishi-san and Kojima-san have smart phones?"

Kojima: Yes, I use one.

Minegishi: I bought a white (iPhone) about five days ago.



"Do you usually use Yahoo! to look up things?"

Kojima: Yeah, I use it, since Yahoo! JAPAN is the bookmarked (search engine on Safari). I use my bookmark to look stuff up because I feel like Yahoo! JAPAN is the best when looking up things on the internet.

"Thank you! But even if it isn't bookmarked, there's a way to put Yahoo! JAPAN on the home screen of your iPhone."

Kojima: Ohhh, I didn't know. You can do that?

"Takahashi-san, you don't have a smart phone, do you?"

Takahashi: That's right. I want one since everyone around me has been getting one...

"Well, so that we can make Takahashi-san want a smart phone even more, today we're going to introduce a useful search function. There's a Yahoo! search tab meant for smart phones. You put in the word you want to look up, and when you tap the 'magnifying glass' icon, you can choose our name from the services that comes up, and the results of same word you were looking up immediately shows up through Yahoo! JAPAN's service."

Takahashi: Woow, that's so useful!

Kojima: Is that based on the search page that comes up on your computer? It's so convenient that there's something like that for smart phones~

"Minegishi-san said that she bought a white iPhone five days ago. Have you put any apps on it already, and are you able to use them well?"

Minegishi: No... I was nervous, since I didn't know how many of them needed e-mail addresses. I want to have a fashionable blog, so I just put photo apps on mine.

Takahashi: I wanna have a fashionable blog too~

"Are you enjoying the app 'Hey Tell'?"

Minegishi: 'Hey Tell' is so much fun. It's really popular within the members of AKB48.

Kojima: All of my friends used it but I was the only one who didn't. Nobody in AKB48 used it either, of course, so when I picked it up the members of AKB48 started doing it too.

"Kojima-san, you say you can handle using a smart phone. Since Yahoo! JAPAN is introducing helpful, free search apps, we'd like to introduce another. This one's a "voice look-up" app. It recognizes what you're saying, matches it up with common words, and then you're able to search various things. As a test, let's look up 'AKB48 weird faces'... "



Takahashi: That's amazing! But this (face) here is awful. (laughs)

Sayaka...

Yuko...

Minegishi: What's this one? (looking at Oshima Yuko's picture) I thought that was Lovetan. (laughs)

"Using a 'voice search' app, you can look up pictures by choosing the picture tab and saying 'No Sleeves', and look up directions by choosing the 'directions' tab and saying 'Shinjuku to Roppongi'."

Takahashi: That's convenient, since I can use it on the train.

"Is there anything you'd like to be able to look up on your smart phones with search engines like these?"

Takahashi: It'd be nice to look up things like shops. I just go into shops that catch my eye, but I'd like to be able to look up a delicious restaurant from where I'm at.

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Source: Yahoo! JAPAN
Tip: konami