Politics & Diplomacy
Hashimoto to retract sex suggestion for U.S. military
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto aims to retract his remark that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa should use its adult entertainment industry to avoid committing sex offenses.
Corporate Mar 19, 2013
Fujitsu phone takes pulse from face
A smartphone that can take a pulse by viewing people’s faces debuted Monday. Technology giant Fujitsu Ltd. plans to put the invention to practical use within a year, allowing people at work or at home to collect data for analysis without wearing special devices. ...
Crime Mar 4, 2013
Judge halves $1 billion penalty against Samsung for Apple patent violations
A judge cut $450 million from a $1 billion award to be paid by Samsung in a landmark patent lawsuit from Apple, saying a jury had wrongly calculated the damages. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Friday affirmed the remainder of the award, amounting ...
Corporate Feb 22, 2013
Already a huge hit, Line aims for SNS market
by Hiroko Nakata
The instant messaging app Line is already dominating the lives of young smartphone users in Japan and has spread rapidly elsewhere in the world, but its developer is eyeing even more aggressive growth. Unlike global giants like Facebook and Twitter, the nascent social networking ...
Financial Markets Feb 10, 2013
No new BlackBerry phones for Japan
Smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd. has confirmed it has no plan at present to sell its new handsets in Japan, although it denied it is abandoning one of the world’s most tech-savvy nations. Having fallen far behind Apple Inc. and lost ground to other smartphone ...
World Feb 7, 2013
Tongues wag over Kim smartphone
A picture of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un with a smartphone has triggered fevered speculation about which brand is favored by the leader of one of the world’s most repressive nations. The photo released by the North’s state media showed Kim presiding over a ...
Tech Jan 24, 2013
First Firefox smartphones unveiled
The Mozilla Foundation on Tuesday previewed two new smartphones as it invited developers to try its new open-source mobile operating system to challenge Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google Inc.’s Android. The announcement marked a major step forward for the new Firefox OS mobile operating ...
National Jan 19, 2013
Smartphones quickly taking over
More than 50 percent of Japanese mobile phone users in their 20s and 30s have smartphones, according to a new survey. The Jiji Press survey conducted last month found that smartphone users accounted for 64.8 percent of respondents in their 20s, up 22.7 percentage ...
Tech Dec 12, 2012
'Republic of Samsung' viewed warily at home
by Chico Harlan
FOCUS So sprawling is Samsung Electronics’ modern-day empire that some South Koreans say it has become possible to live a “Samsung-only” life: You can use a Samsung credit card to buy a Samsung TV on which to watch a Samsung-owned pro baseball team in ...