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Oh hi! This is 28 year-old voice actress Eriko Nakamura. She voices Haruka Amami, one of the main idols in Namco's idol simulator THE iDOLM@STER franchise.

The Yokohama-native was in Japan's Kansai area recently, visiting historic Kyoto. She stopped by sites like Kiyomizu Temple and the Golden Pavilion. On her blog, photos were uploaded of her at each location.

Someone on the Japanese internet then decided to use Google Maps to map out the route she took during her trip. That's...kinda creepy! Thankfully, these blog posts were uploaded at night — long after Nakamura had visited the sights.

While this map was most likely created as a gag (hopefully), blog photos of idols and voice actresses do undergo intense scrutiny. For example, during Christmas, which is often a big date night for couples, many idols and voice actresses post photos of themselves, claiming to be "dateless" or "alone". These photos and blog posts are then dissected and sussed out to attempt to see who is really alone and who is not.

What's more, any slight changes in hair or clothes is noted. Recently, it was noted that Haruhi Suzumiya voice actress Aya Hirano was wearing what some were claiming could be an engagement ring. Hirano's talent agency had not even announced that she had a boyfriend. (While the news of couples is often broken by Japanese tabloids, the official word typically comes via talent agencies.)

The Google website has removed a site with unauthorized, translated scans of dōjinshi from its search results due to a complaint that the scanlation site "contained child pornography." When a search query is run on Google for the scanlation site's name or domain, a notice at the bottom of the search results states that Google has removed some of the search results "in response to a legal request submitted to Google." Neither Google nor the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse legal resource gives information on who submitted the legal request. Google also reported the website to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an action that is required by U.S. federal law when an electronic communication service provider becomes aware of alleged child pornography.

In the United States under Title 18 U.S.C. Section 2256, the legal definition of child pornography does not apply to "drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults." However, the Protect Act of 2003 amended a seperate section, Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1466A, to state that it is illegal to produce, distribute, receive or possess drawings or cartoons containing sexually explicit depictions of minors if it is also "obscene." This is the same section of law under which Christopher Handley was sentenced for possessing "obscene" manga in February.

According to the scanlation site, it is currently in discussion with Google to clear up the situation.

I have to say as a side note before I report this one that I'm a little disturbed and at least a little bit curious as to what it might actually be like...

Yutanpo Shirane has drawn a comic to explain the contributions of the Japanese developers for the Google Chrome browser. The advertising and information services company had revealed in a Thursday blog entry that it commissioned the artist to create a manga about the internationalization of its Chrome web browser.

The manga (nine pages) serves as a companion piece to the main comic book written by the Google Chrome team and drawn by author Scott McCloud.

The manga by Shirane explains the major issues that the Japanese developers faced in ensuring multilingual web pages are displayed quickly, but more importantly accurately. The manga is said to highlight the contributions of one Japanese team member, software engineer Masanori Harada who with his team developed the Navigational Suggest feature which suggests which websites to visit as the user types.

On a personal level... I'm not sure how I feel about this one... could be entertaining...

Source: Anime News Network

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