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DOCOMO to End the “MANGA MIRAI” Digital Comic Distribution Service and Migrate Purchased Titles to “MangaPlaza”

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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NTT DOCOMO, INC. (“DOCOMO”) will end its “MANGA MIRAI” digital comic distribution service, offered in the United States, as of 11:59 p.m. on December 15, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time). New membership registration, new title purchases, provision of the app, and viewing of titles within the app will end as of 7:00 p.m. on August 19, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time).

In conjunction with the end of “MANGA MIRAI,” customers’ user information and their purchased titles (libraries) will be migrated to “MangaPlaza,” a digital comic distribution service for the U.S. market operated by NTT Solmare Corporation (Main office: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture;”NTT Solmare”). Titles purchased on “MANGA MIRAI” will remain available on “MangaPlaza.”1

“MANGA MIRAI” is a digital comic distribution service that allows customers in the United States to read English versions of Japanese manga. It launched in March 2025 and offered more than 28,000 volumes across 2,400 titles of Japanese manga, but in light of the current business environment, the service will be discontinued. Customers can continue to view their purchased titles on the website until the “MANGA MIRAI” service ends.

■ Upcoming Schedule

End of new membership registration, new title purchases, and provision of the app:

7:00 p.m., August 19, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time)

End of the “MANGA MIRAI” service2:

11:59 p.m., December 15, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time)

When the “MANGA MIRAI” service ends, customers’ user information and their purchased titles will be migrated to “MangaPlaza” and remain available.

To continue using these titles on “MangaPlaza,” customers must create a “MangaPlaza” account, using the same email address they registered for “MANGA MIRAI” by 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time). Please note that titles obtained for free3 and some purchased titles may be ineligible for migration4. Additionally, under the “MangaPlaza” Terms of Use, customers who are under 18 years of age as of September 30, 2026 cannot create an account, so any purchased titles and other content will not be migrated. If you do not wish to have your user information and purchased titles migrated5, please submit an opt-out request through the “MANGA MIRAI” service site by 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time).

<Service Sites>

■ “MANGA MIRAI”: https://mangamirai.com/ (not accessible from Japan)

■ “MangaPlaza”: https://mangaplaza.com/

Importantly, customers who fall into any of the following categories will receive separate guidance regarding future steps, such as how their purchased titles will be refunded; this will be sent to the email address they registered for “MANGA MIRAI”:

Customers who have completed “MangaPlaza” account creation by the due date, whose purchased titles include titles ineligible for migration4Customers who are under 18 years of age as of September 30, 2026Customers who have submitted an opt-out request by the due date, indicating that they do not wish to migrate their purchased titles to “MangaPlaza”

DOCOMO will continue striving to enhance the value it provides to its customers.

1 Titles obtained for free and some paid titles will be ineligible for migration.

2 Some titles may have their distribution suspended before the service ends.

3 This applies to paid titles purchased for $0 through promotions or similar offers.

4 Details on titles ineligible for migration are scheduled to be announced on the “MANGA MIRAI” service site (https://mangamirai.com/, not accessible from Japan) around mid-October 2026.

5 If you choose not to have your titles migrated, you will no longer be able to view your purchased titles when the “MANGA MIRAI” service ends.

About NTT DOCOMO

NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator with over 91 million subscribers, is one of the global leaders in 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network technologies.

Under the slogan “Bridging Worlds for Wonder & Happiness,” DOCOMO is actively collaborating with global partners to expand its business scope from mobile services to comprehensive solutions, aiming to deliver unsurpassed value and drive innovation in technology and communications, ultimately to support positive change and advancement in global society.

https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/

www.docomo.ne.jp/english/

NTT Solmare Company Information

Location

17th Floor, YODOYABASHI GATE TOWER, 4-1-1 Kitahama Chuo-ku, Osaka 541-0041, Japan

Founded

April 1, 2002

Business Areas

Digital Publication Services

Gaming Services

Additional Services

URL

https://www.nttsolmare.com/

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SOURCE NTT DOCOMO, Inc.

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Digant Sharma Launches Digital Biography Honouring India’s Freedom Fighters

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The digital biography initiative by Digant Sharma brings together dedicated online portals honouring some of India’s most influential national leaders, freedom fighters, social reformers and spiritual icons. These platforms preserve their life journeys, achievements, ideologies and contributions, making their legacy accessible to present and future generations. The portals include :- 1) vinayakdamodarsavarkar.com 2) sardarvallabhbhaipatel.com 3) balgangadhartilak.com 4) drbrambedkar.in 5) subhaschandrabose.in 6) ramakrishnaparamahamsa.com 7) ranilakshmibai.in 8) ahilyabaiholkar.com 9) keshavbaliramhedgewar.com 10) madhavsadashivraogolwalkar.com 11) shyamaprasadmukherjee.com 12) panditdeendayalupadhyaya.com

MUMBAI, India, Aug. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Days after the nation celebrated its 80th Independence Day, entrepreneur, investor and policy advisor Digant Sharma has announced the launch of the Digital Biography initiative — a family of dedicated online portals honouring some of India’s most influential national leaders, freedom fighters, social reformers and spiritual icons.

“A nation that remembers its heroes never loses its direction. These portals give India’s greatest icons a permanent digital home — preserving their legacies and inspiring the generations to come.”

The initiative brings together twelve individual portals, each devoted to a single towering figure of Indian history. Every portal documents the leader’s life journey, achievements, ideology and contributions to nation-building in a structured, accessible form — ensuring that their legacy is no longer scattered across the internet but preserved at a permanent, dedicated destination, freely available to students, researchers, educators and citizens across the world.

The portals launched under the initiative include:

vinayakdamodarsavarkar.com — Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966), revolutionary freedom fighter, prolific writer and social reformersardarvallabhbhaipatel.com — Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950), independent India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, the “Iron Man of India” who unified over 560 princely statesbalgangadhartilak.com — Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920), among the earliest champions of Swaraj, immortalised by his declaration “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it”drbrambedkar.in — Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), chief architect of the Constitution of India, independent India’s first Law Minister, jurist, economist and champion of social justicesubhaschandrabose.in — Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945), the legendary leader of the Azad Hind Fauj who electrified India’s struggle for freedomramakrishnaparamahamsa.com — Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886), the mystic-saint of nineteenth-century Bengal whose teachings sparked a spiritual renaissance and inspired Swami Vivekanandaranilakshmibai.in — Rani Lakshmibai (1828–1858), the valiant Queen of Jhansi and immortal heroine of the First War of Independence of 1857ahilyabaiholkar.com — Ahilyabai Holkar (1725–1795), the visionary Holkar queen of Malwa, celebrated for just administration and for rebuilding sacred sites across India, whose 300th birth anniversary the nation commemorated in 2025keshavbaliramhedgewar.com — Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889–1940), physician, freedom activist and founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which completed one hundred years of its founding in 2025madhavsadashivraogolwalkar.com — Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar “Guruji” (1906–1973), thinker and the second Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, who guided the organisation for over three decadesshyamaprasadmukherjee.com — Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901–1953), educationist, parliamentarian, independent India’s first Minister for Industry and Supply, and founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sanghpanditdeendayalupadhyaya.com — Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968), philosopher, organiser and proponent of the doctrine of Integral Humanism

Announcing the initiative, Digant Sharma said, “Generations of Indians have grown up hearing these names, yet their complete stories remain scattered and, in many cases, are slowly fading from public memory. The Digital Biography initiative gives each of these icons a permanent, dedicated home on the internet — a place where a student in any corner of the world can discover their life, thought and sacrifice. This is our tribute of gratitude to those who built the nation, and our investment in a proud and informed generation.”

With young India increasingly discovering its past online, each portal is designed to serve as an authentic, single destination for its icon — tracing their early life, public journey, ideology and enduring influence on the India of today. The platforms are envisioned as living archives that will continue to be enriched over time, guided by the initiative’s motto: “Preserving Legacies. Inspiring Generations. Building a Proud Nation.”

About Digant Sharma

Digant Sharma is a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, investor and policy advisor known for turning ideas into structured, large-scale initiatives across business and social impact. His ventures and missions include SAKSHAM, a national mission focused on formalising India’s informal economy; GOIPress.com, a portal that brings together public information from thousands of government websites; the Undertrial Welfare Association, which facilitates free legal aid across 1,400+ Indian prisons; and Torus Innotech, an agri-technology company working with over 100,000 farmers in Maharashtra. His cultural preservation work includes 24tirthankaras.org, a digital repository on the 24 Tirthankaras. Learn more at digantsharma.com.

Media Contact

Digant Sharma, Kalki Army Foundation, 91 9920808363, smallretaileripo@gmail.com, https://kalki.army

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Blossom & Wood Media Scales Global Creator Operations with PhotonPay

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HONG KONG, Aug. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — When Blossom & Wood Media says “global creators, powered by Blossom & Wood Media”, they mean it literally.

The agency runs local hubs in Bangkok, Jakarta, São Paulo, and Mexico City, managing an influencer network of nearly 100,000 creators across Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. At any given time, the agency coordinates multi-market campaigns — matching creators to briefs, managing tight production schedules, handling approvals, and tracking performance across platforms.

The Challenge: Aligning Financial Infrastructure with Global Scale

At Blossom & Wood Media’s scale, managing global campaign funds requires coordinating hundreds of payouts across dozens of currencies and time zones.

For the finance team, executing these disbursements through traditional banking networks created continuous friction:

Unpredictable Intermediary Fees: Intermediary banks frequently deducted hidden fees mid-transit, creating discrepancies between the amount sent by the agency and the net amount received by overseas creators.Operational Bottlenecks: Manually processing batch transfers across disparate local payment methods consumed valuable finance bandwidth and increased administrative error rates.Delayed Campaign Schedules: When creator bank details contained minor errors, resolving returned transfers required multi-party coordination between business managers, finance teams, and creators, which slowed down campaign momentum.

As Blossom & Wood Media expanded its footprint, it sought a specialized fintech partner to solve both the volume and complexity of its global capital flow.

“We needed a partner who genuinely understands overseas business models. Compliance, the ability to handle complex operational scenarios, and rapid response speed when edge cases arise were our three non-negotiables.”

— Eva Long, Co-founder of Blossom & Wood Group

Consumer Electronics in LATAM: One Campaign, Two Markets, Zero Fragmentation

Blossom & Wood Media brought PhotonPay in to manage the payment complexity that comes with running multi-market campaigns at scale. The consumer electronics vertical illustrates clearly how that works in practice.

For a consumer electronics client running concurrent campaigns across two key LATAM markets, Blossom & Wood Media built a tiered creator structure: vertical creators in tech and fitness for product demonstrations, and crossover creators in streetwear, entertainment, and anime to reach broader youth audiences. One market alone generated close to 3 million content impressions, with the overall CPM held below $10.

Behind those results was a disbursement operation involving multiple creator cohorts, two separate market budgets, and staggered payment timelines running in parallel. Using PhotonPay’s multi-currency accounts and batch payment tools, Blossom & Wood Media consolidated disbursements for both markets into a single management flow. Payments were batched by cohort and campaign phase, fees were transparent and predictable, and reconciliation was tied directly to campaign milestones, so finance always had a clear view of which payments belonged to which market and which phase, without piecing together separate processes manually.

Short Drama Goes Global: Production Payments and Flexible Settlements

Blossom & Wood Media has built significant capability in short-form drama. These projects move fast: local casting, on-the-ground production crews, and post-production partners may be spread across several countries, with tight delivery windows from pre-production through final delivery.

Blossom & Wood Media uses PhotonPay to handle project-level disbursements — payments to local production teams, actors, and collaborators across markets, managed in batches with full reconciliation visibility. Payment details are verified before disbursement, and when exceptions do arise, PhotonPay’s team resolves them quickly enough that they rarely affect the production schedule.

Furthermore, in high-growth markets like Latin America, local currency volatility and banking restrictions lead some clients to settle campaign and media buying budgets (for TikTok and Meta ad spend) in USDT or other stablecoins.

To accommodate client preferences without creating accounting friction, Blossom & Wood Media leverages PhotonPay’s multi-asset wallet and conversion capabilities. PhotonPay helps accept stablecoins from clients and seamlessly converts digital assets into USD or other fiat currencies.

What Made PhotonPay the Right Fit

PhotonPay’s global infrastructure aligns directly with Blossom & Wood Media’s localized corporate structure:

End-to-End Local Collection & Payouts: With support for over 19 local accounts and direct access to local clearing rails across 113 regions, PhotonPay enables clients to collect funds and pay global creators locally, eliminating unnecessary FX markups and multi-hop intermediary deductions.Automated Batch Processing & Reconciliation: Transparent fee structures reduce payment discrepancies, allowing finance teams to upload mass payout files and reconcile campaign budgets automatically.Dedicated Exception Management: When account details need correction, PhotonPay’s 24/7 dedicated support team resolves exceptions rapidly, protecting fixed campaign delivery schedules.Enterprise-Grade Compliance: PhotonPay maintains financial licenses across major global jurisdictions. Its infrastructure features SOC 2 Type I attestation, full Travel Rule enforcement, real-time AI transaction screening, and strict data protection protocols.

“The next round of competition will be won by whoever can make their money and operations truly local, not just their content. We’ve built local entities and local settlement capabilities across multiple markets. That’s where the industry is heading, and we need our payments infrastructure to move at that exact same pace.”

— Eva Long, Co-founder of Blossom & Wood Group

In an era when global growth demands seamless localization, money movement must evolve alongside creative execution. Together, Blossom & Wood Media and PhotonPay are bridging this gap by co-architecting a flexible, borderless financial network that unlocks access to emerging markets, accommodates evolving payment preferences, and shapes the future of global creator commerce.

About PhotonPay

PhotonPay is a stablecoin-powered financial operating system built for global infrastructure. Designed for modern enterprises, PhotonPay enables businesses to send, receive, convert, and settle funds across both fiat and stablecoin rails through a single, compliance-first integration, spanning 200+ countries and territories.

For more information, visit [www.photonpay.com].

 

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SOURCE PhotonPay

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TIER IV joins Open Invention Network 2.0 to drive the expansion of the open-source ecosystem for autonomous driving through a patent strategy

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TOKYO, Aug. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TIER IV, the pioneering force behind open-source software for autonomous driving, has joined Open Invention Network (OIN) 2.0, a new framework established by OIN, a global network dedicated to protecting open source software from patent risks. As the leading developer of Autoware, open source software for autonomous driving, TIER IV will leverage its participation in OIN 2.0 to help reduce patent risks and create an environment where a wide range of partners, including automakers, suppliers, and semiconductor makers, can confidently leverage open-source technologies, while promoting the expansion of the open-source ecosystem for autonomous driving from a patent strategy perspective.

OIN provides a global patent non-aggression framework that supports the development and growth of open source software, with thousands of companies and organizations around the world participating in the network. Through the OIN framework, participants grant one another royalty-free cross-licenses to patents covering the Linux System as defined by OIN, helping to reduce patent risks associated with Linux and related open source software. Launched in January 2026, OIN 2.0 expands the scope of the Linux System, broadening the range of technologies covered by OIN’s patent non-aggression framework.

TIER IV has led the development of Autoware since its initial release in 2015. Built on open source software, including Linux and ROS, Autoware serves as the foundation of TIER IV’s software platforms for bringing autonomous driving into society. In recent years, TIER IV has been expanding the autonomous driving ecosystem by collaborating with automakers, suppliers, semiconductor makers, and other partners to leverage an open technology foundation spanning software, AI, and automotive computing.

To advance the deployment of autonomous driving in collaboration with partners around the world and help create a safer and more sustainable society, it is essential to foster an ecosystem built on open source software, in addition to advancing technological development within individual companies. This requires creating an environment that reduces patent risks associated with open source software and enables its use with greater confidence. By joining OIN 2.0, TIER IV will participate in OIN’s framework for patent non-aggression and enhanced governance, while also pursuing a patent strategy that balances the use of open-source software with the protection of intellectual property. Through these efforts, the company will contribute to the healthy and sustainable development of the open-source ecosystem supporting autonomous driving.

About TIER IV

TIER IV stands at the forefront of deep tech innovation, pioneering Autoware, open-source software for autonomous driving. With a comprehensive suite of platforms and services built around Autoware, TIER IV provides everything from software development and vehicle procurement to operational support. Through the Autoware ecosystem, TIER IV works with partners worldwide to shape the future of intelligent vehicles with open-source software, aiming to create mobility that is safer, more sustainable, and accessible to all.

The word marks and logos of TIER IV are trademarks or registered trademarks of TIER IV, Inc. in Japan and other countries. All other company names, product names, service names, and logos referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Autoware is a registered trademark of the Autoware Foundation.

Media contact

pr@tier4.jp 

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SOURCE TIER IV, Inc.

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