Japanese web browsers

Why there's a rush to create new web browsers, I'm not sure -- but it's interesting that the Japanese have a couple of new entries.

Shiira is an OSX browser, which takes its visual design cues from iTunes.

Sleipnir calls itself 'the most customizable browser' -- and that's the end of the English language on their site. From what I can tell, it looks like a highly-hackable interface built on the Mozilla-core, but I could be wrong. According to Greggman there are a lot of people using this.

It's always amazed me that the Japanese never entered the software market to compete with a home-brewed OS, but they seem to be playing catch-up with the browser market.

Personally, I love Japanese design aesthetics, they've always had a better sense of technology-fits-nature than the Western techie mentality of build-first, design-later. Hope to see more of this.