Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Mar 27, 2013
Facebook, Google spreading 'their' Net
by John Naughton
On March 18, amid great hoopla, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen. The 15-person selection panel said the five men had all contributed to the recent revolution in communications ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Mar 20, 2013
How Google made me get into bed with Hitler
by John Naugton
One of the wonders of the online world is the “Downfall” meme on YouTube. (For those whose time is too valuable to be wasted watching video clips, I should explain that the parody is based on remixing a scene from Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film, “Der ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Mar 13, 2013
Online, some are more equal than others
by John Naughton
A few years ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published a bestselling book with the title “The World is Flat.” In it he used the concept of “flatness” to describe “how more people can plug, play, compete, connect and collaborate with more equal ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Mar 6, 2013
Not even Google will be around forever
by John Naughton
Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitize all of the world’s printed books, was getting under way, the two cofounders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Feb 27, 2013
Glass may look geeky, but you have to applaud Google's vision
by John Naughton
A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the university’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, where I work. Afterward, one of the questions I was most ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Feb 27, 2013
Wearable tech will see, follow us everywhere
by Dominic Rushe
Apple has already transformed two industries — music and computing. Now, as the company reportedly attempts the redefinition of the watch — one of man’s oldest pieces of technology — the next phase of the techno revolution is moving into clear view: Welcome to ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Feb 20, 2013
Digital capitalism produces few winners
by John Naughton
Need a crash course in digital capitalism? Easy: you just need to understand four concepts — margins, volume, inequality and employment.
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Feb 20, 2013
Language startup rises to cloud nine
by Richard Solomon
Innovations in software coupled with the widespread availability of Internet broadband are transforming the once stodgy business of language education. Leading the charge in Japan are two Japanese-American brothers, John Hideyoshi Martyn and Billy Kosuke Martyn. The brothers want to reduce the many hours ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Feb 13, 2013
Streams of consciousness will kill off websites
by John Naughton
The communications theorist Marshall McLuhan observed that “we look at the present through a rear-view mirror.” And that “we march backwards into the future.” Amen. Remember the horseless carriage? Not to mention the fact that we still measure the oomph of a Porsche 911 ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Jan 30, 2013
Local 3-D printing pioneers make it easy for all to join in
by Tomoko Otake
Whether it's hobbyists making toys, designers prototyping products or a doctor creating artificial organs, the 3-D printing boom has clearly hit Japan.
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Jan 30, 2013
'Printed' copies of human organs can help surgeons and patients alike
by Tomoko Otake
Maki Sugimoto believes that 3-D printers can take medicine — and mankind — to the next level. Dr. Sugimoto, a surgeon and associate professor of gastroenterology at the Kobe University School of Medicine, is a pioneer in the field of research and development, as ...
Digital | TECHNOLOGY Jan 30, 2013
Why the Apple and Facebook empires are destined to collapse
by John Naughton
Nothing lasts forever: if history has any lesson for us, it is this. It’s a thought that comes from rereading Paul Kennedy’s magisterial tome, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” in which he shows that none of the great nation-states or empires ...