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Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
SEOUL (AP) outh Koreans got their first taste of the iPhone on Saturday as the multifunctional communication and entertainment device made its long awaited debut in one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated societies. Though already available in other Asian countries such as Japan ...
Imagine befriending Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Facebook. Or getting “tweets” from Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Twitter. It could happen if Tokyo follows Washington’s lead. This summer, Japan, like the United States last year, opted for a new government. Snubbing the Liberal Democratic ...
It’s hard work being prey. Watch the birds at a feeder. They’re constantly on alert, and will fly away from food — from easy nutrition — at the slightest movement or sound. Given that I’ve never, ever seen a bird plucked from a feeder ...
SEATTLE (AP) ersonal computers are changing — and not just because of the recent launch of Windows 7. Visit an electronics store and you might also find laptops are missing a familiar component. You could experiment with new ways of controlling some computers. And ...
Amazon.com Inc. has made its electronic-book reader, Kindle, available in Japan, whose e-book market has grown sharply in the past few years. Amazon is confident of getting into the Japanese market, which has been dominated by cell phones in terms of electronic reading devices, ...
Speaking on the sidelines at the CEATEC technology conference in Chiba on Friday, Takahito Iguchi made a bold statement: “We will make a new environment.” Iguchi is the CEO of TonchiDot, the company behind Sekai Camera, a much-hyped program that lets users digitally tag ...
Thousands of goose-stepping troops, rumbling rows of tanks and floats celebrating China’s achievements paraded proudly in front of Tiananmen Square last week, all intended to convey the message that Beijing has everything under control. However, there’s everything but control on the Internet. Ironically, behind ...
The theme for the 2009 Tokyo Game Show is “Game, it’s so energetic!” Ironic, as the energy for this year’s show was less palpable than for previous ones. Organized by Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association, Tokyo Game Show is the premier domestic industry event, ...
NEW YORK (AP) Two of the largest companies involved in tracking and analyzing Web traffic are joining forces to measure digital audiences more comprehensively. The partnership involves comScore Inc. and Omniture Inc., which announced last Tuesday that it agreed to a $1.8 billion takeover ...
This year’s overhyped IT concept is cloud computing. Also called software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing is when you run software over the Internet and access it via a browser. Both Google Docs and salesforce.com’s customer management software are examples of this. Last ...
Apple’s “It’s Only Rock and Roll” music-technology event last week was closely watched by Apple fans in Japan, where many consumers have anointed the iPod and iPhone as their music players of choice over the past few years, even over homegrown competitors such as ...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) On Facebook, most people make friends the old-fashioned way — by sending a request to be added to someone’s posse of pals. Now, an Australian marketing company hopes to save you time and energy by simply buying you a few thousand ...