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‘Japan’ Stories

Japanese scientists create Avatar in real life, sort of

Mark Raby, Feb 10th 2012 Discuss [0]

A group of Japanese researchers have developed technology that allows someone to wear a visor and a special pair of gloves to control a nearby robot. It's like putting yourself in place of the robot, from the comfort of sitting down. If that sounds at all confusing, how about we put it this way - it's like the movie Avatar but in real life. Oh yeah; you knew it was only a matter of time, right? Read The Full Story

Nintendo DSi trials speech recognition for classrooms

Rue Liu, Jan 30th 2012 Discuss [0]

The Nintendo DSi isn't what you'd expect teachers to want in classrooms, but that may change as the handheld gaming device explores new uses in education. Along with Japanese telecom company NTT, Nintendo is testing speech-to-text and speech recognition technology on the DSi for students with hearing impairment or other disabilities. Read The Full Story

NEC to chop 10,000 workers from payroll

Shane McGlaun, Jan 30th 2012 Discuss [0]

The axe is set to fall over at NEC Corp in Japan with just about one in 10 of its workers to be cut. NEC has announced that is set to lay off 10,000 workers as it attempts to claw its way out of the red and back into the black. One reason cited for the job losses is stiff competition posed from rivals from foreign countries such as Apple. NEC blames the poor performance and the job cuts on soft demand for its mobile phones. Read The Full Story

Official Apple Store grab bags have customers dropping cash on random swag

Chris Burns, Jan 2nd 2012 Discuss [1]

This New Years Day, yesterday for those of you living in a basement with the lights off, Japanese shoppers got a chance to pick up what's called a Fukubukuro, or "Lucky Bag," that being an official grab bag of relatively randomly assorted items from the store for their enjoyment! While we'll never, ever, ever see such an awesome situation happening here in the United States, this practice is said to have been going on each year since the onset of 2005. While most shoppers got a selection of accessories like headphones, cases, and Apple 1-inch buttons, some were lucky enough to snag gems like a MacBook Air or iPad 2. Read The Full Story

Japanese adult diaper slurps away urine

Shane McGlaun, Dec 27th 2011 Discuss [1]

Life starts in diapers for us all and for those that live to an advanced age life often takes you back to diapers. Once people lose the ability to control urine or get up and go to the bathroom themselves, an adult diaper is the only thing standing between the wearer and a big mess. The catch is that if no one is around to help change the diaper things can be nearly as messy as having no diaper at all. Read The Full Story

Japanese gamers get Gold Edition PS3

Shane McGlaun, Dec 16th 2011 Discuss [3]

Japanese gamers will be able to get their hands on a new limited-edition PS3 in a gold hue with a special design on the top starting on March 1, 2012. The limited-edition PS3 is gold and has a white drawing and some other styling cues on the top to celebrate the odd-looking game One Piece Warriors. Apparently, the game is very popular in Japan. Read The Full Story

Google Maps create 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami archive

Chris Burns, Dec 13th 2011 Discuss [1]

For those of you wishing to get up close and personal with the destruction and collapse of massive parts of Northeastern Japan as crushed up by the earthquakes and tsunami from March 2011, you can certainly do so thanks to Google Maps new initiative to archive images of the area in the weeks after the disasters unfurled. In addition to being able to see these areas inside Google Maps (until they're updated as repairs are made and new images are collected), you can see before and after shots at a special site Memories for the Future, fully optimized for a browser-centric experience. What do you think, citizens of earth, is this a suitable memorial for the terror that occurred earlier this year? Read The Full Story

Google launches Street View of Japanese tsunami devastation

Shane McGlaun, Dec 13th 2011 Discuss [4]

Google has launched a new Street View tour that takes you through the Japanese areas that were devastated by the tsunami and earthquakes earlier this year. The tsunami virtually destroyed the areas in March. Google had promised previously to put up Street View images of the devastated areas for people to view. Read The Full Story

Devastating Japanese tsunami was the result of two merged tsunamis

Shane McGlaun, Dec 6th 2011 Discuss [0]

Japan is still cleaning up and investigating the scope of the disaster from the tsunami that hit the area hard. The massive tidal wave hit Japan and devastated coastal areas and caused major damage to the nuclear power plant that was in its path causing radiation leakage. Some new details about the destructive wave prove that part of the reason the devastation was so massive was that the wave that hit Japan was the result of the two merged tsunamis. Read The Full Story

LTE iPad 3 rumored for summer 2012, LTE iPhone 5 in fall

Rue Liu, Nov 30th 2011 Discuss [5]

Apple may be preparing for an LTE-based iPad 3 to launch by summer of next year and an LTE-based iPhone 5 to arrive by fall, if a new report from Nikkei Business is to accurate. The story claims that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the next-gen devices on this schedule, which suggests that device would arrive worldwide on a similar time frame. Read The Full Story

Nottv to launch on Smartphones only in Japan

Shane McGlaun, Oct 6th 2011 Discuss [1]

Japanese fans of mobile TV will be getting a smartphone only broadcast TV station next year that will be called Nottv. The new station is being backed by some of the largest TV stations in the country and one of the largest mobile carriers so it has the muscle to succeed if users like the content. Nottv was announced at Ceatec this week and will use bandwidth left over from when Japan ended analog broadcasts this year. Read The Full Story

Boeing sends first 787 Dreamliner aircraft to ANA in Japan

Cory Gunther, Sep 27th 2011 Discuss [2]

Boeing has just signed and hand delivered the first ever 787 "Dreamliner" aircraft to All Nippon Airways in Japan. We can't really say hand delivered because this aircraft is simply massive. It's so big in fact, that they've even announced it twice. Bringing years of aircraft technology from Boeing into one of the biggest, and most technology filled planes to date. Read The Full Story